The Propaganda Game, a documentary filmed, directed and produced by Spanish Filmmaker Alvaro Longoria, examines North Korea's 'propaganda war', along side western propaganda against the isolated country. The documentary takes a different approach to North Korea than what we are so used too, instead of solely examining the government, we see life from a citizens prospective.

We often forget that real people, just like any citizen of the US, live and love in North Korea as well. When western countries carry out propaganda against communist countries such as North Korea, they take, understandably, a dehumanizing approach, for if a war were ever to surface, we cannot sympathize with the people of these countries if we are not really conditioned to believe they exist. TPG follows around a former Spanish citizen who moved to North Korea, trained with the military and now works in the foreign affairs department, close to Kim Jong-un. Along the way, interviewing regular people of the country, both children and adults. We strongly noticed the unity the people of North Korea deeply tried to portray, the unconditional love for their leader and the utter and complete trust they seemed to have for Kim Jong-un was surprising from a western perspective. When Longoria interviewed multiple college age men and women about what they wanted to major in, all answers related to them wanting to do something for their leader. The documentary also covered the moments when Kim Jong-il died, showing millions of people, no matter the age or gender, sobbing. These moments honestly made us think, how would we react if someone we believed was God or God-like died? North Koreans are so conditioned to believe that their leaders are  God, or ever so close to a God. Through songs, pledges, pins, controlled media and religions, Kim Jong-un is portrayed as the all supreme, therefore we do believe that the emotion shown and felt in these clips as well as real life when Kim Jong-il died was genuine to an extent.

The documentary further explored the communist approach in their economy and society; everyone has free health care, free education, veterans are very very looked after and respected, the government owned everything- from large department stores to street vendors. The only question- although a pressing question- one also presented in the documentary by Longaria was; where is the money coming from? The large, new buildings, the amusement parks, the schools the public parks, libraries, and everything else, continuously kept us wondering where was the money coming from? 

The end of the documentary posed a good question; why hasn't the west taken down North Korea? We definitely have the military power, we have the allies and the economic resources too, if we are so dead set on expanding democracy to every corner of the world, as we were extensively during The Cold War, why haven't we acted on the totalitarian regime of North Korea?
The Propaganda Game ends by pointing out that no one actually wants to see North Korea's current regime fall. Not South Korea, for they would have to pick up the economic damages and pay for the merging of both countries. Not China because North Korea gives them a strong communist ally that they can use as control and power in negotiations with other countries. Lastly, the United States does not really want to see North Korea fall because if it did, we would no longer have a reason to keep military forces and bases in that region of the world, in turn largely endangering our imperialistic policies and our policing and concern of Russian, Chinese, or other Asian countries actions.
The only people that want to see North Korea fall, are, as the documentary pointed out, the North Koreans themselves, the ones truly hurt by the totalitarian regime. But when we are barely taught that they exist, how are we supposed to advocate or fight for them? We are taught to see the regime instead of the people in times of war, or else we would all go insane, but when these teachings are inevitable applied elsewhere, we fail to see the repercussions of them unless we open our eyes from a different perspective.