Speaker 1: This is an iHeart original.
Speaker 2: On March thirteenth, nineteen eighty six, a couple burst out
Speaker 2: of a taxi in Vienna. In front of them the
Speaker 2: US Embassy. Only a few dozen feet stand between them
Speaker 2: and their freedom. When they hastily push open the car door,
Speaker 2: they don't bother to close it behind them every second counts.
Speaker 2: A white taxi had been tailing them the whole ride.
Speaker 2: Inside the taxi are their bodyguards. Bodyguards they have just
Speaker 2: escaped from. The couple sprints across the pavement and hops
Speaker 2: up the few stairs to the embassy. If a bystander
Speaker 2: were to hit pause, freeze frames and zoom in on
Speaker 2: the couple their arms outstretched ready to open the heavy doors,
Speaker 2: sweat clinging to their foreheads and upper lips, they might
Speaker 2: recognize them. This is Shin sang Ak, a famous South
Speaker 2: Korean film director, and his wife, the award winning actress
Speaker 2: Choi Yunhi. Here on the steps of the United States Embassy.
Speaker 2: They are moments away from catching their biggest break yet.
Speaker 2: For the last several years, the couple has been in
Speaker 2: the claws of the North Korean government. Today they're making
Speaker 2: a break for it. Their life has been so bizarre
Speaker 2: it could be mistaken for an action movie plot a
Speaker 2: little too on the nose for the likes of Shin
Speaker 2: and Choi. Their story involves kidnapping, love affairs, and friendships
Speaker 2: with unstable dictators. But before we press play and see
Speaker 2: if they pass through the embassy doors, we need to
Speaker 2: rewind and watch the strange series of events that led
Speaker 2: two of the most influential figures in cinema to become
Speaker 2: personal hostages of Kim Jong Il. Welcome back to Very
Speaker 2: Special Episodes and I heeart original podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Danish Schwartz and this is North by North Korea.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us. I'm joined by Janishwartz. Hey,
Speaker 3: Zarah Burnette. I'm Jason English. I kept thinking as we're
Speaker 3: reading drafts of this one that if we were writing
Speaker 3: depraved Kim Jong Ill fan fiction like this is the
Speaker 3: kind of crazy stuff that we could only hope to approach.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, he is such a mercurial, strange character
Speaker 1: as a dictator's son, but also as like just a
Speaker 1: Hollywood and American lover. You don't see it coming.
Speaker 2: It's such amazing character.
Speaker 4: This, I will say, is the one very special episode
Speaker 4: the most where as I was reading it, I was like,
Speaker 4: this is a movie. Oh, this is incredible. I can't
Speaker 4: believe this story was real. I had to like fact
Speaker 4: check this episode. As I was going where, I was like,
Speaker 4: is Jason doing an April Fool's Day on me?
Speaker 3: Is this too good?
Speaker 1: Yeah? How can this be real? This is the best
Speaker 1: love story I've never heard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a couple a love story?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me?
Speaker 3: All right, I don't want to give too much away.
Speaker 3: Let's get back into it. We'll discuss on the other side.
Speaker 2: The first time Shin sang Ak laid eyes on Choi,
Speaker 2: and he he saw her for who she truly was,
Speaker 2: an ambitious creative force. It was nineteen fifty, three months
Speaker 2: after the Korean Wars armistice. Both countries were still smoldering
Speaker 2: from bombings and napalm. North Korea was run by socialist dictatorship.
Speaker 2: Our story starts in South Korea. Shin was an aspiring
Speaker 2: director looking for a leading lady for his upcoming film.
Speaker 2: He'd heard of the talented and popular Madame Choi, so
Speaker 2: he bought a ticket to see her in a play
Speaker 2: in a city south of Seoul. In that theater, on
Speaker 2: that unassuming evening, Shin couldn't take his eyes.
Speaker 1: Off of her.
Speaker 5: Chin grew up in an affluent household. His talents were
Speaker 5: encouraged by his family. He was seen as gifted child.
Speaker 5: He went to some of the best schools and he
Speaker 5: was able to study painting and art in Tokyo during
Speaker 5: the war.
Speaker 2: This is Ravi Mangla, a writer and novelist. His most
Speaker 2: recent book, The Observer, is a fictionalized version of Shin
Speaker 2: and Choi's story.
Speaker 5: And then on the other side you have Choi, who
Speaker 5: is a very shy and reserved child, her talents not
Speaker 5: encouraged in the same way. Thing was a place where
Speaker 5: she found solace and where she really came alive. And
Speaker 5: when she told her parents that that she wanted to
Speaker 5: be an actress, that was not something that they accepted readily.
Speaker 5: So when she was seventeen, she actually ran away to
Speaker 5: join up with a theater troop and during the war
Speaker 5: she was an entertainer for troops. So both she and
Speaker 5: Shin ended up in the entertainment industry, but through two
Speaker 5: very different channels.
Speaker 2: As the play unfolded, Shin watched Choi give everything she
Speaker 2: had on stage until she had nothing left.
Speaker 5: Choi, who was suffering from exhaustion at the time, fainted
Speaker 5: on stage, and as a story goes, Shin rushed up
Speaker 5: to the stage, picked her up, threw her over her shoulder,
Speaker 5: and then took her to the nearest hospital.
Speaker 2: Shin stayed with Choi throughout her hospital visit. When she
Speaker 2: was released, Choi told Shin about her struggles, how her
Speaker 2: husband couldn't work, and how poor they were. Shin, having
Speaker 2: only watched her perform in half a play, felt in
Speaker 2: his gut that it was his destiny to meet her,
Speaker 2: so he offered her the role in his upcoming film.
Speaker 2: He'd pay her as much as he could. According to
Speaker 2: Paul Fisher's excellent book A Kim Jong Ill Production, which
Speaker 2: we'll link to in the show notes, Shin started loitering
Speaker 2: around the theater's back door, waiting for Choi to be
Speaker 2: done with her play. Shin always called her Madame Choi
Speaker 2: a sign of respect. They'd wander the streets so wrapped
Speaker 2: up in conversation they'd miss the mandatory curfew. They snuck
Speaker 2: around like teenagers, although they were both well into their
Speaker 2: late twenties. Shin told Madame Choi, any film I make,
Speaker 2: I want you to be in it. Choi filed for
Speaker 2: divorce and swiftly married Chin on March seventh, nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 2: They'd known each other therefore less than a year. Once
Speaker 2: they joined forces, they were unstoppable. Shin began to build
Speaker 2: up his studio and cast Joy in nearly every film,
Speaker 2: right when the South Korean public wanted nothing more than
Speaker 2: to escape to other worlds.
Speaker 6: They're so powerful, I think as a couple because Chit
Speaker 6: is the on screen figure, right and again, she is
Speaker 6: so unmistakable, and then Shin is able to take her
Speaker 6: through all of these really iconic roles that really span
Speaker 6: across the kind of feminine archetypes that you can think
Speaker 6: of or you could come up with, right, And so
Speaker 6: I think that that partnership is so fruitful because you
Speaker 6: have a screen presence and then a behind the camera presence,
Speaker 6: and they're kind of in synergy.
Speaker 2: That's Michelle Cho, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto.
Speaker 2: Her focus is on in film and culture.
Speaker 6: South Green filmmaking of the early post war is described
Speaker 6: as a golden age because there were some really iconic
Speaker 6: films that were produced during the time that are really
Speaker 6: sophisticated in terms of the way that they're trying to
Speaker 6: process the changes that are happening in society.
Speaker 2: Shin and Choi worked across genres and grew exponentially.
