Pyongyang Film Studio - North Korean Holywood

Film Studio

The studio was founded in 1947 and has an area of over 1 million square meters. It has whole streets with buildings imitating several places and time spaces; Ancient Korea, China, South Korea in the 1950s, Europe, Japan, etc. Travellers, including local North Koreans, have a chance of wearing film costumes when in the studio as well as seeing short clips of modern DPRK movies.

Sculpture of Kim Il Sung

Revolutionary mosaic

Japanese town set for historic films

Revolutionary Mosaic

New movie poster

Film Studio Campus

The two main focuses are the anti-Japanese struggle and the anti-American war. The main complex is a huge suite of office buildings where apparently postproduction goes on. A short uphill drive takes you to the large sets. Here you’ll find a generic ancient Korean town for historic films (you can even dress up as a king or queen and be photographed sitting on a ‘throne’ carpeted in leopard skin), a 1930s Chinese street, a Japanese street, a South Korean street and a range of structures from a collection of ‘European’ buildings.

Japanese town set for historic films

Japanese town set for historic films

Ancient Korean palace set for historic films

China town set for historic films

Japanese town set for historic films

Japanese town set for historic films