Kim Jong-un: The Mysterious and Controversial Life of North Korea's Supreme Leader

"There is no force in the world that can block the powerful march of our army and people, who are holding high the banner of the suns of great Comrade Kim Il Sung and great Comrade Kim Jong Il and continuing to advance under the leadership of the party and with strong faith in sure victory." (Kim Jong-Un)

A tyrannical lineage secured by nepotism. An entire nation indoctrinated by chilling, mind-boggling propaganda, molded by fear and forced ignorance. Mass purges doled out seemingly on whims, without fair trials. Unparalleled paranoia and cold-blooded assassinations left and right, seemingly around every curve and corner. An impoverished sphere of barren wastelands inhabited by malnourished masses, orbiting a world glittering with the gross opulence and superfluous riches of the elite.

These sound like the elements of a particularly perilous period of autocracy enforced by some mad monarch of a bygone era, or perhaps a generic blurb for a far-fetched thriller set in a dystopian future. Alas, in certain areas of the world, even to this day, these horrifically archaic conditions are anything but fiction. Despite the leaps and bounds in societal progress that most of modern civilization has made, a number of nations have barely budged, powerless to even bend their knees.

While some are merely held back by the looming hurdle of a failing economy, the far less fortunate are impeded by impossibly dense, impenetrable walls on all four corners fencing them in, erected by the dangerously ambitious, self-serving overlords who claimed to have the people's best interests at heart. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea, better known colloquially to the rest of the world simply as North Korea, is infamous for being one of the latter.