The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker

A well researched book about a powerful dictator who controls his country and its people with propaganda and manipulation. A well written and fascinating read. You will better understand North Korea's government after reading this book.

Extremely interesting and entertaining nonfiction read. Well written and informative. I recommend for anyone that has ever wondered about why North Korea is so bizarre. It's hard to believe a place like that exists on earth. An entire population brainwashed.

A very interesting story, particularly because it is true! This book outlined the history of North Korea and provided a rare glimpse into politics and everyday life. The historical perspective and explanations sometimes interfered with the storyline which made the book disjointed. Nevertheless, a fascinating reading experience.

This gives great insight into the Hermit Kingdom of North Korea aka The Freedom Loving Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, which is definitely not. Readers should also read The Orphan Master's Son for more delightful in depth look into the fun loving worker's paradise.

After reading dozens of books on North Korea, it was this one that pulled everything into focus for me. The movie business is the key to understanding what made Kim Jong Il do the crazy things he did. The kidnapping story is riveting also. The author weaves all kinds of background into their story. It seems that with time their story has been vindicated as more defector stories collaborate what they told of their time in North Korea.

Easy to read, though sometimes overly simplistic. Some passages are choppy, with no apparent cohesiveness to the story being told at that time. Repetitious at times, but an overall good read. Not a spy thriller, but interesting enough that I'd recommend it to anyone fascinated with the intrigue of North Korea and it's leaders.

Humorus and horrifying by turns. I didn't know much about the history of the Korean Peninsula, but thanks to Mr. Fischer, I am a lot less ignorant now. I found every page engrossing and elightening.

The headline pretty much sums it up. The book reads like a novel and is a real page turner. I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading non-fiction. An important book that shines a light on the mysterious North Korean government and provides a glimpse into its hidden world.

It's hard to pigeonhole Paul Fischer's bizarre, fascinating, informative, and incredibly compelling A Kim Jong-Il Production. Over the course of his meticulously researched non-fiction work, Fischer tells a number of stories. On the one hand, there's the rise of Kim Jong-Il, the spoiled son of North Korea's "Dear Leader" who came to power by understanding how to appeal to his father's ego, and who made North Korea what it became with a love of propaganda and a passion for Western filmmaking techniques (and how the two could be used together). On the other hand, there's the rise and fall of Shin Sang-Ok, the greatest South Korean film director of his day, and his wife Choi Eun-Hee, who was his match, as the most beloved South Korean actress of the time. 

But more than being their separate stories, this is the story of how Kim kidnapped Shin and Choi, using them to build a North Korea film industry and to turn the nation's laughable cinema into something respectable and greater - and how, in some ways, that was both the worst and best decision Kim could make.

Fischer's book is compelling on any number of levels, even before you get to the truly bizarre saga of the kidnapping and Shin and Choi's time in North Korea. Clearly having researched North Korea as much as humanly possible, Fischer gives us a portrait of this isolated, secretive land, and what it was like to live under first Kim Il-Sung and then under Kim Jong-Il. From food shortages to mandatory propaganda screenings, Fischer never lets us forget what's going on while the Kims rule, and that gives A Kim Jong-Il Production a gravity and weight that its surreal story might not suggest. It's impossible to ever forget what these men did to the people of North Korea, or how their egos devastated an entire country, and Fischer immerses us in a world that few of us know anything about.

That same level of research goes true for all of his principals, but again, it's hard not to dwell on his portrait of Kim Jong-Il. For a Western audience, it's hard to think of Kim as anything beyond the symbolic figure he created in his own image, and Fischer's ability to peek beyond the curtain is fascinating, giving us a look at a compellingly strange combination of characteristics. Equal parts lazy and ruthless, narcissistic but oddly aware of the illusions he's created (there's a great moment where he reminds Choi that really, all these citizens praise him only because they have to), fiercely isolationist but passionate about Western cinema, and surprisingly funny, Fischer reminds us that Kim is a human being - albeit a dangerous one, and no less dangerous for his humanity.

For all of that, though, the appeal of the book is in that central story: a once-proud South Korean film director who had fallen on hard times, and who finds himself kidnapped and held in North Korea - but given the chance to make films again, and on his own terms. I couldn't help but think of Stephen King's Misery so often as I read A Kim Jong-Il Production, with that book's strange connection between suffering and creativity, and as Fischer explores Shin's new dichotomy - he's a prisoner, but given the chance to do the thing he loves on a scale that he no longer could in freedom - I found myself fascinated by the blurring of lines. Yes, Shin and Choi were prisoners, and yes, they mouthed along with the propaganda and statements that Kim asked them to do. But Fischer keeps their situation fascinatingly off-kilter, with their desire to escape constantly weighed against the fact that, against all odds, they were finding success in North Korea - just at a cost neither was willing to live with.

