KIdnapped To Make Movies In North Korea

Shin San-ok and Choi Eun-hee with Kim Jong-il

It has the makings of a bizarre movie script, and one day will probably be made into a movie. But unlike the puerile comedy of the recent controversial movie about North Korea, The Interview (2014), the story of South Korean movie director and his movie star wife's abduction by agents of the North Korean regime is true. In 1978, the then Supreme Leader in waiting, wanted to kick-start a movie industry in the Peoples Democratic Republic of North Korea, and so arranged for the kidnapping of the famed director and star of South Korea. 

Kim Jong-il was an obsessive movie fan, said to have thousands of movies he watched avidly. He even had propaganda painting done of him directing movies, and in 1973 wrote a book called On The Art Of Film. Shin San-ok and in 1978 his then ex-wife Choi Eun-hee had been the darlings of the early South Korean movie industry. He'd been described as "the Orson Welles of South Korea." Eun-hee travelled to Hong Kong to discuss a part in a movie she'd been offered, but simply disappeared. San-ok, worried for his ex-wife followed after her, and fell into the trap set-up by the North Korean regime. The couple wouldn't be reunited for another 5 years.

Eventually brought back together at a dinner in Pyongyang, after San-ok had spent years in a North Korea prison for an escape attempt, Kim Jong-il lavished money and resources on them, under his plan to make the North Korean movie industry a great propaganda machine for his country. In total San-ok made seven movies under the watchful eye of Kim Jong-il, who acted as executive producer. But the one movie that stands out is the 1985 Godzilla style monster movie Pulgasari. Loosely based on medieval Korean folklore, it tells the story of a giant monster that leads a farmers revolt on the king. But the monster eventually turns on the people, until a peasant girl pleads with him to stop. Finding his conscience, Pulgasari explodes into a thousand pieces, and gives birth to a new "regime". Sorry I mean, "monster". There is an allegory hidden in the wonderfully terrible movie. It can be read, that even under the strict "guidance" of Kim Jong-il, San-ok was making a political statement about the North Korean regime. That the monster Pulgasari was a metaphor for the Kim dynasty in the country.

Along with San-ok, the regime managed to persuade well known Kaijū movie makers from Japan to come to North Korea to help in the making of Pulgasari. Even convincing actor Kempachiro Satsuma, the second person to wear the Godzilla suit, to play the part of Pulgasari. The ranks of the production team swelled to around 700 people, and the movie seemed destined for some kind of international success. 

So much so, that in 1986 Shin San-ok and Choi Eun-hee were allowed to travelled overseas to promote the movie. They went to the Vienna film festival, and a plan of escape formed in their heads. With the help of a Japanese film critic friend who they met for lunch, they managed to abscond from under the watchful eye of North Korean agents, and make it to the United States embassy. Thus ended the ambitions of Kim Jong-il to create a movie industry of international standing in North Korea, and Pulgasari disappeared into the shadows of cult film history. Eventually in 1998 it was briefly released, after campaigning from another Japanese film critic, and likely Kim Jong-il's secret desire to see this "master piece" seen by a wider audience. The movie bombed, but has since become a cult film among fans of monster movies. Personally I love Pulgasari, it's probably my favourite movie of the Kaijū genre. As terrible as it is, it holds a certain fascination, which is enhanced by the knowledge of how its production came about. And much better than the South Korean equivalent movie Yongary, from 1967.

Weird Retro Fact: Read the side-by-side comparison of the two Korean movie monster, in our article Yongary Vs. Pulgasari: The Korean Movie Monster.