Choi was Ishii's second Korean student. The first was Kang Hong-shik who left Ishii later and became a movie star under a Japanese name. (The maternal grandson of Kang Hong-shik is Choi Min-soo, who is known as one of the most acclaimed actors in South Korea now). At a time of anti-Korean sentiment heightened by the Korean independence movement and a false rumor that the ethnic Koreans were taking advantage of the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake to commit violence, which triggered the Kantō Massacre upon the Koreans, Ishii was progressive and open to the Koreans.