All of this combines to make one of the most compulsively readable, compelling, and astonishing books I've read in a long time. A Kim Jong-Il Production unfolds like a great thriller novel (there's definitely a touch of Truman Capote's "non-fiction novel" approach here), all while immersing you in its place and time. It's informative about North Korea and Kim Jong-Il, to say nothing of South Korean cinema, but it's also gripping as a bizarre piece of kidnapping fiction, following the victims as they learn to manipulate the ego of their captor and work toward their freedom. And if that's not enough, there's the way Fischer writes it all, moving it all like a rocket while never letting his research lapse or fade away. I can't recommend this enough, both as great non-fiction and just a great read in general - and that goes doubly if you're fascinated by North Korea or have a love for cinema. 

Having recently read a book on culture in South Korea and enjoyed the information it was a fitting time to read a book on intrigue, spy craft and, yes, culture in North Korea or, as it is officially known, the Democratic People’s Republic Of Korea. This book also has a major connection to the US dominated South Korea or Republic Of Korea.
A Kim Jong-Il Production’s subject-matter and its particular story are completely novel to me, but one both learns much about both Koreas and finds himself engrossed in a fantastic tale.

The book centres on two icons of Korean cinema, Choi Eun-Hee and Shin Sang-OK, a couple who were kidnapped and taken north to feed the lunacy of Kim Jong-Il and his perverted fake communist country. At the time of the events, Jong-Il’s father Kim Il-Sung was the ruler of North Korea, but the son was in effect second-in-command and seizes the South Korean pioneers and this story.
As many know, North Koreans have abducted Japanese nationals off Japan’s soil and illicitly repatriated them to the former country across the water. What is less known is how the ‘hermit kingdom’ had done the same to other nationals including their kin in the south. Two victims of the north’s thuggery are the subjects of A Kim Jong-Il Production. The book’s title refers to the dictator’s love for film, the occupation of the kidnapees and the country as a whole. The former dictator was a lover of movies. According to the book, he likely had the world’s biggest private film collection, had a staff of 250 take care of them, had North Korean embassies duplicate films for him and decided North Korea shall enjoy its own silver screen exports for monetary and propaganda purposes. Japan’s success with a film like Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon was one instigator.
The book’s actors and its accounts have come under suspicion – this being North Korea fool-proof independent verification is impossible – and the author recognizing this goes to some length to verify and check the story independently. Unbelievably Choi and Shin were even permitted travel to London, England, West Berlin and elsewhere following their kidnapping and claim they did not gain the opportunity to make their escapes. Having said that, much of his source material comes from first-hand communication with Madame Choi and the book The Kingdom Of Kim Jong-Il by the actors. Author Paul Fischer is not an expert on Korea, but is a good writer. Moreover, Choi's memory is so good - evidently.
As the cliché has it life in North Korea is stranger and more esoteric than fiction. In fact, the tales are so strange that one does not know whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of the human condition. Indeed, the book could be read as a novel of intrigue and espionage, but is a tale of two talented individuals caught in the world of sham communism-turned-nationalism-gone-berserk.

The author has disdain for the North Korean rules and rulers and, as he exposes their crimes, one wonders whether he should not have kept a more dispassionate stance. He calls Jong-Il “Yura,” which is his Russian birth name more often than necessary as if out of spite and for long after is warranted for instance. In another, movie-related circumstance the author reports that up to one-third of North Korea’s population either directly worked as an informant for the government or acted in the service of the same, but with ‘progress’ groups of up to thirty citizens would come together to watch films on illegal VCRS and DVDs away from the prying eyes of the government. Notwithstanding Kim’s debauchery, lust for the girls of the Pleasure Brigade, owning his own train, which ran partly on exclusive tracks, his numerous idiosyncrasies are something else. Having said that, despite being a psychopath Kim Jong-Il the author, via his interlocutors, reports the man to be aware of the sham his kingdom was and to not have been personally deluded by the grand show around him.
The few photographs included in the film are interesting – especially one of Choi being greeted by the water upon arrival by Kim himself. A bibliography is present. Other than that the book is chockful of fascinating tales from the other side of the world.

This is an extremely entertaining book, and I read it cover to cover in three days.

I almost hope that it is true.

Still, it would not ruin the book for me to hear that large chunks were fabricated.

The story revolves around the now dearly departed Great Leader of North Korea and how he abducted a starlet and her famous director husband of South Korea to create a publicity campaign for Kim that rivaled the Triumph of Will for Adolph Hitler.

