Pyongyang Confidential: 'The Lovers and the Despot' Tells a Tale of Film-Loving and Kidnapping
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story contained a misquote that improperly identified the film’s editors. Post-production on The Lovers and the Despot had stalled due to lack of funding, and the London-based editors—Charlie Hawryliw, Ollie Huddleston and David Charap—had committed to other projects. Jim Hession came to The Lovers and the Despot via the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program, as did Victoria Chalk. Hession is the editor of The Lovers and the Despot, and Chalk is credited as co-editor, and they worked with directors Rob Cannan and Ross Adams at the Sundance Edit and Story Labs, then continued in Los Angeles to finish the film..
Documentary regrets the error.
UK-based filmmakers Rob Cannan and Ross Adam's first feature-length documentary, The Lovers and the Despot, tells the story of the 1978 kidnapping of two South Korean citizens: actress Choi Eun-Hee and her ex-husband, director Shin Sang-Ok. There is a good reason Choi and Shin's ordeal resembles the plot of a Hollywood espionage movie: The architect of their abduction was none other than Kim Jong-Il, son and heir apparent to Kim Il-Sung, the Great Leader of North Korea. In an attempt to better infiltrate and understand the world outside of North Korea's borders, Kim dispatched his agents to kidnap thousands of South Koreans, Japanese and other nationalities, the majority of whom were never seen or heard from again. Having lived a sheltered life, Kim Jong-Il's understanding of politics and international dealings had been strongly influenced by his love for movies from the West, of which the James Bond films were a personal favorite. Golden stars of the cinema, Choi Eun-Hee and Shin Sang-Ok made international headlines with their disappearance. They were not the first South Koreans to be snatched by Kim's minions, nor would they be the last, but they were arguably the most famous.
Kim Jong-Il's plan for the couple was rather straightforward, but it took some time to implement. They were to produce movies that would elevate North Korean cinema to a level that could compete with the rest of the world. According to Kim, "Everyone else was at college level, but North Korean cinema was stuck in nursery school." And therein can be found the fascinating story of how and why "The Lovers" found themselves at the behest of "The Despot."
For those readers worried about spoilers, the film begins with a small reveal of its own: Choi and Shin arrive at a press conference seven years after their abduction, having successfully escaped from their North Korean handlers. The remainder of the movie plays out a little like the subjective mystery of Rashomon, as the documentary's audience must weigh for itself the validity of testimonies from a hodgepodge of assembled characters. As the saying goes, truth is stranger than fiction, and in this bizarre tale, being able to differentiate between the two makes for one humdinger of a documentary.
"We wanted an opening that set up these two characters and primed the audience to want to know more about them," Cannan explains. "You see the photographers. You know it's a big-scale thing. Something has happened - but what, exactly? So you're interested in the people first. It's a character-led story, and it was the ‘how' it happened that the documentary gradually reveals."
"We were presenting the evidence as it is," Adam adds. "We're not interfering as interviewers, and we're letting people decide [the truth] for themselves. And as documentary filmmakers, obviously, we embrace the ambiguities and the gray areas. We love that."
The film is a fascinating peek into the nation of North Korea through Shin and Choi's ascension from abductees to eventual confidants of Kim Jong-Il. The couple would go on to make multiple films for Kim within a two-year time-span, gaining more and more favor along the way. As Choi points out in the film, the Dear Leader was determined that his country be taken seriously as a cultural and artistic presence. He fancied himself an artist, and he dedicated his country's resources toward realizing his artistic ambitions.
Utilizing a mix of archival footage, re-creations and a surprising number of film clips from the archives of Shin Films, Adam and Cannan - along with editor Jim Hession and co-editor Victoria Chalk, composer Nathan Halpern and sound designer Al Sirkett - follow the various threads of the couples' story as it knits itself together almost as quickly as the facts unravel, as a good mystery should. As with any detective story, witnesses are interviewed, expert opinions are sought out and clues are discovered. The film is populated by an eclectic mix of filmmakers, film critics, members of the immediate family, a Hong Kong detective, an escaped court poet to Kim Jong-Il, an ex-CIA operative, Choi Eun-Hee herself, and others. Early on, Shin's foresight to secretly tape-record his and Choi's conversations with Kim Jong-Il provides, among other things, a fascinating insight into the unlikely bromance that eventually develops between the director and the heir apparent.
As Adam explains, "One thing that struck us early on in the story is that we had two characters who were totally obsessed with cinema, and this is what brings them together, in a very unusual way. And if you believe Shin's kidnap story, then you know it's all the more bizarre that it becomes a kind of buddy movie, with them bonding over the love of making films and their ambition to create the greatest studio in Asia, and make films that would break into the Western markets."
Kim's grand plan to launch his and Shin's new North Korean Film Studio began with the reunification of Choi and Shin, whom he decreed would be remarried on April 15, the birthday of his father, Kim Il-Sung. And so, Shin and Choi launched the North Korean incarnation of Shin Films as a remarried couple, with their productions having access to budgets larger than they ever thought imaginable. They were given a wide berth to make their kind of films, ironically enjoying a creative freedom while not being able to return home to South Korea. This arrangement eventually led Shin down a rabbit hole of a quandary: Should he and Choi continue to build a film empire in North Korea, or risk their lives to escape and be reunited with their children, family and friends?
"There is a moment in the tapes when he was sort of telling his whole story to Japanese journalist Kusakabe Kyushiro," Cannan notes. "It was actually in a hotel room in Budapest with the guards very near by, which is why he's whispering. And he's telling this guy he really doesn't know what to do next. It was partly because of his Stockholm Syndrome, but he feels as though he shouldn't betray Kim Jong-Il's trust. This was a real turning point in his life, and consequently in the film as well."
Adam and Cannan's documentary took approximately six years to complete. They spent the first two years negotiating with Choi and the Shin Films Foundation, convincing them that they were the best filmmakers to do justice to Shin and Choi's rather unique story.
"What we hadn't bargained for is what tough negotiators Koreans are," Cannan notes. "Even though Choi and her family had at that point said, ‘OK, we will choose you as the people to make the film,' it still took an extremely long period of time to negotiate the nuances of the contracts because they're so protective of the story, of their archive, and of Shin's legacy.
"Sundance came onboard quite early with a small development grant at a very opportune time," Cannan continues. "And then about two years later, with really great timing, they reached out to us saying that they hadn't seen a cut yet and they'd love to have a look." When Sundance Documentary Film Program learned that the film was on hold due to funding issues, and that the filmmakers’ London-based editors had committed to other projects, Sundance paired up Adam and Cannan with editor Jim Hession, whose credits include Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present and Rich Hill, and co-editor Victoria Chalk. The team worked together at the Sundance Edit and Story Labs, and Sundance later provided funding to keep them working in Los Angeles. "If it wasn't for [Sundance], I dread to think where we would be with the film now," Cannan admits. "They really did save us."
"It's worth pointing out," Adam interjects, "that it was actually at the point when Sundance stepped in that we were starting to get the tapes. So they not only helped us to continue editing, but this new material gave us a new way to shape the film. It was really serendipitous. We felt very lucky that after all those years of countless frustrations, all of this was finally falling into place."
"Absolutely," Cannan concurs. "And it was getting close to Christmas when we got the news that we had also been selected for the Sundance Film Festival. And at the festival, Submarine and Josh Braun did an amazing job with representing the film to distributors, which garnered some really good interest. Thinking back on it, Magnolia was probably our very best choice and great hope for the film, so we're very pleased to get them onboard."
The Lovers and the Despot opens in theaters September 23 through Magnolia Pictures.
Tom Gianakopoulos is a Los Angeles-based writer and photographer.