Speaker 5: Shin was also an innovator. He entered films and competitions
Speaker 5: all around the world. So this was the first time
Speaker 5: that South Korean film was really getting out onto the
Speaker 5: international stage, and people were seeing what was being created
Speaker 5: in South Korea, and they were hearing stories that they
Speaker 5: had never heard before.
Speaker 6: There are some parts of his body of work that,
Speaker 6: you know, people will compare directly to Hollywood films that
Speaker 6: he likely adapted a lot of things from. So you know,
Speaker 6: he dabbled in the Western, He made a bunch of
Speaker 6: the these family melodramas. He made period pieces, he made
Speaker 6: war films. He was really kind of a sponge, I think,
Speaker 6: in terms of picking up influences esthetically and emotionally from
Speaker 6: this kind of world cinema culture that was around him.
Speaker 2: It's up for debate whether Shin was intentional about creating
Speaker 2: more political and progressive stories.
Speaker 6: A lot of Shin's films, especially during the Golden Age,
Speaker 6: were Enlightenment films quote unquote.
Speaker 2: One obvious example is Shin and Choi's nineteen sixty one
Speaker 2: film The Evergreen Tree about an educated couple who tries
Speaker 2: to instill modern schooling in a small rural town. They
Speaker 2: become local heroes as they also fight against the colonialist
Speaker 2: Japanese government trying to undo their teachings.
Speaker 6: And so that has a very specific meaning in postcolonial Korea,
Speaker 6: where it's kind of a storytelling mode that talks about
Speaker 6: the modernization of a person, whether that's through a transformative
Speaker 6: encounter with like an inspiring teacher or a learning experience
Speaker 6: of a youth that then kind of forces them to
Speaker 6: look at the world in a new way. This enlightenment
Speaker 6: mode is really intended to teach the public how to
Speaker 6: think of themselves as new national subjects and as new
Speaker 6: like modern subjects. So what are modern ways of thinking, rationality,
Speaker 6: you know, pursuit of learning, a kind of desire to
Speaker 6: remake yourself as like a civilized human being. In this
Speaker 6: very like progressive mode.
Speaker 2: These stories helped Korean audiences process not only their violent
Speaker 2: past but a hopeful future, and the films were a hit.
Speaker 5: It received quite a lot of acclaim at the time,
Speaker 5: but they were extremely prolific during that period, producing over
Speaker 5: two hundred films and Shin himself directed over seventy films.
Speaker 6: Shin films is really responsible for the popularization of cinema
Speaker 6: as like a core aspect of popular culture in South Korea.
Speaker 6: It was such a strong and dominant source of films
Speaker 6: and it defined the film culture.
Speaker 2: But Shin's films wouldn't have been nearly half as good
Speaker 2: without his better half. Choi was more than a muse.
Speaker 2: She was Shin's creative equal.
Speaker 6: She is an unmistakably iconic screen presence. Shin casts her
Speaker 6: in a couple of his most iconic films of the fifties.
Speaker 6: I have thought quite a lot about how it's the
Speaker 6: case that Chin he was so respected despite the fact
Speaker 6: that she played characters who are representative of the most
Speaker 6: kind of denigrated groups of people in South Korea.
Speaker 2: Choi took on every kind of role imaginable, from a
Speaker 2: confident sex worker to a chaste and dutiful widow.
Speaker 6: So it's this constant struggle to try and reshape attitudes
Speaker 6: around gender which is part of what makes Chi such
Speaker 6: a remarkable figure. I have to think that the fact
Speaker 6: of her marriage to Shin was part of what protected her.
Speaker 6: I think because even if she played characters on screen
Speaker 6: who lacked legitimacy. She in real life had the legitimacy
Speaker 6: of this very powerful figure in the film industry.
Speaker 2: According to Paul Fisher's book, Choi was paid the highest
Speaker 2: fees of any other actress, and even more than Shin,
Speaker 2: making Choi the bread winner in their house. Their whole
Speaker 2: life revolved around their films. They even optimized their home
Speaker 2: for work. They had a room where they set up
Speaker 2: an editing bed and a large projector to sit side
Speaker 2: by side and edit each movie together. At the height
Speaker 2: of Shin Studios, they employed over three hundred people and
Speaker 2: produced thirty films a year. Choi also started an acting
Speaker 2: school and mentored younger actors. Part of their success came
Speaker 2: from Shin's refusal to let anything get in the way
Speaker 2: of his vision. A contemporary said Shin would have jumped
Speaker 2: down to hell to make a film. By the early sixties,
Speaker 2: Shin Studios was at its height. They had it all
Speaker 2: well almost.
Speaker 5: There is a story that Choi said that you wanted
Speaker 5: to have children, and Shin said, why do we need children?
Speaker 5: Our films are our children, which gives you a look
Speaker 5: into how single minded he often was about filmmaking.
Speaker 2: But Choi wanted more. When she had a hard time
Speaker 2: getting pregnant, they decided to adopt. Now they really had
Speaker 2: it all, stratospheric careers, fame, prestige, and a family. Their
Speaker 2: names were always mentioned in the same breath. Every day.
Speaker 2: Shin got to peer through the camera lens and look
Speaker 2: at his two loves at once, Choi and movies. Life
Speaker 2: was picture perfect until someone of great importance took notice
Speaker 2: of them. Over the border, North Korean film was going
Speaker 2: through its own revolution, though under a very different regime.
Speaker 2: When the thirty eighth Parallel was tattooed into maps, North
Speaker 2: Korea isolated itself for most of the world. The exception
Speaker 2: was those countries who were bankrolled them to stay afloat,
Speaker 2: like China and the USSR. North Korea became an authoritarian,
Speaker 2: socialist regime. There was no freedom of speech, movement, or expression.
Speaker 2: Organized religion was restricted. Kim ilsung was the first great leader,
Speaker 2: and everything and everyone served his vision. Neighbors were encouraged
Speaker 2: to spy on one another, and history was rewritten in
Speaker 2: the regime's favor. No one was allowed to question their leader.
Speaker 2: Small infractions could be interpreted as an act against the state.
Speaker 2: Resulting in relocation to the countryside. Image was everything, and
Speaker 2: Kim Il sung knew that.
Speaker 5: So North Korean culture at the time embraced an extreme
Speaker 5: level of conformity. People had a strong sense of duty
Speaker 5: to Kim's father and figures of authority, and they valued
Speaker 5: the cove over the individual, and that was really reflected
Speaker 5: in all of the art and cinema and materials.
Speaker 7: Being created at the time.
Speaker 5: Propaganda was being created to enhance the reputation of the
Speaker 5: government and earn.
Speaker 7: Loyalty from the populace.
Speaker 5: So North Korean citizens of the time were restricted from
Speaker 5: consuming Western media, and the latest films at the time
Speaker 5: were not accessible to North Korean residents.
Speaker 2: All films were under state control, and film is the
Speaker 2: ideal medium for propaganda. It's easy to tell a message
Speaker 2: on a mass scale where everyone watches together and can
Speaker 2: watch each other.
Speaker 6: From the beginning, the leadership in North Korea understands the
Speaker 6: power of this medium and so wants to be able
Speaker 6: to harness it for the sake of educating the public,
Speaker 6: of instilling in the public a better understanding of what
Speaker 6: the guiding ideology of the North Korean state is and
Speaker 6: what it should be. That's the distinctive feature of mass
Speaker 6: culture in a socialist country. And so it's entertainment. Yes,
Speaker 6: it's showing ways for the populace to be kind of
Speaker 6: modern and to think of themselves as new national subjects
Speaker 6: after liberation or after the Korean War. But fundamentally it's
Speaker 6: there to serve as an ideological vehicle.
Speaker 2: All films are structured around the North Korean philosophy of.