The book is written as a page turner with some of the opening scenes inside a North Korean labor camp and then flying back in time to elegant inner circle, Communist Party social events with girls from the "Joy Brigade."

All of the events described "could have" been true, but it would have been very, very difficult to get information from the closed society that is North Korea.

There are some facts. The couple did produce the movies for Kim. Those movies did help his political career (though he was always the heir apparent), and they were eventually repatriated to South Korea.

While they said that they were abducted, it feels more than a little far fetched to me. Given their political views, it is also possible that they defected to the People's Democratic Republic of Korea.

Who knows?

Certainly the scenes involving just Kim and his inner party bosses has to be fabricated.

Whether true or not, the account is a fun ride in a place that few outside of the Hermit Kingdom have ventured.

In service,

Rich

The cover of this book initially had me worried it would be a campy, goofy project, an impression that was shared by everyone who noticed what I was reading. However, this is a pretty serious book. Fischer's research is impeccable, for one thing. For another, he does a fine job of giving historical background to the subjects' experience: how North Korea got to be the way it is, how South Korea got to be the way IT is, how this all played out on the stage of the Cold War at large, how trends in the film industry or some other aspect of the book's backstory came to be.

Most importantly, however, the book is unflinching in its look at the horrific treatment that its protagonists endured during their captivity. And it places these experiences in context by citing numerous other examples of people who endured similar fates--most of those stories, presumably, without happy endings.

And as a portrait of Kim Jong-Il, this book is amazingly insightful. It's not at all sympathetic toward the old monster, but--thanks mainly to extensive interviews with Shin and Choi, who spent so much time with him and earned his trust--it really peers into his psyche in ways few other books I know of have even attempted, much less managed.

All these things make this book a worthwhile contribution in its own right to the body of work on North Korea, with which I have some familiarity.

And despite that, the serious scholarship does not in any way make the book dry or detract from the pathos and excitement of the human drama.

Why, then, is this not a five star review?

Two reasons. The first is its poor transliteration of Korean names and phrases. Fischer obviously developed an extensive familiarity with Korean history and culture in writing this book, so I'm genuinely baffled at how he could have botched that so badly.

There are two systems in place for transliterating hangeul into the Roman alphabet: one which was initially developed in 1937, and one which was introduced in 2000. It's certainly not always the case that newer is better, but that definitely applies here. The 2000 system was developed because the 1937 system was inadequate. Had it been otherwise, translators would most likely have left well enough alone.

Fischer mostly uses the older, obsolete system, which is bad enough. However, he does not use it exclusively. So, for instance, if I see the letter u in an unfamiliar name, I don't know whether I should be reading it as ', which makes a long u sound, or ', which was incorrectly transliterated as a short u in the 1937 system but which in fact has no direct equivalent in the Roman alphabet.

The other problem with this book is its editorialization. The author's opinion posing as fact (as opposed to substantiated claims in support of a thesis) pops up here and there throughout the book in unusual and inappropriate places. I would have been willing to overlook it but for the epilogue, a smorgasbord of author biases so emphatic in their statement and so obscure in their origins that it verges on the bizarre.

Nevertheless, this is a fine book, definitely worth reading for any scholar (armchair or otherwise) of the most desperate and miserable place on Earth today.

I had heard about this kidnapping a while back and that the victims had written a book about what had occurred to them, but I wasn’t able to get it. In reading this book, I see that it was never translated into English.

The story is so bizarre it would be unbelievable unless one knew about the vicious North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-Il, who was also a fanatical cinephile and wanted to have a movie industry that could compete in the international arena, but had been frustrated for years because of the self-imposed totalitarian blinders. So . . . he kidnapped a South Korean director and his actress wife so that they would make movies for him. Having very little choice in the matter, they agreed to do so. They put up with the constant surveillance, the over the top sycophantic eulogies (directed at the dictators) that were mandatory. They were fortunate, however, in that Kim showered them with food and presents while they were in the country while the rest of the population experienced famine. A couple of their films even received international awards. All the while they waited for the right moment to escape.

The book is a detailed account of their experience, which is reinforced by historical background about the country, the dictators (father and son) and the flurry of kidnappings of S. Koreans, Japanese, Jordanians, Lebanese and others.
Do yourself a favor: read this book. You won’t put it down.

This is the kind of phenomenally insane story that's hard to believe even if you know it's true. Because of that, the fact that the author chose to document the story in such a peculiar way made it hard to really engage with it. Within the span of a couple pages, the story includes bits from WWII, the Korean War, the post-war period, and several years later, and not even in that order.

