Undercover in North Korea: Starving children on the streets ignored by a Mercedes-driving elite... but will Kim Jong-Un's iron rule be brought down by smuggled soap operas and Skyfall?

Documentary reveals undercover footage of stark realities in pariah state

Homeless boy, 8, tells how his mother found it too hard to look after him

Escaped former political prisoner now sends popular culture into country



He smuggles in DVDs and USB sticks while posing as a mushroom farmer

Hopes they will 'get disillusioned with regime and want to live differently'

Cracks start to emerge as official is filmed calling Kim Jong-Un 'hopeless'



Like his father and grandfather before him, Kim Jong-Un rules North Korea with such terrifying control that most of his subjects know very little about the world outside of their impoverished nation.

But thanks to the digital revolution, his totalitarian regime is now finding it increasingly difficult to hide the temptations of a better life from his brutalised people.

Nor can he prevent the world from seeing the stark realities inside the world's most secretive state where people have reportedly been executed simply for watching films and owning a Bible.

The erosion of Kim's iron rule at the hands of technological change has now been explored in fascinating detail in a new documentary which has gained access to astonishingly brave undercover film-makers and defectors.

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Behind the iron curtain: A documentary revealing the brutal realities of life in North Korea features this footage of homeless boy Min, who was abandoned by his mother because she found it too difficult to look after him

Risking his life: The film features secret footage from Japanese journalist Jiro Ishimaru (pictured), who has spent 15 years training undercover cameramen to expose the truth in the secretive regime

Channel 4's Dispatches programme, which airs on Thursday, films with Jiro Ishimaru, a fearless Japanese journalist who spent 15 years training undercover cameramen in North Korea at great risk to their lives.

It follows his latest trip to the border with China, where he secretly meets one of his agents whose latest undercover footage that reveals the realities of life for its suffering people.

In an indication of the shameful imbalance in the distribution of wealth, homeless children are seen starving in the streets, while the elite in the capital Pyongyang drive the latest Mercedes.

Recent reports reveal more than a quarter of North Korean children under five are stunted by extreme malnutrition, while rural poverty remains endemic.



According to the Independent, one eight-year-old boy called Min is filmed looking unsteady on his feet from hunger as he explains that his mother found it too hard to look after him so 'she told me I have to go.'

'So I left and now I live outside,' he adds.

Courageous: Former political prisoner Mr Chung escaped to South Korea and now smuggles radios, USB sticks and DVDs of soap operas and action films in the hope North Koreans will 'start wanting to live differently' Life in his hands: Undercover footage of Mr Chung smuggling DVDs at night on the North Korean border where guards have a shoot-to-kill policy Learning about the West: Mr Chung says that his biggest hit so far has been the Bond movie Skyfall (above) The documentary also follows Mr Chung, a former inmate of a political prison camp who escaped to the west and now smuggles USB sticks and DVDs of South Korean soap operas and entertainment shows into the North. He poses as a mushroom farmer to get them across the border, where guards operate a shoot-to-kill policy. Mr Chung says that his biggest hit so far has been the Bond movie Skyfall. He said: 'The more people are exposed to such media the more likely they are to become disillusioned with the regime and start wanting to live differently.' One of those was 22-year-old Changyang who realised after defecting that she had been 'fooled' by the regime.

Fled: Defector Chanyang, 22, tells how she had been 'fooled' by the North Korean regime Getting the message across: Open Radio for North Korea broadcasts to the state from Seoul

The charade played out by North Korea is laid bare when one secret film-maker asks to buy goods in Pyongyang's No 1 Department Store only to be told that he can't.

'They're just for show, to impress the foreigners,' says a staff member.

Another clip shows a n ox and cart walking past a sign saying 'courage towards the future. Let's move forward!'

The propaganda is remorseless in north Korea.

Many people wear a red badge with a picture of either a grinning ‘Great Leader’ – Kim Il-sung who founded the personality cult around which this repressed nation revolves – or his simpering son Kim Jong-il, the ‘Dear Leader’ who died in 2011.



Every household must also display their images.



Propaganda: An ox and cart walks past a sign saying 'courage towards the future. Let's move forward!'

Totalitarian: Every North Korean household must display pictures of Kim Jong Un and Kim Il Sung on their walls

And crucially, there are also signs of open dissent.

A woman caught running an illegal bus service refuses to bribe a soldier and instead openly screams abuse and chases him off.



And there are even mutterings of discontent and disrespect from a mid-ranking official commandeered to build a special railway to the supreme leader's birthplace.

'How much does he know about the military? He shouldn't be there... he's hopeless!' he says.