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Danish millionaire actor Latrache-Qvortrup, North Korean interlocutor in "The Mole ...": Anyone who is exposed will be tortured with a soldering iron
Photo: Piraya Film / Wingman Media / ZDF
It will be the worst for Jim Latrache-Qvortrup in Beijing.
The neat, suitably dressed man claims he is a very rich businessman named "Mr.
James «.
His North Korean negotiating partners have already greeted the alleged millionaire from the West in the country's capital, Pyongyang.
Now they want to meet him in China's capital for talks about building a factory for arms and drugs in Africa - and Western intelligence experts expressly warn Latrache-Qvortrup that the Chinese intelligence service will examine his identity much more precisely than the North Koreans.
But what the heck: "He's into action," announced a voice from the off.
"And as a filmmaker, I love sensations." So the impostor flies to Beijing.
The two-part Danish documentary »The Mole: Undercover in North Korea«, which will be shown on the special-interest channel ZDF info this evening, will later be shown on ZDF and on 3sat and in the ZDF media library, is presented by its by no means immodest creator as a sensational work.
A decade and a half ago, director Mads Brügger made a celebrated documentary about a friendship visit by alleged comedians to North Korea.
The film was a brutally funny, politically less explosive festival hit and was called »Red Chapel«.
Bruges, 48, has not been welcome in Pyongyang since then.
Comrade Larsen is doing communist propaganda
That is why the filmmaker has teamed up with Ulrich Larsen, a former cook and early retiree from Copenhagen.
In 2010, Larsen became a member of the Korean Friendship Association of a few but fanatical North Korea fans who are doing propaganda work for the communist regime in Pyongyang in many countries around the world.
The mostly smiling comrade Larsen quickly worked his way up in the organization;
and he almost always filmed.
At international club meetings of the Korea supporters, during visits to the country - and at meetings with the top European lobbyist for the dictatorship in Pyongyang, a Spaniard who finally suggested that he broker criminal deals with weapons and drugs.
Bruges documentary is quite sensational.
"He wanted to subvert one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world," the filmmaker praises his protagonist Larsen.
To illustrate his risky game, the director shows pictures of the US student Otto Frederick Warmbier, who was sentenced to 15 years in a labor camp in North Korea in March 2016.
Warmbier allegedly stole a propaganda banner, fell into a vegetative state while in custody and died shortly after he was transported back to the United States in June 2017. Bruges called North Korea "an evil and criminal entity."
He reports on the torture and the material hardship in the country, which is also documented by many human rights organizations and independent observers.
And he brings his protagonist Larsen together with a US agent trainer, who threatens his protégé with the fact that if he fails, he will be hung in the center of Pyongyang and publicly mistreated with a blowtorch.
The pictures that the film shows appear mostly harmless in comparison.
Recordings of car trips through Pyongyang, of two excited North Korean pop singers at a banquet table, and again and again of drinking parties of the heroes with their North Korean interlocutors in hotel rooms.
The highlight of the documentary is not some unexpected visual glimpses into the realm of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who is enthusiastic about nuclear weapons and has been charged with international sanctions.
It is the evidence, often filmed by Larsen himself, at least of the willingness of some of the country's important officials to do bad business.
Plan for a crack and weapons factory in Uganda
The filmmaker Brüggers and his mole investigator Larsen introduce the North Koreans to a specially hired straw man, the alleged millionaire »Mr.
James «.
Jim Latrache-Qvortrup, who allegedly used to be a drug dealer and Foreign Legionnaire, is referred to as an actor by the director.
The Danes »Mr.
James «and Larsen agree in numerous secret meetings with a North Korean arms manufacturer that they want to jointly build an underground factory for methamphetamine (the drug crack) and weapons in Uganda.
The project is to be built on an island in Lake Victoria, in underground halls under a specially newly created luxury resort.
Just before the deal actually comes off through the intermediary of a Jordanian, “Mr.
James «under.
The film "The Mole: Undercover in North Korea" is structured as a gigantic fact check.
A woman named Annie Machon, introduced as a former employee of the British secret service MI5, asks the two undercover investigators Latrache-Qvortrup and Larsen about the circumstances of their highly dangerous rooting work.
Machon apparently has nothing to fault with the credibility of the two Danes.
After the completion of the film, the BBC and various Scandinavian television companies also examined the work of the director Bruges for a long time - and finally broadcast it.
The ZDF shows the documentary, which also impresses with the coolness and the rather unique tenacity of the ex-chef Larsen, even only in the night program, but at least it has been prominently placed on 3sat.
ZDF info, Tuesday, April 6, 8:15 p.m.; ZDF Thursday, April 8, 0.45 a.m.; 3sat, Wednesday, April 14, 8:15 p.m.; also in the ZDF media library.
