Today's music video relapse is going to be a weird one. Earlier this morning I was reading about Hyon Song-wol, one of the performers reportedly executed by firing squad a few days ago in North Korea. This is of course terrible and sad, just like most things in North Korea. North Korea is such an isolated place that it's easy to forget that the DPRK has some sort of controlled internal culture, and that includes things like "art" and "music" - and someone has to sing those songs.

They also have "music videos". One of Hyon Song-wol's popular songs has the ridiculous title of "Excellent Horse-Like Lady" (It's real name is apparently closer to "A Girl In The Saddle Of A Steed", but "Excellent Horse-Like Lady" is much, much better). It was popular in North Korea in 2005, and they also made a music video to play on DPRK-controlled TV (aka TV). This music video, as you might expect, is completely insane, but it also has some interesting elements. So today on music video relapse, let's watch it. Directed by - how would we possibly know that?

If you've ever studied propaganda this video should seem familiar to you. It follows a woman (Hyon) who works in a North Korean factory and is just killing the game. They are making cloth, and she is just doing a great job. She does such a great job that they put her face on a poster, and everyone cheers for her, giving her flowers and putting a wreath around her neck. The video ends with them celebrating outside in Pyongyang?. The obvious message here is that it is a good thing to be a hard worker - to be a horse-like worker, if you will.

One thing I find odd about this video is that for a country that hangs pictures of Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in nearly every room and worships them as gods, this video has no visual reference to them whatsoever. There's no shot of factory workers working and smiling at portraits of their dear leaders - that is completely avoided. The lyrics mention 'dear leader', but the message of this video seems to be that working hard will lead to a sense of personal accomplishment and the admiration of your peers. Besides some shots of sad looking shirts on sad looking store racks, there isn't much visual representation of how you working yourself like a horse will benefit the DPRK. That's a contrast to the large-scale performances that are put on in North Korea that seem to reinforece the concept of community and sacrifice.

Something that should be no surprise is the complete lack of any sort of flair in the video's execution. It's filmed like a training video from the 1980s, and when you think about it, it is kind of a training video. It looks more like a How It's Made episode than anything. The montage of cloth bundles stacking up and the shots of shirts on racks are almost comically bland.

Like many cultural items that leak out of North Korea, this is insane, outdated propaganda that the rest of the world has a good chuckle at. But whoever made this video seems to have at least a basic grasp on the concept that music videos should be sort of enjoyable and fun at the very least. There are no dear leader portraits, no marching soldiers, no glorification of the motherland. It's uses the natural charm of Hyon Song-wol to tell a very simple narrative with bright colors - maybe it's a little bit of escapism in music video format, despite the "work like a horse" message of the video.

Also, was that dude measuring productivity by painting a chart? Did people do that ... ever? In history? Just have a chart and a paint brush? I can't even picture people in like the 1910s doing this. Wow.

Adam Fairholm is the co-founder and lead developer of IMVDb. You can find him on twitter at @adamfairholm.