South Korea has firmly established itself as the wealthier and more powerful of the two Koreas, in particular since the end of the Cold War brought economic ruin and widespread famine to North Korea. But this has not stopped Pyongyang propagandists from looking for ways to influence their neighbors.

Early propaganda films such as 1974’s “The Fate of Keum-hee and Eun-hee” attempted to contrast the materially prosperous North with the poor, backward South, though that particular front on the ideological battlefield has long been lost.