In case you missed it, North Korea are still testing their nukes, and are still threatening to nuke Australia for our ties to the US. This shouldn’t raise any eyebrows – everyone knows the only thing bigger than Kim Jong Un’s missile arsenal is his list of global enemies.
Not to be deterred by this, Sydney mates Aleksa Vulovic, 24, and Alex Apollonov, 25, booked a six-day government group tour in North Korea last July to film “The Haircut: A North Korean Adventure”. The 20-minute doco, available to watch on YouTube, was inspired by a viral media claim in 2014 – that North Korean men are forced to cut their hair like Kim Jong Un.
It starts with the boys interviewing Newton locals, to gauge their knowledge of the bizarre haircut claim. Quite a few know about it, and believe it simply because it’s North Korea. The boys then jet off to Pyongyang, the nation’s capital, and book Aleksa in for a haircut. He shows the hairdresser a browser photo on his phone, titled: “16. Hipster Hairstyle With Stylish Beard.” She cuts his hair as per the photo, and “did a great job,” concedes Aleksa.
After his experience, Aleksa dismissed the news stories as a “hoax”, and warned that: “… readers should be more critical of mainstream media coverage of the country.” He also made sarcastic comparisons between North Korea and Western powers’ so-called different attitudes towards prison camps and nuclear weapons.
“North Korea has tested four [nukes], and that is very scary… but imagine how scary it is for them to think that the US alone has tested 1,032 nukes? … We’ve used ours… against real people,” remarks Aleksa, standing before a framed photo of the horrific 1945 Hiroshima bombing. “We’re not even sorry,” he adds, whilst lovingly polishing another framed newspaper headline: “Obama will not apologize for Hiroshima attack, he tells Japanese TV.”
Not wanting to be called out as “unpatriotic traitors” for their hot-take on North Korea, the boys end the doco with footage of Aleksa belting out “Advance Australia Fair” aboard their tour bus.
The boys used a modest SLR camera to film, in order to get past North Korea officials who only allow tourists to record limited amounts of footage. With the doco amassing over 20,000 views since being uploaded in late April, it’s probably safe to say that Aleksa and Alex won’t be returning to Pyongyang for some time.
