The movie's only flaw is also a virtue: It's jammed with characters, stories, warmth and laughs.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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.