A screen grab from video produced by the White House for the summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un.John Savage
- A Story of Opportunity for North Korea
- Directed by: the National Security Council
- Starring: Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un and Planet Earth
- Classification: N/A;
- 4 minutes, 10 seconds
This summer’s movie season has been a dull one. Sequels, reboots, remakes. Yawn. But with the release of the new trailer for A Story of Opportunity for North Korea, the President of the United States and his National Security Council just changed the game. Forever.
The expertly assembled and not-at-all hackneyed or incompetent or propagandistic trailer, screened to #FakeNews journalists just hours after Donald Trump’s historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Monday – and available now online for the entire world to bask in – is easily the President’s best cinematic effort since he played himself in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. As for Kim, well, is it too early to say, “Hello, movie star”?
This video mimicking the style of a movie trailer was played to media before U.S. President Donald Trump's post-summit news conference. The video shows positive images of a world where Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un build a relationship that defuses tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Hollywood agents, drop your calls, and studios, start recasting all your Kevin Hart-Dwayne Johnson buddy flicks: Kim and Trump are set to take over showbiz.
In the most thrilling four minutes and 11 seconds of your entire life, Trump and his team of producers from the not-suspicious-at-all-sounding “Destiny Pictures” have crafted a nuanced, emotionally resonant, thrilling, completely sane and totally-normal-why-do-you-ask bit of footage that showcases why America is indeed great again — and how maybe, just maybe, North Korea could be, too.
Expertly blending sharp and crisp stock footage of what exactly makes America and North Korea so super-fun – smiling citizens, basketball games, car manufacturing, a total lack of gulags – with irresistible clips of the countries’ two universally loved leaders just doing their thing, A Story of Opportunity for North Korea (or ASONK, as its rabid fan base is already dubbing it, maybe) looks to be the original and inspiring blockbuster this year so desperately needs.
Kudos, too, to whoever on Trump’s team found the unknown narrator who lends the production extreme gravitas. “A new world can begin today,” the voice-over begins, before knocking it out of the park with such passionate and considered line readings as, “There can only be two results: one of moving back, or one of moving forward,” and, “The doors of opportunity are ready to be open.” Yes, those are goosebumps you’re feeling.
Just witness the portion of the trailer that begins with the poetic dialogue, “Out of the darkness comes the light.” Immediately, the audience is thrust into a heady and sublime montage of pure, unadulterated beauty that rivals the work of Jean-Luc Godard in his prime: smiling children, glowing lanterns, lakes, other stuff that’s the polar opposite of arbitrary. In other words: pure cinema.
By the time the trailer wraps up – all too soon! – you will believe in the magic of movies again and in the magic of America again. Planet Earth, enjoy the show. We deserve it.
A Story of Opportunity for North Korea is coming soon to a theatre of war near you.
Barry Hertz