Ten Zan - Ultimate Mission

Ten Zan: The Ultimate Mission (aka Missione Finale) is a 1988 North Korean-Italian science fiction action film directed by Ferdinando Baldi and Pak Jong-ju under the pseudonym "Ted Kaplan". The spy film was made in English language, and shot in North Korea using Western actors. The film portrays North Korea as a kind of futuristic society, a decision which Baldi later explained as "a conscious avoidance of reality". Ten Zan was one of eight North Korean films to be shown at the Udine Festival of Far East Film in 2000. In a report of these screenings for Asiaweek, Richard James Havis regarded the film as "truly lamentable", saying: "The acting is worse than that of the propaganda movies, as is the plot." The name Ten Zan is a reference to the last Japanese stronghold on Iwo Jima, which was called Devil's Peak by the American soldiers trying to capture the island during the Battle of Iwo Jima.