How sad is this?

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Chongchuniyo! (Oh Youth! 1995) is about a Pyongyang family with five overachieving athletic daughters and a son who is a nerd. The parents are relieved that their daughters are attracting a lot of male attention, and some of them are on the way to marrying and leaving the nest. But they are very worried about the eldest, their only son, who in their opinion seems overly focused on his studies. North Korea has more traditional family attitudes than most other Asian societies (there are hints of arranged marriages, we don't know how widespread, but in any case parents have enormous input). A rare and amusing glimpse into white-collar family life in this rarely accessible society. See how this "complicated problem" was resolved in arguably both the most Confucian and the most Communistic society on earth. At least here, although briefly credited in general as expected in the DPRK, the Dear Leader was not claimed responsible for the favorable outcome.One of a few films available from North Korea (officially, DPRK "Democratic People's Republic of Korea") with English subtitles.