North Korea serves an odd double-function in the American psyche right now, as both the butt of jokes and the Big Bad Bogeyman with nuclear weapons. This story encapsulates both of those facets, providing a window into both the cruelty and the inanity of the regime. However, the structure tended to make me pay more attention to the book than the narrative, which was frustrating.

Sometimes written like commercial nonfiction that's aiming to be an on-the-screen thriller, this book nevertheless is crammed with fascinating facts on the formation of North and South Korea (the U.S. Secretary of State, after being commanded to make a deal with the USSR over Korea, allegedly had to ask his staff where Korea was), North Korean Propaganda (Kim Jong-Il can climb trees and catch rainbows), and coerced film making (when director Shin needed many extras for a scene, Kim Jong-Il lent him the entire North Korean military).

It also has some really beautiful moments. Madame Choi and her husband lived full lives. Choi experienced serious brutality and trauma during the Korean War, rose above it to become South Korea's most famous actress, and found true love. And this is just the beginning of her life! They both reaped the ultimate highs of life and endured the harshest blows.

There's a disturbing scene in which Choi meets Kim Jong-Il's illegitimate son and asks what his name is. He turns to his father and demands to know why she's asking him this. He was raised in such isolation that he had never before encountered a person who didn't know his name.

Anecdotes like these serve to humanize the Kims and allow the reader to better understand why, exactly, North Korea is a country more dedicated to nuclear warfare than feeding its people. For all the books I've read on N. Korea, this exploration of both Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-Il's personalities is rare.

This book is dense and its scope wide, but my point is: This world is a grey, mixed-up, nonsensical, and often barbaric place. Whatever Fischer's aims were in writing this novel, he captured the complexity of the story - the complexity of our world - in a resonating, validating, and mostly respectful way.

Shin and Madame Choi wrote a memoir of their own experience, from which Fischer quotes generously, but the book itself has never been translated into English. It was met with suspicion in South Korea – many thought that Shin and Madame Choi had voluntarily defected to North Korea, although the CIA confirms their kidnapping. After their escape, they weren’t welcomed back with open arms, and their story – stranger than fiction – wasn’t broadcasted to the world quite as I would have expected.

A Kim Jong-Il Production is at times biography, history, romance, and thriller. But, above all, it reveals what the ‘Kim Jong-Il Production’ really is – it is not seven propaganda films or even two orchestrated kidnappings, but rather all of North Korea, its land a stage and its citizens extras in Kim’s egomaniacal, cognac-downing reign.

The most successful couple of the South Korean cinema, Choi Eun-Hee and Shin Sang-Ok, during a few decades earned the love of their fans. Shin was a famous director, the founder of an independent film studio which released numerous films each year. Choi was a star of the silverscreen, beautiful actress and the founder of an actors school. Choi, before the fame reached her, was the wife of a war vet, invalid with a short temper, who beat on her time from time. She played almost for free, and had only a modest fame. Shin helped her made big time, they hit it off, though not publicly, keeping in secret their affair. Then gossips started to sip in, the scandal broke out, and the actress left her husband, having chosen Shin. The couple made even larger success as a pair, doing together films, spreading their businesses, receiving awards.

Later financial troubles started to bother the couple, Shin couldn’t make more films due to high censorship and competition, and with money love also went away. The couple divorced, Shin started to work on his invitation to film in Hollywood, to restart his career in America. Choi had focused on her actors school.

And then they were kidnapped, by the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il.

Young film producer has written a debut non-fiction book, that is on the level with best examples of spy fiction. The only thing absent is heavy involvement of intelligent services, the rest of the necassary elements are all there – powerful villain, brave heroes, sinister plot, mysterious kidnapping, surprising rescue.

Fischer even stylistically sticks to belletristic approach to his narrative. He presents the main heroes’ biographies (and antihero’s who plays as important role as the couple of heroes), makes enough geographical and historical digressions, leads to a culmination, the kidnapping itself, then switches to heroes’ lives during their captivity, their reborn as filmmakers, and then to the final with the rescue. The epilogue tells us the oucome of their lives.

The book has 360 pages of exciting prose, and even when Fischer retreats to the historical background, it still is a fascinating read. These digressions are necessary if only to place this kidnapping into the world context. During the book we’re told of the birth of a dictatorship in North Korea, rivalship between two Koreas, the general place of North Korea in the world. Fischer describes a number of methods used by Kim and his people for kidnapping people. Shin and Choi were not the first victims of Kim’s dangerous games, the couple will even meet some other kidnapped victims. This is the evidence to that the couple weren’t the only victims of Kim’s crimes, neither they were the first. Their case is not unique, possibly, it’s the most spoken of and resonance.
Digressions about, for example, Korean labour camps are the heart-wrenching reading in itself. Atrocities and cruelties commited in those camps were not less shocking, probably even more than the ones in Stalin and Nazi camps. Fischer doesn’t restrict his descriptions of tortures forced upon Shin the camps. To survibe, Shin had to make some sacrificies, had to step on his principles and agreed to work for the man who ordered the tortures.

