Kim Jong-il was a major cinephile. The late North Korean dictator reportedly owned a collection of over 20,000 video tapes and DVDs. In addition to ruling over the most isolated and repressed nation in modern times, his regime also became associated with cartoonish antics to gain global attention in a vain attempt to prop up North Korea’s image, such as hiring thousands of Chinese actors to pose as North Korean fans at the 2010 World Cup. Despite his persistent nuclear threats, Kim’s affinity for Western pop culture remained strong, and he even reportedly adopted his bizarre fashion sense in order to partially mimic Vegas-era Elvis Presley.
In the late ‘70s, Kim was particularly concerned with North Korean cinema’s lack of artistry and panache. At the time, he had taken over key leadership duties from his aging father, Supreme Leader Kim Il-Sung, who had towered over his diminutive son both in literal and figurative stature. But Kim Jong-il wasn’t only jealous of Hollywood or European films; he had only to look across the border into South Korea to feel bested on the silver screen. Ironically, the leader of the world’s most propaganda-fueled nation thought North Korea’s movies were too rigid and patriotic. The Lovers and the Despot details what may be Kim’s strangest stab at global respect: his abduction of two beloved South Korean film icons, the divorced couple of actress Choi Eun-hee and director Shin Sang-ok.
The Lovers and the Despot hinges itself on Choi’s recollection of the strange days when, still reeling from Shin’s infidelity and subsequent relationship with a younger actress, she found herself shanghaied in Hong Kong by North Korean spies. Her adult children and other surviving notables from that era’s South Korean film industry also get screen-time, and there’s plenty of stock footage and covert recordings presented—some of Kim’s voice, which he rarely allowed to be heard publicly. We’re given the rundown of how, once Choi and eventually Shin are under Kim’s thumb, the dictator treats them like collaborators and tells them he wants to make artistic films that will grab the attention of the entire world.
And make films the reunited couple did. Choi recounts her fondness for many of the pictures that they churned out in their eight years together under Kim’s ample financing, and she shares that she particularly enjoyed the films for which she won awards. Recordings of Shin’s phone conversations with Kim show a man either telling a brutal dictator what he wants to hear or someone taking advantage of a fat bankroll in order to pursue his craft. The documentary implies that it could have been a bit of both—and Shin’s 2006 death prevents us from getting his side of things. Public opinion certainly seemed to buy into North Korea’s claim that the filmmaking couple were defectors, and one of the more interesting (yet under-explored) aspects of the film is the kind of impact that impression had on the couple’s children, who read about their seemingly traitorous parents in the South Korean papers.
The Lovers and the Despot presents a thoroughly engrossing setup, but Shin and Choi’s eventual escape (by fleeing to a U.S. Embassy while on a trip to Vienna) is mostly just glossed over. Whether Shin was actually kidnapped or willingly defected in the first place is the source of some controversy, but this documentary too often raises interesting questions it is incapable of fully answering. We see frightening images of mass pageantry in lockstep and absurd scenes of the mandatory prostrating grief displayed upon the death of Kim Il-Sung, but we don’t get an in-depth taste for just how oppressive the regime was to the average North Korean. Despite its tendency to avoid digging too deeply below the surface, The Lovers and the Despot nevertheless sheds light on one of the stranger stories to come out of the bizarre life of Kim Jong-il, an unlikely movie buff whose most significant impact on the medium has been as the frequent butt of a joke.
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