First, I'm shocked to be the first reviewer of this documentary. Second, this is a solid, substantial, entertaining and overall well-made documentary about Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea to hold a basketball game between former NBA players and the North Korean team on Jan.8, 2014 for Kim Jong-un's birthday. Completely entertaining. The cameras are there for it all so we really get to see "from the inside" all that happened. And you do get to see a side of North Korea that's rarely seen. I mean their ski resort looks first-class. (too bad no one is there to actually get to use it except the party elite). The narration is spot-on, funny and keeps the documentary moving. The big question is: was this entire event a giant propaganda show for the benefit of a ruthless totalitarian dictatorship? The documentary pulls no punches but is quite fair in presenting both sides. I also give kudos the camera team who came off with some terrific shots, most notably when Rodman returns from North Korea the first time and is absolutely mobbed by the press. The camera captures every moment of what I would describe as a media riot. I love a good documentary that entertains and educates me as well as gives me something to think about. This should not be missed!

It's a truly modern saga, a strange mesh of the cult of celebrity, geopolitics and technology and the media's ability to connect disparate people all over the globe—not to mention the media's role in covering such intersections. Matt Cooper delivers the film's irony-inflected voice-over with an infectious Irish lilt that jauntily propels the narrative through its many unlikely twists and turns.

BIG BANG IN PYONGYANG is a lively documentary that captures a 'moment in time' quite nicely. It involves Dennis Rodman and his idea to hold a basketball game between some retired American players (including himself) and a North Korean team in order to open up borders between the two countries. Everything doesn't go according to plan, of course, which is why it's an entertaining documentary.

Things start off on a quite ordinary level, introducing the main players and depicting the strangeness of North Korean society. I wasn't too keen on the Irish narrator but he could have been worse. I only know Rodman from his short cinematic career but he's a larger than life figure whose flaws make him likable and almost tragic in places. Things become serious in the latter part of the production as politics intervene and it gets very heated, which of course makes for a fine and naturalistic documentary. And you don't even have to like basketball to enjoy it.