Speaker 6: Jewshe So the North Korean state ideology is called cheu
Speaker 6: Che ideology, and it is translated as self reliance. I
Speaker 6: think of it as a kind of paradox or tension
Speaker 6: at the core of cheu Che ideology in the sense
Speaker 6: that it is placing responsibility for maintaining a kind of
Speaker 6: collective vision in the individual hands of each member of society.
Speaker 6: And so it does this really interesting thing of balancing
Speaker 6: out the individual and collective.
Speaker 2: Do you say bristles at the thought of asking for help?
Speaker 2: It states that every individual should hold their own and
Speaker 2: every action they take is for the collective good of
Speaker 2: North Korea alone. If the collective relies on each other,
Speaker 2: they don't need outsiders and can avoid being dependent on
Speaker 2: countries like they had been in the past.
Speaker 6: But it was also a way for North Korea to
Speaker 6: also keep itself independent or distinguishable from the Maoist communist
Speaker 6: China and the Soviets and not get overshadowed by larger
Speaker 6: nation states that seek to incorporate the North into whatever
Speaker 6: their agenda might be. And I think that come directly
Speaker 6: out of the experience of colonial occupation under Japan, and
Speaker 6: that also shapes the way that North Korea sees what
Speaker 6: South Korea is, which is as a puppet colony of
Speaker 6: the United States.
Speaker 2: Because all films were created through the lens of Jeuchet,
Speaker 2: all of the films had nearly identical plots.
Speaker 6: The dominant structure of North Korean films is this kind
Speaker 6: of trajectory of some individual person going through hardship, either
Speaker 6: because of class struggle, you know, or because of some
Speaker 6: kind of injustice that they experience, and then coming to
Speaker 6: realize through that suffering that the principles of Juche and
Speaker 6: the stewardship of the deer leader are what offer some
Speaker 6: kind of hope.
Speaker 5: So a de factor of North Korea had sad that
Speaker 5: you even have to stay for the second half of
Speaker 5: a North Korean.
Speaker 7: Film because he knew what was going to happen. There
Speaker 7: was no surprise.
Speaker 2: Although these movies objectively were boring and poorly made, there
Speaker 2: was one person who was obsessed with film, Kim Ilsong's
Speaker 2: eldest son, Kim Jong il.
Speaker 6: He is widely known to be a film buff, with
Speaker 6: a huge collection of films in a private collection that
Speaker 6: he gets to access because most North Koreans do not
Speaker 6: get to see films from the West.
Speaker 2: Although Kim Jong Eel was raised in extreme wealth and power,
Speaker 2: his childhood wasn't a happy one, so Kim Jong.
Speaker 5: Yel had a lonely upbringing. By all accounts, the people
Speaker 5: he played with or was allowed to socialize with was
Speaker 5: extremely limited, and he found solace in film. Film was
Speaker 5: something he fell in love with.
Speaker 2: So he submerged himself in films. He started a bootlegging
Speaker 2: and smug ring to bring international films into the country.
Speaker 2: He had American prisoners of war translate and voice American films.
Speaker 2: He created his own massive secret cinema layer, air conditioned
Speaker 2: and fully staffed with two hundred and fifty people all
Speaker 2: for an audience of one, and.
Speaker 5: As he got older, he amassed the collection of more
Speaker 5: than twenty thousand films. He was known as a huge
Speaker 5: fan of Elizabeth Taylor. He loved the James Bond franchise.
Speaker 2: Kim Jong eel would rather watch movies all day than
Speaker 2: partake in mandatory military service. He also had a bad
Speaker 2: temperament and lashed out at people. Kim Jong il wasn't
Speaker 2: qualified to inherit the country. Kim Ilsong couldn't place his
Speaker 2: artsy antagonistic son until a perfect situation fell into his lap.
Speaker 2: One film was made. Some sources say it was a
Speaker 2: play that risked challenging Kim ilsung's personality cult. It was
Speaker 2: interpreted as treason. The creators were sent to the mountains,
Speaker 2: and Kim il sung stormed into the studio office to
Speaker 2: lecture the remaining studio executives. After his tirade, Kim il
Speaker 2: sung asked the room if anyone had the courage to
Speaker 2: lead the propaganda and Agitation department in accordance with the
Speaker 2: party's ideologies and rules. Standing behind nearly everyone in the back,
Speaker 2: Kim Jong ill raised his hand.
Speaker 5: In this informal role of propaganda minister, he was allowed
Speaker 5: to lean into his love of film craft at the
Speaker 5: same time he was being carefully trained to take on
Speaker 5: a leadership role at a time that his father stepped aside,
Speaker 5: so in a way, it was a win win for
Speaker 5: both Kim and for his father.
Speaker 2: Once Kim jung il took the reins of the film industry,
Speaker 2: he thrived by North Korean standards.
Speaker 5: He even wrote a book of film criticism in nineteen
Speaker 5: seventy three called on the Art of Cinema. And this
Speaker 5: was not just a thin fifty page book. We are
Speaker 5: talking about a four hundred page tome. And in that
Speaker 5: book he talked about how all films should be imbued
Speaker 5: with an ideology. It advocated for film as propaganda.
Speaker 2: Kim il sung loved the films his son oversaw, but
Speaker 2: Kim Jung Ill knew something his father didn't. These films
Speaker 2: were bad. Although citizens were told that North Korean film
Speaker 2: was the best in the world and leading the film industry,
Speaker 2: Kim Jung ill had watched enough foreign films to know
Speaker 2: that his movies were not up to snuff. Kim Ill's
Speaker 2: song also wanted North Korean film to be internationally recognized
Speaker 2: so the world could one day know that North Korea
Speaker 2: is superior to every other country. But even South Korean
Speaker 2: cinema was outpacing them, and he had to do something.
Speaker 5: Kim Jong Yale felt that the only way that he
Speaker 5: could fix the North Korean film industry was with better talent,
Speaker 5: and he saw Shin sang Ok and Choi and he
Speaker 5: in South Korea, and he wanted that for his country.
Speaker 5: He wanted it in such a literal way he was
Speaker 5: willing to go to extreme lengths to get it.
Speaker 2: Despite the meteoric success of Shin Studios, Shin and Choi
Speaker 2: made movies during a time of increased censorship and authoritarian
Speaker 2: rule by the South Korean government, but Shin did what
Speaker 2: he had to do not to let anything get in
Speaker 2: the way of his films.
Speaker 5: Shin and Choi were able to rub shoulders with the
Speaker 5: country's cultural and political elite. They had a good relationship
Speaker 5: at the time with General Park.
Speaker 2: The current leader of South Korea was General Park, who
Speaker 2: had seized power via coup in nineteen sixty one. Park
Speaker 2: wanted to show the world that South Koreans embraced modernism
Speaker 2: and were culturally sophisticated, not like those tyrant socialists in
Speaker 2: the North. General Park and his wife also had a
Speaker 2: close personal relationship with Shin and Choi.
Speaker 5: And for that reason he allowed Shin and Choi with
Speaker 5: a great deal of artistic license, at least in the
Speaker 5: early going, because he wanted South Korea to be recognized
Speaker 5: on the international stage. He wanted that cultural recognition from
Speaker 5: the Western world.
Speaker 2: In the nineteen seventies, tensions rose between North and South Korea.
Speaker 2: General Park became more authoritarian, he started limiting the rights
Speaker 2: and freedoms of South Koreans.