It’s hard to say, yet after reading this book I’m of the opinion that Shin made his best films during his prisoner years in North Korea. That means that only being not free, he could reach the highs of his talent. And does it overcome these tortures he had suffered through, this chance to be reborn in your art and make the films you’ll be remembered after? That’s the question one can hardly will find an answer.

The book also can be read as a chapter from a film history textbook. Fischer includes in the book a short history of the North Korean cinema, Choi and Shin’s achievements, their post-kidnapping period, and legends of Kim Jong-Il as a father of North Korean films and omniscient expert on the world cinema.

A Kim Jong-il Production is written quite frivolously, without stating the sources of the obtained information, and that’s understandable: this books is aimed at the wide audience, not at academic world. The story of kidnapping of Shin and Choi already for dozens of years raises questions and doubts. Paul Fischer is quite sure that the couple was abducted and worked on Kim after the fear of death. The other believe that they at their own will crossed borders when their careers went downhill. The story is, withoubt doubt, mysterious, controversial, it’s possible it will be left thus for ever. It is one of those historical events, like Kennedy’s assassination, US moon landing and disappearing of the group from Dyatlov pass, that people can’t come to one point. There is plenty of information all around, but what are the truth and what are the lies – it’s all wrapped in the mist.

This book will let you sink into one of the secrets of XX century. First rate non-fiction book.

As the saying goes, were Paul Fischer to have written this book as fiction, it would be panned for being too fanciful. But when it comes to Kim Jong-Il and The Hermit Kingdom, even fiction can't keep up.

This preposterous tale of the abduction, imprisonment and ultimate seducing of South Korean movie star Choi Eun-Hee and her then-ex-husband, director Shin Sang-Ok is so unbelieveable that writer Fischer dedicates his Afterword to debunking the debunkers. Addressing those skeptics who believe Choi and Shin defected, Fischer calls in a South Korean intelligence debriefer who vouches that "every word" of their tale is true. Plus, we have piled up evidence now of other North Korean kidnappings. And, we have the words of a famous defector who adroitly notes that "Kim Jong-Il *loved* covert operations." Add that to the Dear Leader's love of film and what's not to believe? Anything is possible.

More than a story of the two protagonists, Fischer is clearly a first-rate historian, knowledgeable about Korean history, the Kim family, East/West cold war balance of powers and many other aspects adding detail and flavor to the story.

What I liked best: how Fischer paid respect to Kim Jong-Il's talents as a producer. Long thought in the west as a joke due to his odd appearance and louche lifestyle, Fisher notes that "as the DPRK defaulted on its student loans and its economy slowly foundered," Kim "elected to change [his subjects'] perception [of reality]. Between the late 1960s and the end of his life he created one vast stage production. He was the writer, director and producer of the nation. He conceived his people's roles, their devotion, their values; he wrote the dialogue and forced it upon them; he mapped out their entire character arcs, from birth to death, splicing them out of the picture if they broke type."

Far from the villain of this story, the reader comes away with an appreciation of the Dear Leader's singular talents. It's not for nothing that in introducing the book's "Reel Three," Fischer quotes Shakespeare ("All the world's a stage, and the all the mean and women merely players...") and the Truman Show ("Was nothing real?" "You were real. That's what made you so good to watch.")

I was aware that North Korea kidnapped English and Japanese language teachers to train its spies, but these late 1970's high profile abductions were only vague in my memory. Through Paul Fischer's gripping narrative you see not only the story of Choi Eun Hee and Shin Sang Ok , but also, how North Korea is run at the very top. The book piqued my interest in the The Interview [HD], which I saw last night.

South Korea's most famous actress and most heralded director/producer were abducted at the behest of Kim Jong Il the son of the then Premier, Kim Il Song. It is Jong Il and his staff who created the North Korean "brands", particularly those of his father ("Great Leader") and himself ("Dear Leader"). They orchestrated the big parades and the imagery we in the west come to associate with North Korea. In the book you see the author's view that the "...modern North Korean state ... is a performance production, a display production of its own..." (p.62).

