N. KOREA: North Korea bends a little to air British movie

From left, Shaznay Lewis, Keira Knightley, and Parminder Nagra arrive at the 2002 premiere of the film, "Bend it Like Beckham," in London. The three actresses played soccer players. (Max Nash, Associated Press / April 11, 2002)

Researchers try to parse the meaning of the secretive regime's decision to air a heavily edited version of 'Bend It Like Beckham,' about a young soccer player pulled between the sport and her South Asian family's expectations.

5:15 PM PST, December 31, 2010

By John M. Glionna and Ethan Kim, Los Angeles Times - Reporting from Seoul

The curtain that shrouds North Korean culture and daily life opened briefly this week with reports that state television in Pyongyang had broadcast the British soccer film "Bend It Like Beckham."

In one of the world's most reclusive nations, Western movies and TV fare are largely verboten, especially a film that deals with such racy subject matters as intercultural relationships, homosexuality and religion.

But censors took care of that: The 2002 movie starring Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley as young soccer players and Jonathan Rhys Meyers as their coach was edited down to one hour, leaving little more than scenes of a sport that is beloved to most North Koreans. Then it was back to the wooden fare of crop-yield documentaries and paeans to the regime's strongman, Kim Jong Il...


View Los Angles Times Article...