Speaker 6: So from nineteen seventy two onwards kind of shows this
Speaker 6: censorship regime growing and kind of being much more involved
Speaker 6: in trying to well first take out anything that could
Speaker 6: potentially be perceived as political viewpoints. The guiding principle to
Speaker 6: all of his initiatives and the way that he's able
Speaker 6: to convince the Korean public to go along with it
Speaker 6: is this anti communist stance that everything that he's doing
Speaker 6: to restrict the liberties and freedoms of South Koreans is
Speaker 6: absolutely necessary in order to fend off the threat of
Speaker 6: North Korea. But my sense is that Shin made some
Speaker 6: of his best films in South Korea and kind of
Speaker 6: experienced a lot of growth and really reached the peak
Speaker 6: of his career when he had a pretty friendly relationship
Speaker 6: with the government. There's a sense that you know, Shin
Speaker 6: films and Shin Studios was getting along really well with
Speaker 6: the Pukjangi administration until it didn't.
Speaker 2: Now, South Korea was becoming as tight lipped as an
Speaker 2: estranged brother to the North, especially in the arts.
Speaker 7: Parks.
Speaker 5: Regime became much stricter around ideas in film and music
Speaker 5: and art, and there were extremely rigid censorship boards that
Speaker 5: would review films over and over again to make sure
Speaker 5: that the content was nothing that could be seen as
Speaker 5: controversial or out of step with South Korea and the
Speaker 5: South Korean government at the time.
Speaker 6: So anything that could be even in the slightest way
Speaker 6: interpreted as criticism of the government is a no go. Clearly,
Speaker 6: he is really interested in policing what people see in
Speaker 6: film and television.
Speaker 2: Regardless of politics. Shin always managed to use his political
Speaker 2: connections to get his movies made. No matter the content,
Speaker 2: Shin began to believe that he was above the rules.
Speaker 2: He continued to follow his artistic inclinations even if they
Speaker 2: went against the censorship laws. Every other time he'd broken
Speaker 2: the rules, he would just go and chat with his
Speaker 2: government friends. But times were changing.
Speaker 6: In a screening of a film, a new film, Shin
Speaker 6: had refused to take out a romantic scene, so a
Speaker 6: scene where characters kiss, and that so angered the censorship
Speaker 6: office that Shin Film's like finally lose his favor with
Speaker 6: the Pakshani administration.
Speaker 2: This time, Shin's justifications fell on deaf ears at the
Speaker 2: censorship bureau. He was also stripped of his film license.
Speaker 2: That wasn't all he lost during this time.
Speaker 5: About this time, the time that Chin Studios was beginning
Speaker 5: to decline and running into struggles with the censorship boards,
Speaker 5: was also the time that Shin and Choy's relationship was
Speaker 5: facing a lot of difficulties in friction. So in the
Speaker 5: early nineteen seventies, Shin struck up an affair with a
Speaker 5: younger actress and this became a public scandal.
Speaker 2: Up until now, Choi had always looked the other way
Speaker 2: when Shin had dalliances with other women. They were usually flings,
Speaker 2: nothing serious, But this time was different. One morning home alone,
Speaker 2: Choi picked up a film magazine and saw her husband's
Speaker 2: name in a headline. Ice ran through her veins as
Speaker 2: she scanned through the article. According to the news, Shin
Speaker 2: had just become a father. He had had an affair
Speaker 2: with a much younger actress, and she gave birth to
Speaker 2: Shin's son. Affairs were one thing but a love child.
Speaker 2: When Shin knew, Choi was crestfallen that she couldn't give
Speaker 2: birth on her own. They tried to make it work,
Speaker 2: but then the actress gave birth to a second child.
Speaker 2: This was unforgivable, and Choi separated from Shin. Now Shin
Speaker 2: had no wife, no career, no studio, no art to make.
Speaker 2: The whole life he'd built began to unspool like a
Speaker 2: film a reel tumbling to the ground. Due to the
Speaker 2: decline of shin studios, Choi's acting studio and career took
Speaker 2: a hit two life faded from technicolor to black and
Speaker 2: white for both of them. Time went by, it looked
Speaker 2: like there was no way for this former powerhouse to
Speaker 2: regain their relationship or creative status. Until one unsuspecting day
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy seven, Choi received a curious visitor, a
Speaker 2: Hong Kong businessman asked if she would be interested in
Speaker 2: directing a film in China. It was a strange request,
Speaker 2: but Choi needed a break from South Korea. Choi packed
Speaker 2: a bag and flew to Hong Kong, where the Chinese
Speaker 2: businessmen whined and dined her. When she tried to mention
Speaker 2: the film, the men changed the subject. This unnerved her.
Speaker 2: On her penultimate morning, men with sloppy long hair put
Speaker 2: a bag over her head and threw her into a boat.
Speaker 5: She described being held in the hall of a cargo
Speaker 5: ship and feeling incredible fear. She had no idea what
Speaker 5: was going on, but had been coerced onto this boat
Speaker 5: and now does not know what the future holds, what
Speaker 5: is in front of her, what is happening.
Speaker 2: For six days, Choi felt unmoored as the waves undulated
Speaker 2: beneath her. She barely ate. When the boat anchored, she
Speaker 2: was transferred to a smaller vessel. Toi was brought up
Speaker 2: on deck and then brought on shore a little ways
Speaker 2: away from the main port, still wearing the same outfit
Speaker 2: she was kidnapped in. A man in a large coat
Speaker 2: approached her with a huge smile.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming, Madam Chroi. You must be.
Speaker 7: Welcome. I am Kim Jong il.
Speaker 2: Choi musters the strength to not faint. The North Korean
Speaker 2: dictator's son is standing before her, talking to her by
Speaker 2: her name. People in North Korea hadn't even heard Kim
Speaker 2: Jong Il's voice. Yet someone whipped out a camera and
Speaker 2: took a photo. Choi tried to hide, the camera clicked,
Speaker 2: and the photo is the large, smiling silhouette of Kim
Speaker 2: Jong Il. Madame Choi, after a life of having her
Speaker 2: picture taken, buried her chin and nose into her scarf.
Speaker 2: The rest of her face is hidden under large sunglasses.
Speaker 7: So it's a bit of a whirlwind for Choi.
Speaker 5: Once she arrives in North Korea, she is brought to
Speaker 5: luxury accommodations.
Speaker 2: Choi is taken to to a villa, which is really
Speaker 2: a tacky yet glamorous house. Arrest, her handlers walked her
Speaker 2: under gaudy chandeliers to her new rooms. Her passports and
Speaker 2: South Korean identity card are taken. Her new bedroom is
Speaker 2: filled with clothing tailor to her body, along with makeup
Speaker 2: she used to use. They had been expecting her. When
Speaker 2: she went to shut the door, she noticed the doors
Speaker 2: didn't lock. She will soon find that none of them do.
Speaker 2: Inside this prison palace, her days are no longer her
Speaker 2: own and are structured around her quote re education.
Speaker 5: She's introduced to a private tutor who immediately begins talking
Speaker 5: to her about the life and achievements of Kim Ilsong.
Speaker 5: She's isolated on board and being held in these luxury
Speaker 5: accommodations for.
Speaker 7: Reasons that she doesn't understand. She doesn't know.
Speaker 5: Why she has been brought to this country, what they
Speaker 5: want of her. But she's almost like a you know,
Speaker 5: an animal in a cage, just being paraded around and
Speaker 5: has no autonomy of her own.
Speaker 2: During her re education, Choi learns fast not to question
Speaker 2: what she's taught about North Korea, no matter how fanciful
Speaker 2: and highly unlikely. Now in the belly of the beast,
Speaker 2: Choi must do her best acting. Yet there's a phone
Speaker 2: in her room where Kim jong il has a private
Speaker 2: phone line for just Choi. He frequently calls her up,
Speaker 2: asking if she's doing anything like it's a genuine question.
Speaker 5: Kim jong il is very excited by the arrival of Choi.
Speaker 5: He has been isolated his whole life in his love
Speaker 5: of cinema, and in Choi he has somebody who he respects.