The propaganda that Jong Il cleverly used to pave the way for his ascendance to the premiership (along with pushing aside and discrediting his uncles and other possible candidates) was a product of his interest in film. The films he and his staff created are described as formulaic: extolling the Great Leader; depicting outsiders as vile; glorifying the suffering of the people; fueling paranoia, etc. A fan of western cinema, Jong Il had a library which as described may be one of the most complete in the world. Since only he could see these films, only he knew how far behind his country was in film production. To remedy this, clever ruses were constructed to abduct this famous team.

Choi and Shin are amazing. Shin suffers the consequences of his two escape attempts and Choi endures boredom, gaudy pageantry and lives a false existence. Once Shin "repents" of his ways, the author shows their contribution to film in North Korea and how, with the country's economic decline (the famine is only a few years away) plans were made to market films abroad. These plans, cleverly laid and beautifully acted out by the couple brought them to their freedom.

This is a "can't put it down" book. This glimpse of the "hermit kingdom" squares with other portrayals in books such as Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea and The World Is Bigger Now: An American Journalist's Release from Captivity in North Korea . . . A Remarkable Story of Faith, Family, and Forgiveness and the films such as The Interview [HD] and The Red Chapel.

The blurb is much more comedic cloak-and-dagger than the text, which captures the socio-political turmoil of late 20th century Korea and Kim Jong-Il specifically. A fascinating, well balanced read for me as someone who only knows Korea and the Korean conflict through M*A*S*H and American news media.

A non-linear approach, combined with a lack of index and footnotes or endnotes, makes this story a bit hard to follow, but perhaps some of this will be cleared up in the published version or in the movie version that ought to come out, assuming that the NK reaction to The Interview hasn't rendered Hollywood too gutless.

In addition like other reviewers I think author Paul Fischer missed a very important part of the story by all but ignoring Madam Choi's conversion to Christianity in the midst of this horror. While it clearly mattered little to the author, it just as clearly mattered a great deal to her, and whether you wish to dismiss it as coincidence or accept it as miracle, it is surely worth noting that unlike most victims of North Korean kidnapping, Choi and her ex-husband, soon-to-be remarried husband, made it home alive.

Note: Interestingly, said husband, ex-husband, husband had a connection to another strange and should not have been forgotten piece of Korean history because he directed the SK movie adaptation of The Tears of My Soul, the autobiography of the NK terrorist who had helped murder a whole planeload of South Koreans in 1987, been captured, gradually convinced she had been duped into committing a terrible crime, become a Christian, fully cooperated at her trial exposing NK involvement, convicted and sentenced to death, and (to her surprise at least) pardoned at the last minute. Why Hollywood has never turned that story into an American film can IMHO be chalked up to a mishmash of communist sympathy, gutlessness, and anti-Christian bigotry. Will something similar sink any movie version of this book? We shall see.

As an American my knowledge of Kim Jong-Il probably was somewhat average. I knew that he was the (now deceased) despot of North Korea, an odd duck with a temper, and a movie buff. I even recall hearing other small tidbits, one being that he had kidnapped a South Korean couple for their talents in the movie industry, but I had never really understood the detail of their experience. Paul Fischer does a marvelous job of bringing their story to the western masses in his first book, A Kim Jong-Il Production.

The story focuses on Choi Eun-Hee and Shin Sang-Ok, a famous South Korean actress and her writer/director/producer ex-husband, who were kidnapped by North Korean agents in the late 1970s. The inside glimpse that we see of North Korea and their experiences within the closed-off country are absolutely fascinating. But as interesting as these sections are, the heart of the story lies with Shin and Choi, their lives before and after the kidnapping being just as interesting and tragic in their own right.

My only complaint is that the prose can feel a bit mechanical at times. Long stretches seem like not much more than a translation of Choi and Shin's autobiographies, without much color or outside information added. Descriptions in general were slightly lacking, as I didn't get much sense of the size or look of North Korea until I did some Google image searches. Even so, this book is a worthwhile read. Anybody looking to get a sense of the history and culture of North Korea without having to slog through a dense history lesson will be very happy with this book. It's tragic without being depressing and overall very entertaining.

Based on the title and the dustcover images, I thought this was going to be a comedic look at life inside one of the truly bizarre countries of our world. I was wrong. This is a serious and engrossing political history of a brutal 20th century dictatorship and the South Korean couple whose lives were turned upside down by it. It’s a harrowing story, and you do not have to be a political junkie or a film junkie to find this compulsive reading. Choi Eun-Hee, South Korea’s most famous actress, is kidnapped by the North Koreans and disappears without a trace. Her hardships are nothing compared to the torture suffered by her famous director-husband, Shin Sang-Ok, when he is kidnapped three years later. The puppet master is heir-apparent Kim Jong-Il, a man obsessed by European and American movies. He is driven to bring North Korea international respect and acceptance by having his country produce quality movies, instead of the political propaganda that had been common. To save their own lives, Shin and Choi are forced to renounce South Korea and publicly praise the North Korean regime. When they do finally escape, in circumstances made for the cinema, their countrymen vilify them as traitors. Fischer writes a taut story, and I could not put this down.

