North Korea’s Mass Games return but Kim unhappy

Seoul, June 4

Tens of thousands of performers in Pyongyang took part in the first of North Korea’s spectacular “Mass Games” propaganda displays for 2019, but the show left leader Kim Jong Un unimpressed.

The “Grand Mass Gymnastics and Artistic Performance” features enormous numbers of people--mostly students and schoolchildren--in precision synchronised moves.

Behind them, thousands of children turn the coloured pages of books in sequence to create an ever-changing backdrop of giant images rippling across one side of the stadium.

But Kim was underwhelmed by the production, titled ‘The Land of the People’.

After the show “he called creators of the performance and seriously criticised them for their wrong spirit of creation and irresponsible work attitude”, the North’s official KCNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

Noting that artists “have a very important duty in socialist cultural construction”, Kim “set forth important tasks for correctly implementing the revolutionary policy of our Party on literature and art”, KCNA added.

It was not clear what had infuriated the leader.

Kim was accompanied to the performance by his wife Ri Sol Ju and his sister and close aide Kim Yo Jong, KCNA said. AFP