Noiser
Inside Kim Jong-il's Bizarre Plot to Kidnap a Famous Actress
Play Real Dictators Kim Jong-il Part 2: Time to Make a Movie…
In 1978, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il kidnapped a movie star and her director husband. This is the stranger-than-fiction story of how the notorious despot’s cinematic obsession led to an international abduction.
Kim Jong-il: An Unlikely Film Fanatic
Before Kim Jong-il became the supreme leader of North Korea, he worked for his father, Kim Il-Sung, in the state's propaganda department. Charged with directing the Motion Picture and Arts Division, he quickly became an avid cinephile. Though Hollywood blockbusters were banned in North Korea, his position of power meant that he could get his hands on whatever films he wanted. James Bond, Friday the 13th, and Rambo ranked among his favourites. Watching these sleek, high-budget pictures made the young Kim Jong-il realise how flaccid his ideology-heavy films were in comparison.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring South Korea, the film industry started to boom. Directors there were making award-winning pictures to international acclaim. Kim Jong-il wanted his films to rival their Southern counterparts, but North Korea was a communist dictatorship, shut off from the rest of the world. In these conditions, it simply hadn’t developed the creative talent required to create such art. If Kim Jong-il was going to make a blockbuster, he'd need to acquire a lead actor and a director from elsewhere, by whatever means necessary…
The Kidnap
In the 1960s, Choi Eun-hee was considered South Korea’s most glamorous and successful film actor. However, by the late 1970s, she was struggling to find work. So, when she was invited to Hong Kong in January 1978 to discuss an opportunity to direct and star in a film, she jumped at the chance. Unbeknownst to Choi, it was all a setup led by North Korean agents. While walking along the beach, two speedboats approached through the waves. Men wearing long wigs hopped into the shallows and bundled Choi into the boat before taking off at speed. Six days later, she arrived in North Korea, where she was held captive in her own luxury compound.
Kim Jong-il had his actress. Now he needed a director. And who better than Choi’s estranged husband, Shin Sang-ok—one of South Korea’s most famous filmmakers?
Six months after Choi’s capture, Shin was also kidnapped in Hong Kong by North Korean operatives. Though he too was kept in lavish accommodations, the director wasn’t keen to stay. In a daring escape plan, he stole a car and made his way towards the Chinese border.
What he hadn't accounted for was the fact that, in North Korea, one in two [...] people is an informer. Everyone is raised to think that being a snitch is necessary and a moral value.
Paul Fischer, author of A Kim Jong-il Production
When Shin was inevitably caught, just 15 miles from the border, he was taken directly to prison. He spent three years behind bars before being offered the chance to direct films if he promised to behave.
On March 6th, 1983, Kim Jong-il arranged a party for the estranged husband and wife to meet. Until this point, neither knew that the other had also been kidnapped. It was a shocking and deeply emotional reunion, to say the least. Things got even stranger when, moments after seeing each other for the first time in years, Kim Jong-il insisted that they remarry. He even planned on performing the ceremony himself. Choi and Shin had no choice but to go along with Kim’s plan—the wedding took place the following month.
There was no time for a honeymoon, however. Soon after the wedding, Kim Jong-il put Choi and Shin on an unforgiving production schedule. The couple made a whopping 17 films in just two years, working all day and sleeping only two to three hours a night. Their work stood out from previous North Korean movies. Kim Jong-il didn’t want them to just make propaganda-style movies; he wanted films that could be shown around the world, even win awards. Capitalising on the popularity of the genre, they made a kung-fu film called Hong Kil-Dong — lauded as the first North Korean film made solely for the purpose of entertainment. There was also the historical drama Salt, for which Choi won Best Actress at the 14th Moscow International Film Festival. But the final film they made for Kim Jong-il, Pulgasari, is arguably their most famous. A Godzilla rip-off, it was the most expensive film the couple made in North Korea.
That was the last film they made in North Korea. It became the most infamous. Sadly, it's really the worst film ever made. Shin was quite a good filmmaker, but now he is remembered for his terrible, terrible film that has become a cult classic everywhere.
Paul Fischer, author of A Kim Jong-il Production
The Daring Escape
In March 1986, after eight years in captivity, Kim Jong-il sent Choi and Shin to Austria. Their mission: to source financial backers for a movie about Genghis Khan. A journalist arrived at the hotel to interview the couple, and the North Korean bodyguards agreed to leave the suite to give the three some privacy.
Big mistake.
Moments later, Choi and Shin were in a taxi, speeding across the Austrian capital towards the US Embassy, the bodyguards in hot pursuit. The cab hit traffic, so the couple got out of the vehicle and sprinted, weaving their way through the mass of static cars. They made it to the sanctuary of the US Embassy in the nick of time. Their surreal ordeal was over.
In a statement, the North Korean government accused the pair of embezzling money intended to bankroll the Genghis Khan production. But for Choi and Shin, the propaganda madhouse was a thing of the past. Freedom was finally theirs.