At a preview screening of the finale, the creators said they would have preferred to have recruited another former N.B.A. star, Michael Jordan, whose autograph adorns a basketball presented to Kim Jong-il, the father of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong-un, by Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright during her visit to North Korea in 2000 — when relations were comparatively warmer than they are now.
“Jordan wasn’t interested,” said Shane Smith, the founder and chief executive of the Vice Media Group, the HBO partner that conceived the North Korea trip and helped persuade the authorities there to permit it.
However, Mr. Smith said, Mr. Rodman’s ready acceptance of the idea turned out to be a blessing. “It fit right into our wheelhouse, because it’s absurd,” Mr. Smith said.
Mr. Rodman, who played with Mr. Jordan on the Chicago Bulls but is perhaps known more for his lip jewelry and dyed hair, became the first American to meet with Kim Jong-un, who took over after his father died in 2011. Mr. Rodman’s visit in late February and early March became a bit of an international sensation and a new source of talk-show jokes. The “Vice” finale will be broadcast on June 14.
The Kim family, which has ruled North Korea for more than six decades and considers the United States its No. 1 enemy, has a well-known love of American basketball, in particular an obsession with Mr. Jordan.
Mr. Rodman’s agent, Darren Prince, said in an e-mail that Vice and HBO had asked Mr. Rodman to participate because the younger Mr. Kim had been photographed wearing a Rodman jersey years ago when he was a student in Switzerland, and “it showed them what a big fan he was.”
The absurdity theme is integrated into the finale, which follows Mr. Rodman and three members of the Harlem Globetrotters, Alexander Weekes, Anthony Blakes and William Bullard, as they meet with North Korean officials, students and children, sometimes wowing them with basketball tricks.
Their visit came as North Korea was celebrating the successful test explosion of a nuclear device under Mr. Kim, who threatened to make nuclear war on the United States even as he was embracing Mr. Rodman as a friend.
Mr. Kim attended an exhibition basketball game with Mr. Rodman and feted all of the American visitors to an alcohol-infused banquet, where an all-girl North Korean band played the theme to “Rocky” and Mr. Rodman crooned an impromptu “My Way.”
The visitors also toured a supermarket, stocked with Coca-Cola and fresh fruit, where they were the only patrons, and observed college students at computers that showed the Google home page, though no one was using its search function.
“I felt like we were walking through a real-live ‘Truman Show,’ ” said Ryan Duffy, the Vice correspondent who narrates the finale.
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/world/asia/rodman-made-north-korean-trip-after-jordan-said-no-hbo-show-says.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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