Recently, I’ve been interested in learning more about North Korea, a country that seems shrouded in mystery to me. Because the country operates as a tightly-controlled dictatorship, it can be difficult to learn about what really happens inside its borders. Although this book focuses on the stories of two prominent South Koreans (a film director and a famous actress) who were kidnapped during Kim Jung-Il’s rise to power, the book branches out to cover many other aspects of North Korea. Not only do we learn about the kidnappings of prominent (and not so prominent) people from other countries and the North Korean film industry, but we also learn about life in North Korea in general, including details of Kim Jung-Il’s life. I was especially interested to learn about the debouched weekly parties Jung-Il hosted for his functionaries. Although I’m not an expert in any sense, I feel that Fischer did his research for this book. But what I most appreciated is that this book reads like a novel and really held my interest.

Here is a cliché that definitely fits this book: truth is stranger than fiction.

I have read numerous books on North Korea, and I had heard of the story depicted in this book, though not in any detail. What I didn't expect when I started this book was to have the story I had already heard of told in fascinating fashion, where I couldn't wait to pick up the book (or listen to the audiobook, as the case was) again. The details of the kidnapping as told in this story read like a movie unfolding - appropriate for a book about people whose lives were intertwined with movies. Like a movie, I found myself laughing and crying and cheering for (and against) the people in the book. This is a book that is exactly what I think narrative non-fiction should be: a true story told in an engrossing manner that leaves you not only having learned something, but having learned it in a way that leaves you wanting to learn more.

A note on some of the content: If you have read extensively on North Korea, many of the descriptions of the country, its history and its inhabitants may seem repetitive. If you haven't read much or anything on North Korea, not only does this book provide a background on the country, but it does so with a great story woven in. As someone who has read a lot on North Korea (but who is, by no accounts, an expert on the country), this background may not have been necessary, but it certainly did not detract at all from the book. If anything, it was a welcome reminder of the horrors suffered by people who live in North Korea.

This is an amazing story, about which probably one of the most frequent comments is - that it is hard to believe. Paul Fischer claims he has done extensive research, traveled and interviewed, he wants the reader to believe it as fact. It in many ways is almost farce...a dictator kidnaps his neighboring country's most popular film producer and also a movie star so that his movies can be better. Even after reading one wonders why isn't this more well-known and why was there not more of a public outcry, or more publicity when they were able to make it out of his clutches.

With Fischer being a film producer, one can just see the makings of a movie in this and then it will be better known.
The book goes into the background and history of Korea and how the Kim family came into power and control. Fischer's opinions are scattered throughout the contents. I wish there would have been footnotes to show where all the facts were obtained that would have added a great deal of interest to the book.

This surreal true story follows a film director who overplayed his hand, his broke ex-wife, and the megalomaniacal dictator who kidnapped them both, rekindled their love, and made them create propaganda movies for him.

The book follows three stories: Choi, Shin, and of course Kim Jong-Il. With Choi and Shin, their stories lay out their history and the challenges in their lives that made them vulnerable to being kidnapped, and then their separate (and then united) experiences in North Korea. Kim Jong-Il's story follows his fascination with movies and theater and how this plays out not just with Choi and Shin but with his entire orchestration of North Korea.

If you're interested in North Korea and the cult of personality behind the Kim regime, this book is for you. If you're interested in East Asian film history, this book is for you. If you're interested in any kind of non-fiction, THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU.

I have traveled some in South Korea and studied East Asian history in college, so I was really interested to pick up this book. I love studying the relationship between the two Koreas, recently divided but previous to the mid 1900s one of the oldest unified countries in the world, and the dramatic divergence their two paths have taken since then. The relationship between the two sides is endlessly fascinating to me.

It definitely lived up to my high expectations - thrilling and fascinating from beginning to end. The kidnapping as an entry point to learn more about the culture and the history of this closed off nation was an interesting, unique take.

I enjoyed this read, even though there were few citations. This is North Korea, where few facts are known about the leadership and the Kims. What is interesting is the angle, talking about Kim Jong-Il's love for cinema and how he was in charge of propaganda movies for all North Koreans to watch in public. There is a lot in this book that I never knew about. North Korea is a secretive country and I want to drink it all in.

