North Korea has a 62-part propaganda film series about how great North Korea is

If you're wondering what you might do to unwind in the closed communist dictatorship of North Korea, look no further than the nation's flagship film series: Nation and Destiny. The franchise runs for 62 installments - a serious binge-fest.

It was hoped to be the longest running film series in history and was spearhead by the late North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, well known for his extensive film library, no further parts were released after 2002. It became required viewing for North Koreans and was basically played on a loop for nine years.

Though 62 might seem an impressive number, the longest film series is purportedly just over the border in China: the Wong Fei-hung films number around 114.

Nation and Destiny - about a young architect called In Hyok who foolishly defects to South Korea to search for a job - proclaims North Korea as a land of glory while South Korea and the western world are places of debauched individualism and callous poverty. For those interested in the low budget brainwashing of a state, the first 13 parts can be found with subtitles on YouTube.

As ridiculous as the films might seem, they have an important place in the North Korea cultural psyche - though people in the north are increasingly looking to smuggled South Korean cultural properties, so much so that the regime have started selective releasing foreign titles.

Thae Yong-ho, the former North Korea ambassador to the UK who defected in 2016, told a hearing in the US House of Representatives on 1 November that the increasing flow of outside culture and the emergence of black markets meant it was "increasingly possible to think about civilian uprising in North Korea".

While the US seems ever more poised for military action against the country as the Kim regime continues its quest for a nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the US mainland, Thae pushed for an information war instead. "[M]uch more needs to be done to increase the flows of information into North Korea," he told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

The first target should be myths about North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Thae said, adding that citizens in the north needed to be shown that Kim is "not a god".