This was originally posted on my gymnastics blog.

There’s no doubt the most spectacular large gymnastics displays are in North Korea.

Canadian coach David Burgess visited years ago and became something of a foreign celebrity there. He was several times interviewed on Korean TV.

Dave brought back photos from the “Mass Games” from that trip and we were blown away by the scale of the shows.

Click PLAY or watch the clip on YouTube.

These spectacles are criticized as totalitarian government propaganda. But a British Film crew was allowed unrestricted access to film A State of Mind, a documentary following two North Korean child gymnasts and their families for over eight months leading up to the 2003 Pyongyang Mass Games.

The movie paints a much more sympathetic picture of one of the Axis of Evil nations.

Watch the movie trailer on YouTube.