10 Movies With Surprising Real World Consequences

Titanic has got everything you could want from a movie.

Romance, drama, tragedy, Irish dancing, naughty times in an old-timey car. It really is the full cinematic experience. But is it powerful enough to inspire someone to escape one of the most isolated and repressive nations on the planet? As it turns out, yes it is.

In 2007, Park Yeon-mi and her family fled North Korea in an attempt to lead a better life. Although she was just a teenager, Park already knew that her homeland was a dangerous place to live and that there was a whole other world outside of its borders.

A reason for this knowledge? James Cameron's Titanic.

Banned foreign films offered many North Koreans a previously-unseen look at the outside world and, for Park, Titanic was the best of the bunch. She said that watching the film made her realise something was wrong with her country and that was the catalyst for her life of activism.

Stories like this are a reminder of the power cinema has to inspire people around the world. It's also proof that Leonardo DiCaprio's face is the most powerful force on Earth.

What a hunk.