SHANE SMITH: We'd finally found our North Koreans deep
in the bush and were busy talking to them when things
started to get a bit hairy.
Now these guys are coming back here.
The dude with the crowbar is coming back.
MALE SPEAKER 1: [SPEAKING KOREAN]
KIM YUN ZUN: [SPEAKING KOREAN]
IGOR "THE FISH" RYBAKOV: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
SHANE SMITH: He says, what is that, your off switch?
MALE SPEAKER 1: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
SIMON OSTROVSKY: He says I use it for fixing tractors.
SHANE SMITH: I like the Fish more and more.
He took the crowbar from him and said, what is that, your
off switch?
And two North Koreans came back.
Now they're giving Mr. Kim shit.
And they're quite angry.
So we're probably going to have to get out of here.
MALE SPEAKER 1: [SPEAKING KOREAN]
SHANE SMITH: And so, oh shit, here comes another truck.
Now we're surrounded.
They're got a truck up there.
They've got a truck behind here.
What'd he say?
SIMON OSTROVSKY: He said he came to tell us that he
doesn't want us filming anymore, and he's come to
block the road.
SHANE SMITH: Really?
All right.
Well, let's go find another crew.
Let's go.
The Fish is the boss.
As the Fish took us further into the forest on these
rutted dirt tracks, the atmosphere in the truck got a
little bit goofy because of the lunacy that was being
played out in the oddest game of low-grade cat and mouse
I've ever seen.
Ask about how we get home.
We're in a high-speed car chase at five miles an hour
through the wilds of Siberia.
They're stopping, we go to try to pass them, and
then they speed up.
We sort of go on a side road, and then they head
us off at the pass.
It's a game of chicken out in the middle of nowhere.
IGOR "THE FISH" RYBAKOV: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
SIMON OSTROVSKY: He was just telling us.
KIM YUN ZUN: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
IGOR "THE FISH" RYBAKOV: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
SIMON OSTROVSKY: He says he's on their blacklist.
SHANE SMITH: The Fish seemed tired of this game and
suggested we pull over for some lunch, which consisted of
paprika chips, bread, vodka, and a shotgun.
IGOR "THE FISH" RYBAKOV: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN], cowboy.
SHANE SMITH: Cowboy.
SIMON OSTROVSKY: Cowboy.
SHANE SMITH: The North Koreans are going-- what the fuck kind
of journalists are these?
Well, we found our North Koreans.
Now let's get wasted and shoot off guns with the mafia.
I hit it, but I didn't break it.
[APPLAUSE]
SHANE SMITH: It turned out there was method
in the Fish's madness.
Because our lunchtime shooting party seemed to have cowed the
North Koreans just enough to get us out of the wilderness,
which was very good because the all-menacing Siberian
darkness was fast approaching.
When we finally got to town, they, of course,
were waiting for us.
And the North Korean security dude just showed up.
And he won't leave us alone.
And he's just standing there trying
to look at our passports.
And trying to see all of our stuff.
He's trying to be scary.
SIMON OSTROVSKY: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
MALE SPEAKER 2: [SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
SHANE SMITH: And when we got on the train and said our
teary goodbyes to the Fish, we realized that half the one-car
train was our crew, and the other half were North Koreans.
[SPEAKING KOREAN]
SIMON OSTROVSKY: That was the captain of the camp.
SHANE SMITH: Great.
So we locked ourselves into our compartment and spent the
night backing up our hard drives and hiding all of our
footage, which turned out be wise because we were met back
in Tynda by the FSB, the local militia, the North Koreans,
and some plainclothes detectives who promptly
detained us.
So they asked us a lot of questions.
And they kept asking us about the pipeline.
Are you here to shoot the pipeline?
We were like, we don't know anything about a pipeline.
We're here to shoot North Koreans.
They knew about the Russian cop who had taken us to the
North Korean camp.
They knew about the chief of police in the north.
Simon refused to be intimidated, and he said, if
you want to ask any questions, ask me here.
I'm not going with you.
I'm not going away with you.
They finally let us go.
We freaked out a little bit, grabbed our
stuff, and took off.
We quickly hired a car and made a break
for the Chinese border.
When we finally got to the border, we realized that part
of the reason for all this panic and fear on the North
Korean and Russian side was that Kim Jong-Il, who almost
never leaves North Korea, had secretly come to the same
place we were, the Amur region of Russia, coincidentally at
the exact same time we were there to hold talks with
President Medvedev about more trade and labor agreements
between the two countries.
So this means that, while we were there, the Great Leader
was selling even more of his people off, so he could make
even more money, so you could make more weapons, so he could
extort more food and aid and supplies from America and
Japan, who he's technically still at war with.
And this, better than almost anything I could think of,
sums up the lunacy of the modern world.
Thank you and goodnight.
MALE SPEAKER 3: [SPEAKING KOREAN]