Speaker 5: He respects her opinion. He wants to know her thoughts
Speaker 5: and perspective on art and entertainment. This seems a very
Speaker 5: one sided relationship that Kim has almost forced somebody to
Speaker 5: be his friend. He has the friend that he always wanted.
Speaker 2: At times, Kim Jung il calls her teacher Choi, given
Speaker 2: that she was well into her fifties by now.
Speaker 5: So Choi's behavior at the time is heavily watched over,
Speaker 5: and she has people instructing her on how to behave
Speaker 5: and act. She does not have a lot of freedom
Speaker 5: to do the thing she wants to say the things
Speaker 5: she wants. She has been taught to be totally obedient
Speaker 5: at this time.
Speaker 7: So while Kim admires her.
Speaker 5: Opinions and wants her perspectives on things in a larger sense,
Speaker 5: she's extremely limited in what she can say into.
Speaker 2: As Choi spent more time with Kim, she saw that
Speaker 2: he had all the trappings of a dictator's son. He
Speaker 2: had lavish parties surrounded by yes men and women. Choi
Speaker 2: was invited to the parties, often as if she had
Speaker 2: an option to decline.
Speaker 5: So he loved parading Choi around as arm candy, as
Speaker 5: a prize or a trophy that he had acquired.
Speaker 2: Choi's disappearance didn't go unnoticed in South Korea. Shin had
Speaker 2: known she was going to Hong Kong and was growing
Speaker 2: concerned he hadn't heard from her, so he called a
Speaker 2: friend and was told to go there himself. When he
Speaker 2: arrived in Hong Kong, he learned about her disappearance and
Speaker 2: that all of her luggage was left in her hotel room,
Speaker 2: which gave the impression she would return.
Speaker 5: This was not somebody who had escaped, so Shin believed
Speaker 5: that she had been kidnapped or something awful had happened.
Speaker 5: And keep in mind they had children. They had children
Speaker 5: who were wondering where their mother was.
Speaker 2: Hin had to go to the United States for a spell,
Speaker 2: but returned to Hong Kong to investigate, and unfortunately he
Speaker 2: met a similar fate.
Speaker 5: Chin came to Hong Kong and he ended up being
Speaker 5: betrayed by a friend who is an agent for the
Speaker 5: North Korean government.
Speaker 2: His kidnapping was a repeat of his wife's. His days
Speaker 2: were broken up into hours of ideological training, lunch, and
Speaker 2: a nap. The latter half of his day was spent
Speaker 2: watching North Korean films that Kim Jong Il specifically requested
Speaker 2: he watch. For some reason, the films were so bad.
Speaker 2: Shin preferred the ideological training, unlike Choi, who used her
Speaker 2: acting chops to survive. Shin only knew action. He was
Speaker 2: not used to someone else directing his life. He tried
Speaker 2: to escape twice. When he was recaptured the second time,
Speaker 2: I'm the North Korean to throw him in a packed
Speaker 2: detention center.
Speaker 5: He was kept in that detention center for over three years,
Speaker 5: where he was in a cell so small he could
Speaker 5: barely lie down. He was forced to undergo extreme re education,
Speaker 5: and he lost a great deal of weight. His health
Speaker 5: suffered quite a bit during that time.
Speaker 2: With nothing to do, all Shin could do was think.
Speaker 2: He relived and rewatched every mistake he had ever made
Speaker 2: in his life, his affairs, his children, his career, and
Speaker 2: hurting choy and mixed in this stew of regret, he
Speaker 2: began to mentally re edit all of his films as
Speaker 2: he stared at the same spot in his cell every day,
Speaker 2: he redirected his movies in his head, played them on repeat, reshoot, retrimmed,
Speaker 2: and reorganized each one to have a stronger impact. If
Speaker 2: only he could get one more chance. Then, one day,
Speaker 2: after years of living in a deplorable detention center, Shin
Speaker 2: was released and told to get ready to meet the
Speaker 2: dictator's son. Over the same three years, only the seasons
Speaker 2: changed for Choi. When she asked to be reunited with
Speaker 2: her family, she was told she would see them once
Speaker 2: the two Koreas reunite. As the world continued to spin
Speaker 2: around the sun, she quietly celebrated each of her children's
Speaker 2: birthdays to herself. She often went into her bathroom and
Speaker 2: turned down the faucet so no one could hear her weeping.
Speaker 2: Her days were spent writing long congratulatory letters to both
Speaker 2: Kim Jong il and his father, thanking them for showing
Speaker 2: her the light and superior ways of North Korea. In
Speaker 2: the moments when she put down her pen, she continued
Speaker 2: to rack her brain as to why she was here.
Speaker 2: One unsuspecting night, She's invited to another one of Kim's
Speaker 2: lavish parties. When she arrives, she notices that there's something
Speaker 2: extra about this party. There are more people, more food,
Speaker 2: louder music, and everyone is congratulating her for reasons she
Speaker 2: doesn't understand. In all of the merriment, the guest of
Speaker 2: honor walks in the music stopped. A woman grabbed Choi
Speaker 2: by the arm and began to bring her over to
Speaker 2: the guest of honor. A thin and frail man Choi's
Speaker 2: heart drops to her stomach. It takes her a moment
Speaker 2: to recognize him, but she knew this man, she knew
Speaker 2: him very well.
Speaker 5: That's the first time that they are seeing each other
Speaker 5: in about five years, so it's hard to imagine just
Speaker 5: the shock of seeing a ghost, someone that you weren't
Speaker 5: sure was a lie, that you had no idea where
Speaker 5: they were, and somebody who you had built a life with.
Speaker 5: They are suddenly appearing in this foreign land at a
Speaker 5: party by Kim Jong Il, and I think there was
Speaker 5: a sense of relief to know that one another was
Speaker 5: all right.
Speaker 2: Choi was left standing in front of Shin. The room
Speaker 2: went quiet. Kim Jong Il looks from one to the other.
Speaker 2: He tells them to hug each other. For heaven's sake,
Speaker 2: Why are they both just standing there? Then Choi rests
Speaker 2: her head on Shin's shoulder the way she used to,
Speaker 2: and feels the familiar groove of his collarbone, the safety
Speaker 2: of his chest. Despite the bankruptcy and the affairs and
Speaker 2: the love children and now kidnapping, the world falls away
Speaker 2: and they hold on to each other for dear life.
Speaker 2: The room irrupts in applause when Johng Ill announces that
Speaker 2: mister Shin will be his film advisor. The party continued
Speaker 2: for hours. When the party was over, they were driven
Speaker 2: back to another prison palace. They would be living together
Speaker 2: again with their handlers.
Speaker 7: Of course.
Speaker 2: When they arrived, they entered their private bathroom. Choi turned
Speaker 2: on the faucets, and they tentatively began to recap the
Speaker 2: last five years. At first, Shin was apprehensive of Choi,
Speaker 2: she seemed to have good relations with the North Koreans
Speaker 2: while at the party. Then Choi equipped why the movie
Speaker 2: director can't even recognize acting when he sees it and laughed.
Speaker 2: Regardless of their past, at least they weren't alone anymore.
Speaker 2: The last thing they discussed while the water was still
Speaker 2: running was outlining not a movie but an escape. The
Speaker 2: next morning, Kim Jong Il put them to work.
Speaker 7: For six months.
Speaker 5: He had them watch four five films a day and
Speaker 5: critique them. He gave them access to his entire film library,
Speaker 5: and he engaged them in deep conversations about film and art.
Speaker 5: So now he has two friends and he is absolutely
Speaker 5: over the moon.
