Many amazing things are reported in “The Lovers and the Despot,” a new documentary about a bizarre slice of Korean history. One of the strangest is the way Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s “Dear Leader,” liked to break the ice.
According to one source, the dictator would relax newcomers by cheerfully comparing his small stature to that of a little person’s excrement.
Hey, it got a laugh. But then all of the Dear Leader’s jokes got a laugh.
This movie chronicles the lives of two South Korean film luminaries, and their unwilling adventures in the north. The movie star Choi Eun-hee and her husband-director Shin Sang-ok were kidnapped in 1978 and taken to North Korea, where after years of imprisonment they were put to work in the film industry there.
This was at the personal behest of Kim Jong-il. The Dear Leader was a giant movie buff (he actually wrote a book called “On the Art of the Cinema”), and he wanted North Korea to have an exciting and respected film business.
Directors Ross Adam and Robert Cannan tell this story with interviews, colorful footage (including clips from Shin’s films), and re-creations. If it plays like a spy movie at times, that’s because it is one.
Shin died in 2006, still under a cloud in South Korea (there was always speculation that he may have gone willingly to the north, where he was given his own studio to play with). He comes across as a grand figure—everybody thought he was cool, his widow remembers—although he ended his career working in Hollywood producing the “3 Ninjas” series.
Choi is still alive, and her interviews are dramatic and emotional. Their children also speak about their experiences, when they did not actually know what had happened to their parents for years.
The kidnapped couple secretly tape-recorded their conversations with Kim Jong-il, which are fascinating to listen to. (The CIA thought so too; nobody’d ever heard his voice.)
Kim sounds like a frustrated Hollywood mogul when he talks about North Korean films. “Why don’t our films get into film festivals?” he says. “Why do all our films have crying scenes? This isn’t a funeral. Is it?”
Because of Shin and Choi, North Korea did get some pictures into film festivals, and that travel eventually allowed them to defect to the West. Their escape was a true Cold War cloak-and-dagger affair.
This story is a footnote in the saga of the movie-obsessed Kim Jong-il. But it says a lot about megalomaniacs and their desire to play with toys.
“The Lovers and the Despot” HHH½
A fascinating documentary about a South Korean actress and her director husband who were kidnapped and forced to make films in North Korea. Full of bizarre details, and a good portrait of the movie-obsessed “Dear Leader,” North Korea’s Kim Jong-il. In Korean, with English subtitles.
Rating: Not rated; probably PG for subject matter
Showing: Sundance Cinemas
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