Kim Jong-Il Production

An Amazon Best of The Year Nonfiction SelectionLibrary Journal Top Ten Book of the Year!The Extraordinary True Story of Kim Jong-Il's kidnapping of the golden couple of South Korean Cinema, The Movies They Were Forced to Make, and Their Daring Escape.Before becoming the world's most notorious dictator, Kim Jong-Il ran North Korea's Ministry for Propaganda and all its film studios. Underwhelmed by the pool of talent available to him he took drastic steps, ordering the kidnap of Choi Eun-Hee (Madame Choi) - South Korea's most famous actress - and her ex-husband Shin Sang-Ok, the country's most famous filmmaker. But as Madame Choi and Shin Shang-Ok begin to make North Korea's greatest films, they hatch a plan of escape worthy of a blockbuster Hollywood ending. A Kim Jong-Il Production is that rarest of books: a wildly entertaining, cunningly told story that offers a rare glimpse into a nation still wrapped in mystery. "Gripping... A Kim Jong-Il Production tells the absurd, harrowing, and true story of Choi and Shin's ordeal, which reveals the importance of film as propaganda to the North Korean regime." -Esquire.com"The 1978 abductions of the South Korean actress Choi-Eun-He and her ex-husband, the director Shin Sang-Ok, in Hong Kong is the true crime at the center of Paul Fischer's gripping and surprisingly timely new book." -The New York Times"An entertaining new book...details how [Shin and Choi] finally seized their chance to seek asylum...A stupefying, novelistic read." -The Boston Globe "Fischer's entertaining narrative paints an arresting portrait of a North Korean "theater state," forced to enact the demented script of a sociopathic tyrant." -Publishers Weekly "Paul Fischer's book A Kim Jong-Il Production is a highly illuminating deep dive on the middle Kim's cinematic obsessions and the film arms race between the two Koreas." -The Washington Post"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."-Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

A Note on SourcesCast of CharactersIntroduction - August 1982Reel One: A Sense of Destiny1. A Photograph on the Blue House Lawn2. Director Shin and Madame Choi3. Shrimp Among Whales4. A Double Rainbow over Mount Paekdu5. Kim Jong-Il's First Loves6. Fathers and Sons7. Inside the Pyongyang Picture Show8. A Three-Second Kiss9. Repulse BayReel Two: Guests of the Dear Leader10.The Hermit Kingdom11. Accused12. Muscials, Movies, and Ideological Studies13. Taken14. The Others15. Escape from Chestnut Valley16. Shin Sang-Ok Died Here17. The Torture Position18. Division 3919. The Hunger Strike20. Director Shin is ComingIntermission: The People's Actress Woo In-HeeReel Three: Produced by Kim Jong-Il21. Together22. The Tape Recorder23. Lights, Camera...24. Out of the North25. Like a European Movie26. The Press Conference27. Same Bed, Different Dreams28. A Full Shooting Schedule29. The Rubber Monster30: Vienna31. From Kim to Kim32. The Stars and StripesEpilogue - 2013Afterword