Speaker 2: And Choi and Shin finally learned the real reason they
Speaker 2: were kidnapped. First, Kim believed making movies would help fund
Speaker 2: the economy. Despite these opulent parties, the regime was actually
Speaker 2: in decline. The North Korean economy hadn't bounced back enough
Speaker 2: to repay the loans they had received from China and
Speaker 2: the USSR. Kim Jong Il wanted to maintain his lavish lifestyle.
Speaker 2: Amongst many of his devious plans to boost the economy,
Speaker 2: Kim Jong Il bill believed that film revenue from international
Speaker 2: distribution could be one way.
Speaker 5: And Kim Jong Il's goal is to have North Korean
Speaker 5: cinema recognized on an international scale, and he knows a
Speaker 5: propaganda film is not going to be what creates that
Speaker 5: fame and recognition from you know, from both the East
Speaker 5: and the West.
Speaker 2: Kim Jong Il wanted to be on par with Hollywood
Speaker 2: and Western films. Choi and Shin were left to square
Speaker 2: with a leader of a hermit country who wanted international attention. Now,
Speaker 2: Shin and Choi began the balancing act of outlining scripts
Speaker 2: and planning their escape. The couple researched and prepared for
Speaker 2: their films around the country. They had bodyguards with them
Speaker 2: everywhere they went, and in these tours around the country,
Speaker 2: Shin and Choi vi did a rare department store that
Speaker 2: sold Western items and managed to purchase a tape recorder.
Speaker 2: Shin realized he could use it to his advantage. They
Speaker 2: could record Kim and get him to admit that he
Speaker 2: had planned to kidnap them, and that's just what they
Speaker 2: do secretly at a meeting with him. This was obviously
Speaker 2: incredibly risky behavior. Recording the North Korean party leaders is
Speaker 2: a death sentence, but the couple can't have the outside world,
Speaker 2: especially South Korean leaders, thinking they came here willingly. Choi
Speaker 2: kept the recorder in her bag. She reached down and
Speaker 2: as quietly as she could, pressed record. As Kim Jong
Speaker 2: ale began monologing, He discussed the problems with North Korean
Speaker 2: films and his knowledge of international films. He also admitted
Speaker 2: that he plotted to kidnap them without prompting. He thought
Speaker 2: he could only get to Shin if he captured Choi first.
Speaker 2: They kept up their appearances, laughing and smiling at Kim's
Speaker 2: jokes as they recorded. When the meeting finished, Shin and
Speaker 2: Choi played back the tapes with the faucet running in
Speaker 2: their bathroom. With this tape, they could prove they didn't
Speaker 2: defect to North Korea, but in the immediate term, Shin
Speaker 2: and Choi's first task was to make a movie for
Speaker 2: Kim Il Sung's birthday April fifteenth. It was late October.
Speaker 2: They had six months to go.
Speaker 5: What was so fascinating for me is that any act
Speaker 5: of creation, any book you write or film you make,
Speaker 5: it is such a deeply personal act. It's an act
Speaker 5: that requires safe mental, physical, and psychological space. So the
Speaker 5: idea of creating something under duress, having your life being
Speaker 5: almost dangled over you while you were making a film
Speaker 5: is such a strange and foreign concept that very few
Speaker 5: people have ever experienced.
Speaker 7: What is that like? How do you make art that
Speaker 7: is being coerced.
Speaker 2: Under duress or not? Shin couldn't help but feel like
Speaker 2: himself again when he got behind the camera.
Speaker 5: Kim respected Shin enjoy so much that he allowed them
Speaker 5: a level of creative control that he had never allowed
Speaker 5: for any North Korean director. He was not micromanaging in
Speaker 5: the same way, and he trusted their vision. He had
Speaker 5: seen the way that they had catapulted the South Korean
Speaker 5: film industry, and he wanted the same thing for North Korea.
Speaker 5: And he knew that he was not able to helicopter
Speaker 5: over them in the same way if those were the
Speaker 5: aspirations that he had in North Korea. He's given a
Speaker 5: great deal of license to create what he wants and
Speaker 5: given all the resources to create.
Speaker 2: It even leaving the country.
Speaker 5: Kim's desire for cultural superiority and international recognition is so
Speaker 5: great that he begins breaking his own rules. So Shin
Speaker 5: and Choi were allowed to travel internationally, and they were
Speaker 5: allowed to travel on the communist side of the Iron Curtain.
Speaker 5: All of this is happening in the climate of the
Speaker 5: Cold War at the time.
Speaker 2: Under Kim Jong Il's request, they set up shop in
Speaker 2: eastern Europe and started rolling. Shin had officially jumped down
Speaker 2: to Hell in order to make a film. Six months later,
Speaker 2: their first film, Emissary of No Return, delighted Kim Jong
Speaker 2: Ill and global audiences, even winning an international award. Kim
Speaker 2: Jong Il showered Toy and Shin with gifts and gave
Speaker 2: them full control over future films.
Speaker 5: And that means money is no object. If he wants
Speaker 5: a thousand extras, Kim Jong yiel will deliver them. He
Speaker 5: routinely would send members conscripted in the army to serve
Speaker 5: as extras in Shin's films. He wanted a train to
Speaker 5: explode in one of his films, so Kim Jong yeale
Speaker 5: delivered a train filled with dynamite. So whatever Shin wanted,
Speaker 5: whatever Choi wanted, Kim delivered for them.
Speaker 6: It's like that scale of production was possible in the
Speaker 6: North Korean context because he had all of the resources
Speaker 6: of the government behind him.
Speaker 2: Over the next three years, Shin and Choi pumped out
Speaker 2: six more films, and in the strangeness of this time,
Speaker 2: Choi and Shin fell back into a similar rhythm that
Speaker 2: mirrored their previous life. They began to fall back in love.
Speaker 2: Their days were filled with writing, editing, coaching, acting, and directing.
Speaker 2: Like in their early days, the North Korean public loved
Speaker 2: all of their films. With each success, Chin asked for
Speaker 2: a bigger staff and imported goods from East Germany. The
Speaker 2: couple could travel as much as they wanted within the
Speaker 2: walls of the Iron Block.
Speaker 5: So they were able to travel to places like Moscow
Speaker 5: and Czechoslovakia and enter their films in competitions. Like Kim,
Speaker 5: Shin and Choi had a lot of cognitive dissonance at
Speaker 5: this time, they are being granted the freedom that they
Speaker 5: were yearning for. In South Korea, they have the ability
Speaker 5: to make the films of their dreams.
Speaker 2: When Choi and Shin were in Eastern Europe and the USSR,
Speaker 2: they demonstrated pride in their work, which made the Western
Speaker 2: world question their whole story about them being kidnapped.
Speaker 5: This is also the first time that South Korea is
Speaker 5: seeing Choi and Shin. They did not know what happened
Speaker 5: to them or where they went, and this creates a
Speaker 5: ton of speculation.
Speaker 7: And rumor in South Korea at the time, and.
Speaker 5: What most people believe was that they defected, that they defected.
Speaker 7: To North Korea.
Speaker 5: So now Shin and Joy, formerly leading lights, formerly stars
Speaker 5: of South Korean cinema, are now persona on Grada. They
Speaker 5: are now widely despised by the South Korean public.
Speaker 2: The Western world started doubting their loyalties.
Speaker 6: And I think that, yeah, Shin, there are a lot
Speaker 6: of questions about what his political ideologies actually were and
Speaker 6: how he really felt about one regime or another, and
Speaker 6: I think we'll never be able to know that for sure. Yes,
Speaker 6: it's a kidnapping, was it a defection. There's not a
Speaker 6: lot of clarity. So Shin gets to make his big
Speaker 6: you know, spectacles, and Kim gets his kind of tool mouthpiece.
