LKL has been an Interview-free zone, mainly for the reason that we always thought that the film was not a very good idea. But for the sake of pulling together in one place the links to the most interesting commentary on the film, the two best quotes, in the two most interesting articles, come from Jang Jin-sung of New Focus International and Kim Joo-il of Free NK: Interestingly, both come from non-traditional media sources:
“I have seen many American movies but this is the first time I’ve seen this kind of shit.”
Kim Joo-il in Dazed, 5 January 2015: I watched The Interview with a North Korean defector, by Lucy Edwards.
“From the North Korean’s point of view, it’s as explosive as if a real bomb were dropped on Kim Jong-un. It’s a cultural bomb. And it has nothing to do with the story or the presentation or the acting — or really with the movie itself. It’s just the notion that Kim Jong-un can be assassinated in a film. It’s so shocking. It’s beyond-the-pale blasphemous.”
Jang Jin-sung in Vice. Former North Korean Poet Laureate Says ‘The Interview’ Is As Explosive As a Real Bomb Being Dropped on Kim Jong-un, by Katie Engelhart, 2 January 2015.
Other defector commentary comes in yesterday’s Guardian in a piece entitled North Koreans review The Interview:
For me, it was a pleasure to ponder about how good it would be if the miracles of the film could come true in reality.
– not a surprising thought from a defector.
I’m not sure that any of the other articles I’ve come across are worth linking to. This film has already taken too much of everyone’s time and attention.
One middle-east based network were working on a piece trying to get comments from the North Korean embassy in London. That would have been interesting to read / watch, but I think they understandably met with stony silence from our friends in Gunnersbury. Probably the flavour of the commentary they might have got is given by the language of the Pyongyang Broadcasting Station announcement which sets out what North Korea wants to do to the defector who proposes floating copies of the film over the border on some of those condom-shaped balloons: bleed him out and gut his intestines.
If there’s any more, I’ll amend post, but I’m really hoping it’s all over now.