my 2 cents on recent netflixes.

"crossing the line" - this is about the last american by birth who defected to north korea and still lives there. a person of today would want to know why anyone would willing defect to north korea as they are in short supply of many basics of modern life, namely food. however, one must consider that these men defected decades ago when times were much different. i was fascinated last year when i first read about the american and british soldiers who were captured in the korean war and decided to stay, although most returned to their home countries in the 1950s and 1960s. i could particularly understand why a pre-civil rights african-american would not want to return to america.

there were also four defectors after the cease fire in the 1960s. charles jenkins now lives in japan and published a tell all book. joe dresnko still lives in north korea and a documentary was made. i had to watch it and i finally did. when you watch the film, you can see that these soldiers were pretty much regular young men, if not a bit on the poor and uneducated side. if you think of what life was like for them, it's not so hard to imagine that one day in a fit of rebellion while serving in korea, they decided to cross over the dmz. dresnok particularly had a history of running away from problems. there doesn't seem to be any political reason why they left, more of a fear of punishment from trouble they had gotten into or a dislike of authority figures and unhappiness with their life in general. in fact, the american defectors got sick of the dprk and tried to seek refuge in the soviet embassy. but the russians wouldn't have them. there was nowhere else to run to. they were stuck in north korea. though he's not in the peak of health, dresnok is apparently the most healthy and committed to the dprk as he's still alive and likes it there. he's grateful that he and his family have always been taken care of by the government, particularly when millions starved to death. these american defectors also became minor film stars by appearing in films as evil americans. it's also fascinating to see his white child who has trouble speaking english because korean is his native language, though there was not much coverage of this child in the film. in fact, he has two white sons but only one was featured. i always find it interesting to meet and read about american children who were born and raised in asia so they are able to speak an asian language fairly fluently and have never set foot on american soil. anyway, i don't want to give too much of the film away, especially because the enjoyment comes from the fascination of understanding why one would defect from america and then the lives they led in the dprk.

"zodiac" - i wasn't really interested in this film nor do i really know anything about the zodiac killer. in fact for awhile there i had confused the zodiac killer for son of sam and was wondering why another movie was made about this! finally after it kept appearing in my netflix recommendations, i decided to watch it. i'm glad i did too. wow, what a fascinating piece. i didn't even notice how long it was. as the film progresses, i became more and more interested in finding out who the zodiac killer was. i had forgotten that the person was never caught and so my hopes of learning who the killer was never came true, just like it never did for the police. but, this film puts you there. you follow the leads and become frustrated when things don't pan out. the person who doesn't give up though isn't even a cop. he's a cartoonist at the san francisco chronicle who's been interested in the case ever since the paper has been covering the story because the zodiac killer leaves behind puzzles. the cartoonist is determined to solve the puzzles and figure out the identity of zodiac. in the movies there's always a sense of danger when tracing the bad guys but even more so when a civilian does so there are a couple times when you're worried that the protagonist has fallen into the killer's trap. i was really impressed though by the