num_pages: 353
description: Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and its film studios. Conceiving every movie made he acted as producer and screenwriter. Despite this control he was underwhelmed by the available talent and took drastic steps ordering the kidnapping of Choi Eun-Hee (Madam Choi)-South Korea's most famous actress-and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok the country's most famous filmmaker.Madam Choi vanished first. When Shin went to Hong Kong to investigate he was attacked and woke up wrapped in plastic sheeting aboard a ship bound for North Korea. Madam Choi lived in isolated luxury allowed only to attend the Dear Leader's dinner parties. Shin meanwhile tried to escape was sent to prison camp and re-educated. After four years he cracked pledging loyalty. Reunited with Choi at the first party he attends it is announced that the couple will remarry and act as the Dear Leader's film advisors. Together they made seven films in the process gaining Kim Jong-Il's trust. While pretending to research a film in Vienna they flee to the U.S. embassy and are swept to safety.A nonfiction thriller packed with tension passion and politics author Paul Fischer's A Kim Jong-Il Production offers a rare glimpse into a secretive world illuminating a fascinating chapter of North Korea's history that helps explain how it became the hermetically sealed intensely stage-managed country it remains today.
language: English
title: A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power
publisher: Flatiron Books