The South Korean Actress North Korea Kidnapped To “Make Films For Us”: Choi Eun-hee

When people think of North Korea, what usually comes to mind is a closed regime, propaganda posters, military parades, and a state system cut off from the rest of the world. But there are events in the country’s history so strange that anyone hearing them for the first time might think they are reading an absurd dark comedy script rather than a real story.

I had previously written about one of North Korea’s strange relationships with the outside world in The 1,000 Volvos North Korea Took From Sweden And Never Paid For. This time, the story is not about unpaid cars, but cinema itself. Because Kim Jong-il’s obsession with Hollywood and filmmaking once went as far as actual kidnapping.

Kim Jong-il ruled North Korea between 1994 and 2011. But his influence over cinema and propaganda had begun long before he officially became the country’s leader. He had a deep interest in films, followed Hollywood productions closely, and saw cinema as one of the strongest propaganda tools for shaping the public. In his eyes, North Korean cinema was lifeless, soulless, and far from the quality needed to reach the outside world.

Choi Eun-hee

The idea he came up with to solve this problem was almost impossible to believe: kidnap some of South Korea’s most successful film people and force them to make films for North Korea.

Choi Eun-hee Was Kidnapped In Hong Kong

One of the central figures in this plan was Choi Eun-hee, one of South Korea’s most famous actresses. In 1978, Choi was invited to Hong Kong under the pretext of a film project and a business meeting. From the outside, this looked like an ordinary cinema-related meeting, but it was actually a trap prepared by North Korean agents.

Choi Eun-hee was kidnapped in Hong Kong and taken to North Korea by ship. The person she eventually faced there was Kim Jong-il himself. She was told openly why she had been brought there: she was going to help North Korean cinema.

Meanwhile, Choi’s former husband and one of South Korea’s important directors, Shin Sang-ok, began investigating her disappearance. When he went to Hong Kong to follow Choi’s trail, he fell into the same trap. Soon after, he too was kidnapped by North Korean agents.

They Were Kept Apart And Put Under Pressure

After Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok were taken to North Korea, they were not immediately reunited. Being kept apart during the first years was one of the most disturbing parts of the story. The regime wanted to weaken them psychologically and eventually force them to submit to Kim Jong-il’s plan.

At first, Shin Sang-ok refused to cooperate. He even tried to escape, and as a result, he was severely punished. He was kept in prison for years. Choi, meanwhile, lived under a different kind of pressure in North Korea. Neither of them was free. Yet after a while, the regime began presenting them almost like “guest artists” from the outside.

Kim Jong-il eventually brought the two of them back together. He gave them unusually broad opportunities by North Korean standards. But this freedom was not real freedom. There were cameras, studios, budgets, and technical resources, but behind all of it stood one simple truth: these people were not there by choice.

Pulgasari And North Korean Cinema

Shin Sang-ok was forced to return to the director’s chair. Choi Eun-hee also became part of the process with her experience in acting and cinema. Kim Jong-il’s goal was to make North Korean cinema more impressive, more spectacular, and more visible to the outside world.

Among the films made during this period, the best-known one was Pulgasari, released in 1985. The film was built around a giant monster story in the style of Godzilla. From the outside, it looked like a fantasy monster film, but for the North Korean regime, it also became an ideological propaganda tool.

Pulgasari is still the most remembered part of this story today. Because the film itself was not the only strange thing. What made it truly interesting was the kidnapping story behind it. The idea that two South Korean artists kidnapped because of a dictator’s obsession with cinema were forced to make a giant monster film for North Korea is already unbelievable on its own.

They Waited For A Chance To Escape

Over time, Kim Jong-il began to trust Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok. He believed they were now working with the regime and would no longer try to escape. That trust became the opportunity the couple had been waiting for years.

Shin Sang-ok ,Kim Jong-il and Choi Eun-hee 

In 1986, they were allowed to travel to Vienna. For North Korea, this trip looked like an opportunity to build cinema connections and pursue projects abroad. But for Choi and Shin, it was one of the rare moments when they could put their escape plan into action.

In Vienna, they found the right moment and sought refuge at the U.S. Embassy, requesting asylum. With that, their years of captivity in North Korea came to an end.

North Korea, as usual, tried to tell the story in reverse. The regime claimed that Choi and Shin had not escaped, but had instead been kidnapped by the West. However, the couple revealed the truth to the world through their testimony and the information they had.

A True Story Stranger Than A Film Script

Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok later settled in the United States and did not completely cut their ties with cinema. But the years they spent in North Korea deeply affected the rest of their lives. Shin Sang-ok died in 2006, and Choi Eun-hee died in 2018.

Today, this story is still remembered as one of the strangest events in film history. Because this was not just a kidnapping. It was the story of a dictator who saw cinema as a propaganda machine, believed his country’s film industry was not good enough, and decided to solve the problem by having an actress and a director kidnapped from another country.

North Korea’s history is already full of strange incidents. On one side, there is a state that never paid for the Volvos it received from Sweden.  ( The 1,000 Volvos North Korea Took From Sweden And Never Paid For >> ) On the other, there is a regime that kidnapped people to develop its film industry. That is why the story of Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok remains not only one of the strangest chapters in cinema history, but also one of the most absurd files in modern political history.