Abduction of Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee

The abduction of Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee was an abduction which occurred in North Korea between 1978 and 1986. Shin Sang-ok was a famous South Korean film director married to actress Choi Eun-hee. Together, they established Shin Film and made many films through the 1960s which garnered recognition for South Korea at various film festivals. In 1978 Choi was abducted and taken to North Korea to meet North Korea's soon-to-be dictator Kim Jong-il. Six months later, Shin was abducted.

After three years in prison, Shin was united with Choi, and the two were instructed by Kim Jong-Il to make films for him in order to gain global recognition for North Korea's film industry. After making many films for Kim Jong-Il, in 1986 Choi and Shin escaped from North Korean supervision to a US embassy while in Vienna.

Kim Jong-il joined the Propaganda and Agitation Department in 1966 and soon became director of the Motion Picture and Arts Division. He was a big fan of films, with a library of 15,000 at his disposal. As director he reached the public with films and operas homogenous in theme: pride in the nation and specifically in Kim Il-sung. Charles K. Armstrong writes in his book, Tyranny of the Weak: North Korea and the World 1950-1992, that “Kim took North Korean arts in a direction that seemed specifically designed to ensure his father’s favor: under his guidance, new films and operas focused as never before on the anti-Japanese struggle of Kim Il Sung and his comrades in Manchuria during the 1930’s”.

Kim Jong-il was frustrated with his films in the early 1970s. He could tell that in contrast to the other films being released globally, his were stiff and lifeless. His diagnosis was a lack of enthusiasm from his actors and crew. Bradley K. Martin, author of Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: North Korea and the Kim Dynasty, explains this while quoting a 1983 tape recording of Kim: “The difference, he suggested, was that North Korean film industry people knew that the state would feed them even if they performed only minimally, so they didn’t try hard... ‘Because they have to earn money,’ Kim said, Southern movie industry people expended blood, sweat, and tears to get results.”

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