A Kim Jong-Il Production

December 22, 2014
North Korea is a nightmarish movie theater without an exit in this gripping true-life thriller. Fischer, a documentary filmmaker, recounts the 1977–78 abductions of South Korea’s leading director, Shin Sang-Ok, and his ex-wife, the movie star Choi Eun-Hee. The two were abducted on the orders of North Korea’s movie-obsessed crown prince Kim Jong-Il, who wanted them to upgrade the government’s wooden propaganda films with pizzazz and higher production values. The story combines harrowing hardships—Choi endured house arrest and constant Kafkaesque “reeducation” exercises; Shin was starved and tortured in prison after escape attempts—with dizzying reversals of fortune as the couple are rehabilitated to make hit films under Kim’s sponsorship and later plot a nerve-racking flight to the West. In Fischer’s vivid close-up, Kim emerges as “the archetypal film producer” writ monstrous: charming and lordly, basking in parties with Joy Brigade starlets and groveling underlings, full of tasteless visions, and ruthless when crossed. (He ordered a mistress who two-timed him to be shot in front of thousands of spectators, including her husband.) Fischer’s entertaining narrative paints an arresting portrait of a North Korean “theater state,” forced to enact the demented script of a sociopathic tyrant. Photos.

Starred review from December 1, 2014
Exhaustively researched, highly engrossing chronicle of the outrageous abduction of a pair of well-known South Korean filmmakers by the nefarious network of North Korea's Kim Jong-Il.Filmmaker Fischer carefully presents a well-documented story of the kidnapping of South Korean actress Choi Eun-Hee and her former husband, film producer Shin Sang-Ok, amid some suspicion that the two secretly defected in order to jump-start their stalling careers (though the author provides ample evidence to the contrary). After a stunningly successful moviemaking collaboration that spanned the mid-1950s until their divorce in 1974, Choi and Shin had gone their own ways by 1978. Choi was raising their two adopted children and mostly teaching acting while Shin saw his studio stripped of its license due to his wheeling and dealing. Meanwhile, Kim Jong-Il-a film fanatic who cleverly insinuated himself as the sole standing heir to his father, Democratic People's Republic of Korea founder Kim Il-Sung, via his richly propagandistic output by the Korea Film Studio-craved validation and expertise in order to be taken seriously in the international community. Hence the scheme to kidnap the two reigning South Korean film idols, re-educate them and allow them all they needed to refashion the North Korean film industry. This is just what happened: The two stars were lured to Hong Kong-first Choi in January 1978, then Shin in September-and hustled onto a freighter and taken to Pyongyang. Isolated, imprisoned in luxury homes (Shin spent two years in prison for trying to escape), summoned periodically to Kim's birthday parties and expected to drink heavily and be merry, the two were eventually thrown together in 1983 and directed to reignite their collaboration and marriage. Seven films later, including the Godzilla-like Pulgasari (1985)-they took asylum in the U.S. Embassy in Vienna. A meticulously detailed feat of rare footage inside the DPRK's propaganda machinery.

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Starred review from February 15, 2015

In 1978, South Korean actress Choi Eun-Hee and her movie director husband, Shin Sang-Ok, disappeared. Five years later they reemerged as North Korean filmmakers. In his first book, film producer Fischer documents Choi and Shin's lives before, during, and after their years of captivity in North Korea. Initially both of them were held separately in luxurious surroundings, unaware that the other had also been kidnapped. After repeated escape attempts, Shin was imprisoned in horrendous circumstances. Eventually both realized that the only way they could ever escape would be to win the trust of their kidnapper, Kim Jong-Il. During a trip to Vienna in 1986, the two managed to elude their minders and sought refuge at the U.S. embassy. Readers will learn about the history of filmmaking in both Koreas, and how Kim Jong-Il used films to help guarantee his position as successor to his father, Kim Il-Sung. VERDICT By examining the lives of these two extraordinary people, Fischer sheds light on politics, society, and culture in secretive North Korea. This enjoyable read is highly recommended for North Korea watchers as well as movie aficionados.--Joshua Wallace, Ranger Coll., TX

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from February 1, 2015
Producer Fischer exposes the celluloid source of North Korea's most surreal brutality in this confounding chronicle of Kim Jong-Il's movie fanaticism. This scheming, ruthless, luxury-loving son of dictator Kim Il-Sung immersed himself in an enormous secret collection of Western movies, cranked out propaganda films featuring a curious mix of violence and schmaltz, and forced the citizenry to watch them. Hungry for international recognition and short on talent, Kim Jong-Il had his henchmen abduct the brightest stars of South Korean cinema, pioneering actress Choi Eun-ee and director Shin Sang-Ok, her unfaithful husband. Fischer recounts with vim and precision the astounding details of their kidnappings, long solitary incarcerations, surprise reunion, perpetual surveillance, and coercion into making films that did, indeed, win prestigious awards, until their audacious escape. Fischer matches keen cinematic analysis with an unusually cogent and vivid brief history of the two postwar Koreas. The most compelling facets of this book of astonishments are Fischer's insights into the relationships between Choi, Shin, and their diabolical captor and Fischer's canny perception of how Kim Jong-Il turned his oppressed, corrupt, and starving country into one vast theatrical production of fantasy, deceit, and terror, scripting lives of fear, ignorance, obedience, and deprivation. Gripping and revelatory, Fischer's true-life thriller provides a portal into the mad tyranny of North Korea.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

Starred review from April 27, 2015
Actor Park, a cast member of the sketch comedy show In Living Color during the early 1990s, brings his considerable talent to the audio edition of Fischer’s book. Fischer recounts the kidnapping of the South Korean film director Shin Sang-Ok and actress Choi Eun-Hee, both powerful entertainment figures who were forced to make movies for North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il during eight years of captivity beginning in the late ’70s. Fischer sets the stage with extensive historical context covering both sides of the 38th parallel and then shifts into James Bond mode, with a roller-coaster ride of covert intrigue. Park, an American actor with Korean heritage, successfully navigates the minefield between presenting the over-the-top elements of the “hermit kingdom” dictatorship without descending into one-dimensional parody. He gives the individuals inside the isolated nation—ranging from prison guards and household servants to actors and studio bureaucrats—individual attention in his performance rather than simply playing stock villain caricatures. The result will keep listeners on the edge of their seats. A Flatiron hardcover.