Speaker 2: Shin and Troy maintained that escape was always in the
Speaker 2: back of their minds, no matter how gratifying the art
Speaker 2: process was.
Speaker 5: So in one hand they're very satisfied. On the other hand,
Speaker 5: they are still captive. They can't see their children, they
Speaker 5: can't travel to many parts of the world, and they
Speaker 5: knew that this was not a long term or sustainable situation.
Speaker 2: The height of their fame in North Korea was their
Speaker 2: monster movie Paul Gasari, a North Korean ripoff of Godzilla.
Speaker 5: This was the most expensive film that North Korea had
Speaker 5: ever produced. It included thousands of extras and was a
Speaker 5: huge hit. Kim Jong Yel loved it, and due to
Speaker 5: the success of that, they were able to make a
Speaker 5: pitch for an even larger film. They wanted to make
Speaker 5: an epic about Genghis Khan, and they knew that they
Speaker 5: would need more financing for this, so Kim allowed them
Speaker 5: to go to Vienna to meet with financiers for this
Speaker 5: speculative project, and that's where they hatch theirs.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty six, Shin and Choi cashed in all
Speaker 2: of their chips. They convinced Kim Jong Ill to let
Speaker 2: them set up their European studio in Vienna. At the time,
Speaker 2: Austria was explicitly neutral in the contest between East and West,
Speaker 2: so being in Vienna could give them enough wiggle room
Speaker 2: to slip under the Iron curtain altogether. Shin and Choi
Speaker 2: arrive at their hotel in the city center with their bodyguards.
Speaker 2: When their bodyguards aren't looking, Shin slips a piece of
Speaker 2: paper to a hotel employee. It says who they are,
Speaker 2: that they're kidnapped by the North Koreans, and to please
Speaker 2: send help from the US embassy.
Speaker 5: Normally, whenever Shin and Choi left the country, they would
Speaker 5: have guards and minders and people making sure that they
Speaker 5: didn't escape. But over time it became a little bit
Speaker 5: more lax, and they created the pretense or lie of
Speaker 5: a journalistic interview. So Shin and Choi made up a
Speaker 5: story about an interview with a journalist so they were
Speaker 5: able to gain some privacy from their bodyguards.
Speaker 2: Shin then calls an old friend, a Japanese reporter Inoki,
Speaker 2: living in Vienna, and tells him to be ready the
Speaker 2: next day with a car waiting outside their hotel. Shin
Speaker 2: then tells their bodyguards that they had an interview with
Speaker 2: a journalist which could help convince the Western world that
Speaker 2: they were in North Korea by choice. Wink wink, nuge nudge.
Speaker 2: The next morning, Shin and Choi have the bodyguards over
Speaker 2: for breakfast in their hotel room to make appearances. Then
Speaker 2: at twelve thirty, Shin and Choi go outside to meet Aenoki.
Speaker 2: They notice their bodyguards idling outside. Shin spots Anoki standing
Speaker 2: by a taxi. Shin and Choi, as casually as they can,
Speaker 2: muster walk down the street at a seemingly normal pace.
Speaker 2: Then once they get close to the car, Shin shoves
Speaker 2: both the reporter and his wife into the taxi, slams
Speaker 2: the door, and they book it. In the car, Shin
Speaker 2: tells Anoki they have been kidnapped by the North Koreans
Speaker 2: and need to make it to the American embassy. As
Speaker 2: Shin tries to spit out the situation, Choi notices in
Speaker 2: the rear view mirror that a white taxi is making
Speaker 2: every turn. As they do it, they tell their driver
Speaker 2: to go around in circles to try to lose the
Speaker 2: taxi the taxi's radio speakers come on. The white taxi
Speaker 2: is calling to ask where they went. Inoki handed their
Speaker 2: taxi driver wads of cash and told their driver to
Speaker 2: lie to the other taxi tell them they went the
Speaker 2: other way. They were only a few minutes away from
Speaker 2: the embassy. Finally they arrived at the bottom of a hill.
Speaker 2: There's too much traffic for the taxi to go through,
Speaker 2: so Choi and Shin jump out of the car and
Speaker 2: sprint towards the embassy and burst through the doors. The
Speaker 2: couple pants and sweats and tries to explain who they are.
Speaker 2: American diplomats escort them outside and bring them to a
Speaker 2: safe house. When they enter the safe house, Choi cries
Speaker 2: and falls into her husband's arms. International papers blew up
Speaker 2: when the news broke about Shin and Choi. In public accounts,
Speaker 2: the North Korean claimed that Chin and Choi had come
Speaker 2: to North Korea voluntarily and were now kidnapped by the
Speaker 2: South Korean government. Who knows what Kim Jong ill thought
Speaker 2: after they escaped.
Speaker 5: So this is the first time that Chin and Choi
Speaker 5: can tell their own story, and they are brought to
Speaker 5: the United States and they are held in protective housing
Speaker 5: in Virginia for several years.
Speaker 2: Now, after decades of making fiction stories and propaganda, all
Speaker 2: they cared about was telling the truth.
Speaker 5: This is a time that they began writing their memoirs
Speaker 5: and telling the true story behind their kidnapping. And fortunately
Speaker 5: for Chin and Choi, they had been recording a lot
Speaker 5: of their conversations with Kim. There were many people who
Speaker 5: believe that they had voluntarily defected, and because of this
Speaker 5: recordings that in many cases Choi had captured holding the
Speaker 5: recorder in her purse. They were able to set the
Speaker 5: record straight.
Speaker 2: They eventually moved to Los Angeles, a filmmaker's dream. This
Speaker 2: was the third time Shin tried to rebuild Shin Studios
Speaker 2: from scratch, but they couldn't catch a break. Hollywood operated
Speaker 2: much differently than the film industry in Korea.
Speaker 5: They found it much more difficult than they expected, and
Speaker 5: Shin did have a little bit of success. He directed
Speaker 5: three films. People may know them as a Three Ninjas franchise.
Speaker 5: He directed them under the alias of Simon Sheen, so
Speaker 5: when you look at the credits, it's not Shin sang
Speaker 5: ok on there. But these were small hits. They were
Speaker 5: low budget films that had a fair amount of success,
Speaker 5: but it wasn't what Shin wanted to do. He wanted
Speaker 5: to make epics, He wanted to make artistic masterpieces, and
Speaker 5: he was forced to make sequels for children's films, so
Speaker 5: it was not his ideal situation.
Speaker 2: When Shin and Choi talked to Hollywoo with producers about
Speaker 2: turning their own lives into a movie, the producers were
Speaker 2: hesitant to have three Asian leads. In nineteen ninety nine,
Speaker 2: Shin and Choi returned to South Korea and lived out
Speaker 2: the rest of their lives together. Looking back, there seemed
Speaker 2: to be conflicting feelings about their time in North Korea.
Speaker 2: Although they insisted that they were kidnapped, was it really
Speaker 2: all that bad?
Speaker 5: Shin regarded his time in North Korea as a real
Speaker 5: artistic flourishing so the film run Away, for instance, he
Speaker 5: considers his masterpiece. He considers a film that he made
Speaker 5: while in captivity the.
Speaker 7: Best film that he had ever made. So he left
Speaker 7: with a.
Speaker 5: Certain measure of reluctance if he could somehow take that
Speaker 5: artistic freedom, that amount of resources that he had been
Speaker 5: given in North Korea and bring that to a place
Speaker 5: where he could live his life freely. I think that
Speaker 5: would have been the ideal situation for him.
Speaker 2: When they returned to South Korea, they did go through
Speaker 2: questioning by the government and in the media. People wanted
Speaker 2: to make sure they hadn't willingly defected. Shin died in
Speaker 2: two thousand and six and Choi passed twelve years later.
