It would be funny if it wasn’t so terrifying.
Okay, it’s a little funny.
There’s no getting past the ‘so surreal you can’t help but laugh a bit’ nature of this.
First, however, the sobering stuff.
On Thursday morning, news filtered through that South Korea fired missiles in response to North Korea’s largest ever weapon launch, in which the country tested a banned intercontinental ballistic missile.
For the first time since 2017, North Korea launched an ICBM missile, which fell in Japanese waters after being in flight for more than an hour.
Japanese officials estimate the ICBM flew 1,100km.
The action was, naturally enough, viewed as an act of provocation by North Korea.
Perhaps no less provocative; the editing job on a bizarre video released by North Korean state-run television in the early hours of Friday morning.
Overlaid with dramatic music and boasting the kind of sloppy camera cuts and slow-motion flourishes you’d expect from an Expendables movie, the footage depicts Kim Jong Un and a pair of officials overseeing the launch.
As preparation continues, a countdown effect takes hold, the music getting more and more intense as things begin to resemble a cut scene from Metal Gear Solid.
There’s also a Top Gun vibe in play.
Again, this is all genuinely frightening but sometimes you’re stopped in your tracks by sheer jaw-dropping feats of video editing.
You can check out the footage below.
BREAKING: North Korea's state-run television shows edited footage of Kim Jong Un guiding the test-launch of what the country referred to as the Hwasong-17 ICBM.
Latest story: https://t.co/belL7EdPUl
(Video: KCTV) pic.twitter.com/APifRhtJVr— NK NEWS (@nknewsorg) March 25, 2022
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