A South Korean actress who was once kidnapped by the North’s agents on the orders of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in a Cold War-style intrigue and forced to make movies for the regime has died at age 91, her family said.
Choi Eun-hee was the South’s most famous actress for decades before being brazenly abducted by North Korean spies in Hong Kong in 1978 at the request of then-leader-in-waiting Kim, an avid film fan.
Her husband, Shin Sang-ok, a top film director, was taken to the North soon after, although the circumstances surrounding his abduction remain unclear.
Choi remained trapped in the North for eight years, where she and Shin made more than 10 films together under Kim’s watch.
Choi in a 2011 interview described a complex relationship with a captor who “respected us as artists and fully supported us,” but whom she could never forgive for the “outrageous and unforgivable” kidnapping.
They were allowed to make “films with artistic values, instead of just propaganda films extolling the regime,” Choi said, but always longed for their freedom.
Kim spared no expense when it came to making their movies. For one action sequence involving a train crash he provided a real train engine loaded with dynamite, while for another film requiring windy conditions he ordered a helicopter to hover overhead.
During their ordeal, the couple traveled overseas extensively for movie production and to attend film festivals — always under heavy surveillance by the North’s agents.
The couple — who had divorced in 1976 — remarried during a trip to Hungary at Kim’s urging.
They finally staged a daring escape to the US embassy in Vienna after attending the Berlin International Film Festival in 1986.
“I still have nightmares of being chased after by North Korean agents,” she said in a 2015 interview.
“When I arrived at the US embassy in Austria and was told: ‘Welcome to the West,’ I burst into tears. I couldn’t stop crying,” she added.
The couple sought asylum in the US due to fears for their personal security, before returning to the South in 1999 after more than a decade in the US.
They remained married until Shin’s death in 2006. Their dramatic life inspired several books and movies.
Choi’s funeral is to be held in Seoul tomorrow.
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