Speaker 2: Obituaries written by American and South Korean papers referenced the kidnapping,
Speaker 2: solidifying the story that they had been abducted. Although they
Speaker 2: didn't exactly go out with a bang, their wider impacts
Speaker 2: are still felt in South Korean cinema.
Speaker 6: I think that Shin's work, and then you know his
Speaker 6: partnership with Chin, the way that they again ranged across
Speaker 6: so many different genres and showed that they could adapt
Speaker 6: story forms and settings like in dementia in Western to
Speaker 6: the Korean context and make really compelling films. It's basically
Speaker 6: exactly what the South Korean film industry has become famous
Speaker 6: worldwide for doing. They were ahead of their time, and
Speaker 6: so I think that his influence it can't be overstated.
Speaker 6: It's recognizable everywhere in the South crane industry, and then
Speaker 6: across the region too. I think Asian cinema is part
Speaker 6: of that as well.
Speaker 3: What a story.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Paul Gasari, come on now, Oh my.
Speaker 2: God, this love story.
Speaker 1: I can't believe they came together. And the daring escape.
Speaker 1: Were you kidding me? The foot chase? Oh you're so
Speaker 1: right down up top? This is a movie.
Speaker 2: It's like you could see it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so, Zaren, I know you knew this story because
Speaker 3: you and Elizabeth covered this on Ridiculous Crime. Is there
Speaker 3: any other color that we had to leave out of
Speaker 3: this version?
Speaker 1: I would just the only thing that we've fixated on
Speaker 1: in the story that we kind of didn't cover in
Speaker 1: this version was the abductors themselves were a funny group,
Speaker 1: and that nobody could ever get the number right, so
Speaker 1: always like it was like three to four guys. We
Speaker 1: just kept laughing about how humans have a hard time
Speaker 1: counting past three. You get to like four, I know
Speaker 1: it's three or four, maybe five, I don't know. So
Speaker 1: the idea that these abductors, who we pointed out, they
Speaker 1: both get abducted, but they get abducted in such strange ways,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you show up in North Korea,
Speaker 1: Like how bizarre is that? Is a life moment like,
Speaker 1: so I would say that was the part that we
Speaker 1: fixated on. But other than that, it's the exact same
Speaker 1: story and it's so beautiful that I loved this rendition
Speaker 1: because we spent more time on the love story. I
Speaker 1: love this love story. This made me so happy totally.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the love story I'm talking about
Speaker 1: is Kim jong Ill and Paul Gasari the monster. That's
Speaker 1: what I meant.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that's the real romance of this episode.
Speaker 1: Also, by the way, Paul Gasari I kept noticing, but
Speaker 1: this time I didn't notice it before. Sounds all like
Speaker 1: Paul Gasol the form of basketball players. I kept picturing
Speaker 1: a Paul Gasol inside the Godzilla style monster suit. So
Speaker 1: that was just fun for me.
Speaker 3: I knew this story because going way back and the
Speaker 3: Mental Floss magazine print. Oh yeah, someone had written this
Speaker 3: as a feature about Kim Jong Ill and the filmmakers
Speaker 3: he kidnapped and the Godzilla movie. He always wanted to
Speaker 3: make something like that, And I remember the night that
Speaker 3: Kim jong Ill died, we had a meeting, like frantic
Speaker 3: phone meeting about like, wow, we should put something up
Speaker 3: about Kim Jong Ill. What do we got and then like, well,
Speaker 3: I guess this is as good as story as any.
Speaker 3: Not sure how to talk about a brutal dictator on
Speaker 3: his death, but this felt like, well, people should know
Speaker 3: this story. So I'm glad we continue to get this
Speaker 3: story out to more people in more elaborate ways.
Speaker 1: And that is a proper perspective for a dictator is
Speaker 1: to kind of poke fun at them.
Speaker 3: Any very special characters on either of your radars.
Speaker 4: I will do the Godzilla monster. Oh yeah, good, call
Speaker 4: the monster itself yeah.
Speaker 1: And following in that, I picked the filmmaker, but not
Speaker 1: when he was in either South or North Korea, but
Speaker 1: when he was in America and known as Simon Sheen
Speaker 1: and he directed the Three Ninjas franchise. I had no
Speaker 1: idea that the director of the Three ninjasranchise had once
Speaker 1: been kidnap by Kim Jong Il. I was like, oh man,
Speaker 1: this changes the whole movie.
Speaker 3: How about their friend and Nooki, the Japanese journalist, She's
Speaker 3: just like, helps bribe the cab driver, I mean that guy.
Speaker 4: Got them out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the cab driver, because cab driver is going
Speaker 3: about his day and this jumps into your cab.
Speaker 1: That was and you're an international intrigue. This one was
Speaker 1: interesting on casting, by the way, because I had a
Speaker 1: prizing number of Korean actors that I wanted to cast
Speaker 1: in this. I thought it was gonna be a challenge,
Speaker 1: but I was like, oh, man, for Kim il sung,
Speaker 1: you gotta go with Choi Min sick from Old Boy
Speaker 1: from the Chi Parkers Old Boy, right, he can nail it.
Speaker 1: And then for Kim Jong il the Son, I thought,
Speaker 1: have a little more fun with this. You go Bobby
Speaker 1: Lee from Mad TV or the co host of podcast
Speaker 1: Bad Friends. I thought Bobby Lee would be great. And
Speaker 1: then for the South Korean director Shin Song Oh, I
Speaker 1: was thinking John cho He was in Cowboy Bebop and
Speaker 1: so I thought he's kind of the cool version of
Speaker 1: what you want for that and Elsie he could play
Speaker 1: a lover. And then for his wife, the South Korean
Speaker 1: actress Choi yun yi Kim yun jin who played son
Speaker 1: on the TV show Lost If you remember that at all,
Speaker 1: so I thought she would be great. She has the
Speaker 1: right vibe that I could not really cast Paul Gasari
Speaker 1: other than the Paul Gasol inside the suit. So that's
Speaker 1: all I got.
Speaker 4: You know, I love that you pulled John Choe because
Speaker 4: I'm like, team put John Choe in more romantic comedies.
Speaker 4: John cho it was in a very short lived TV
Speaker 4: show called Selfie that no one watched but me, but
Speaker 4: it was sort of like a rom com TV show,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, this man needs to be a romantic lead.
Speaker 4: And now that he is like a little older, like
Speaker 4: making the director, let's see that relationship.
Speaker 1: I'm so into that call also for a very special character.
Speaker 1: I also like the US Prisoners of War having to
Speaker 1: do voiceover work and translating the plots of Elizabeth Taylor films.
Speaker 1: I thought that was just.
Speaker 3: Great, some good roles for the film version, which definitely
Speaker 3: now has to happen.
Speaker 8: Very special episodes is made by some very special people.
Speaker 8: Today's episode was written by Adrian Bain and edited by
Speaker 8: Carmen Borka Korea.
Speaker 1: At Wondermedia Network.
Speaker 8: The show is hosted by Danis Schwartz, Zaren Burnett, and
Speaker 8: Jason English. Our producer is Josh Fisher. Editing and sound
Speaker 8: design by Chris Childs. Additional editing by Mary Doo, mixing
Speaker 8: and mastering by Chris Childs. Original music by Elise McCoy.
Speaker 8: Back checking by Austin Thompson Show logo by Lucy Quintonia.
Speaker 8: The executive producer is Jason English. If you want to
Speaker 8: email the show, can reach us at Very Special Episodes
Speaker 8: at gmail dot com. Very Special Episodes is a production
Speaker 8: of iHeart.
Speaker 2: Podcasts and thanks for listening. Could you do us a
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