The writing style is just like the front cover claims: It's part history, part thriller, part farce. Can it be taken seriously? It's a stunning read that grabs the reader's attention, even if the first 73 pages are about the Kims and not the movie directing couple that was kidnapped and forced to live in North Korea for several decades. There's still detail here that has not been revealed before, so it's hard to validate. It's a good start and gives a profile of Kim Jong-Il that's almost likable. Even South Korea looks more palpable, but not by much.

Paul Fischer extracted most of the information in this book from the memoirs of the kidnapped couple Choie Eun-Hee and Shin Sang-Ok. Their lives since the 1970s certainly hasn't been a boring one. Like many power couples in the arts and government, there are affairs, out-of-wedlock children and deceit, and that's coming from all directions. It's hard at times to remember this is supposed to be non-fiction. But, as mentioned, it's hard to validate anything as there aren't enough sources to confirm.

I enjoyed this book simply because there are few entertaining books about North Korea, fewer books even about the Great Leaders' family and life in general in the Koreas. So while this work can't be seen as historical, it's still a thrilling read.

This is one of the most unique and interesting books I have read in quite some time. It presents an interesting and compelling view of the relationships between the two Koreas. Mr. Fischer has done a wonderful job of applying a human aspect to Kim Jong-Il while equally painting an accurate and brutal view of his dictatorship. The fascinating aspect of Asian cinema is compelling and demonstrates it's rise from the ashes of WWII and the Korean War. The torture Madame Choi and Shin Sang-Ok is heart rendering and also inspirational in that they never gave up on their dream of freedom. It also puts a human touch to North Korea which makes their plight even more heart breaking.

This is a great book and I strongly recommend it.

First, I think this book has been miscategorized: "humor and entertainment" did not describe the experience I had, and I'm glad of it. I understand that the marketing strategy here is likely meant to capitalize on the popularity of the 2014 film The Interview, but I think that doing so fails to give credit to what Fischer has actually produced: a taut, terse book about two people whose lives are savaged by a corrupt empire.

I learned a ton about Korea (both north and south). While predominantly about the massive personal impact Kim Jong-Il and his regime had on the lives to two kidnapped South Korean filmmakers, the book contextualizes their story well, politically, economically and philosophically. And it does this painlessly, without feeling remotely like the history lesson it is. There's nothing funny about what happened to Choi Eun-Hee and Shin Sang-Ok - it's horrific. The book doesn't lapse into melodrama, though, but communicates details straightforwardly, with a highly readable brisk pace. It's a gripping, engrossing tale.

Those who have any confusion on the issue should be aware that this is not an academic work; there's no apparatus here, and Fischer clearly has his own perspective on events, which he seems to feel comfortable interjecting throughout the tale. I didn't find this intrusive, as I'm not looking for an academic work on the subject. If you are, you should look elsewhere.

An incredible story and a snapshot of the DPRK. The author did an excellent job weaving thecstory of Shin and Choi (the kidnap victums) with the history of North Korea and the personality of Kim Jung Il. This true story is so bizzare, it reads better than fiction.

Too weird to be believed, this is a surprisingly arresting true crime story. It provides all sorts of insight into things that I didn't know I cared about (South Korean and North Korean movies) and, perhaps most importantly, gives a portrait of Kim Jong-Il before he became dictator. This book demonstrates that part of being a show-man, having a producer's instincts, is part of the formula of success for a megalo-maniacal dictator.

What a remarkable story, and a highly readable book that kept me up reading past my bedtime. Apparently (spoiler alert...) Kim Jong-Il decided that the best way to improve North Korea's film industry would be to kidnap famous movie people from South Korea and force them to work for him. Yes, this actually happened! It's as if NBC kidnapped news anchors from CBS and tortured them until they worked for NBC. The story is so strange that if it were the plot of a fictional account it would be hard to believe, but then, this is North Korea. Fischer does a great job of characterizing Kim, and the nature of life in North Korea (the events in the book take place around 1980, but it doesn't seem that much has changed). He gives a description of how the craziness of one person (and his father and his son, as well) have turned the country into one vast sound stage for the production of spectacles to glorify the "Dear Leader." Highly recommended.

This is an extremely in-depth book, and well-written in a long-form journalistic style. It really goes in-depth on the Korean war and the split between North and South, explaining how the country wound up in a situation where there could be an almost monopoly film studio in South Korea, and a spoilt second-generation dictator running the North. That's just the first few chapters. This really is a book on politics, the film-making side of things is there simply because of Kim Jong-Il's obsession with Western pop culture. It's unfortunate that the cover art and the Buzzfeed style, clickbait title misrepresent the contents, because it's a well-written piece that is presumably accurate, even if the very nature of North Korea's isolationism means there's no good way to verify this.