A new documentary reveals secret audio tapes of late North Korean leader Kim Jong II talking openly about his frustrations with the country’s propaganda and film production.
He is heard speaking freely in a high-pitched voice, in tapes smuggled out of the country in the 1980s by two South Koreans who were kidnapped and held in North Korea.
“The Lovers and the Despot” tells the story of how actress Choi Eun-hee and director Shin Sang-ok were seized by North Korean agents in 1978, and kept in North Korea for eight years, forced to make movies.
They made 17 films in captivity, ranging from tear-jerkers to thrillers. With a hidden micro-casette recorder, they recorded some of their meetings with the movie-obsessed leader.
Experts say the tapes could even help shed light on Kim’s son, the inscrutable young leader who rules the country today: Kim Jong Un.
This is the master bedroom of the three bedroom apartment. A university professor lives there with his adult children. It’s 200 square meters (about 2,150 square feet) — large for an apartment in Pyongyang.
Critic
Kim is heard apologizing to them for the kidnapping technique, promising money and resources for the film industry, and complaining about the quality of the movies his country has been producing. “Why do all of our films have the same ideological plots? There is nothing new about them.”
He also finds his country’s filmmakers lacking, compared to those of his more-successful rivals to the South.
“We don’t have any films that get into film festivals. But in South Korea, they have better technology. They are like college students; we are just in nursery school. People here are so close minded.”
On a more personal note, according to Choi, he made fun of his diminutive stature when he first met her. “Look at me,” she said he told her. “Aren’t I small,” and then made a crude self-deprecating comparison.
At the time, Kim was head of the country’s ministry for culture and propaganda. Shin and Choi both described Kim as someone who micromanaged everything, according to Paul Fischer, who wrote a book about the kidnapping. “Kim Jong Il was a film fanatic himself,” says Fischer.
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