The Lovers and the Despot

Shin Sang-ok:

Spokesman: Ladies and gentlemen of the press...

Man: Out of the way! Come on, down.

Give somebody else a break.

Spokesman: I have been provided

with the following background information.

Mr. Shin and Miss Choi are both nationals of South Korea

and are married.

Mr. Shin was a well-known director

and Miss Choi a famous actress

in the South Korean film industry.

Some eight years ago, Miss Choi appeared in North Korea

after having been in Hong Kong.

Subsequently, Mr. Shin travelled to Hong Kong

and later appeared in North Korea.

Today's conference is held at the request

of Mr. Shin and Miss Choi.

The Shin couple will have an opening statement

after I have finished my...

Choi: (speaking Korean)

Narrator: Kim Jong-il's leadership of Korea.

Mount Paektu, the mountain that chimes

with the history of the Korean revolution,

carries the great history of the leadership of Korea

By Kim Jong-il.

Inheriting the qualities of president Kim Il-sung,

a peerless hero of Korea,

and Kim Jong-suk,

a woman hero of the anti-Japanese revolution,

Kim Jong-il has led the Korean revolution

for several decades.

In the mid-1960s,

when the situation in Korea and the world was complicated,

Kim Jong-il started working

at the central committee of the workers' party of Korea,

the general staff of the Korean revolution.

Whenever the us imperialists resorted to high-handedness

with regard to Korea,

he'd put them to shame, displaying the wisdom

and mettle of an iron-willed commander.

In the 1960s, I was working

in a military-intelligence organization in South Korea.

But I didn't have any connection with the film business.

I was just in the audience.

My job was to interrogate North Korean defectors

and arrest North Korean espionage agents.

In the 1970s, the North Korean Workers' Party

recognized Kim Jong-il as his father's heir apparent.

So he started to build up his own power base.

During that period, there was a very severe power struggle,

to protect Kim Jong-il's power

and his succession to power after his father.

Many, many people were killed and purged.

All of them are brainwashed.

All of them are brainwashed.

But the interrogator's job is to crack him.

To make him understand the true story, the true facts,

of what's going on.

¶ (man sings in Korean) ¶

Choi: (speaking Korean)

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Myung-yim: (speaking Korean)

Interviewer: Can you describe what you heard on the tapes?

Because you told us before that you have heard

Kim Jong-il's voice, and not many people have.

I cannot do that.

Interviewer: I know you can't explain how you heard it,

but can you explain that you knew they were real?

And that this was really Kim Jong-il?

I cannot tell you the circumstances.

Interviewer: Yes, of course.

Okay, let's... Let's start. Okay.

I mentioned five tapes

that were released to the South Korean authorities

and I recognized Kim Jong-il's voice.

Kim Jong-il:

(Kim's Jong-il's indistinct speech on tape recorder)

Choi: Okay.

Mm.

Choi Kyung-ok:

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Myung-yim: (speaking Korean)

Choi: (speaking Korean)

Iain T.A. Hall: We received a phone call,

from the Furama Hotel,

that one of their guests had left the hotel without paying,

in circumstances which they were unfamiliar with.

I think it was a Sunday.

Just about to come off my particular shift.

And because Hong Kong is such a massive place

with so many people,

missing people, missing persons cases, were, as you can imagine,

happening quite frequently.

But because this case involved a foreign national,

i.e. not a local Hong Kong person,

we had to pay particular attention.

When we got to the hotel, everything was in its place.

All her suitcases, her personal belongings.

The bathroom had all the cosmetics that you'd expect

from someone who's staying there

and had no intention of leaving in a hurry.

So we soon realized that we were on to something here

which wasn't just a missing person.

Why has she come to Hong Kong?

Who asked her? Why was she there?

And why had she mysteriously just disappeared,

as it would seem, off the face of the Earth with no trace?

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Yi: Choi was divorced...

with a big bank debt.

One Korean lady approached Choi Eun-hee,

and she said, "Well, we have a very rich person in Hong Kong.

She's also in the film business."

Her name was Lee Sang-hee.

At the time, the South Korean government didn't know,

Choi didn't know, I didn't...

Nobody knew she was a North Korean agent.

Choi: (speaking Korean)

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Hall: On the 30th February, 1978,

we searched Lee Sang-hee's apartment at Queen's Road East.

It was quite revealing what we found.

A used North Korean airline ticket.

And also, a film script called Woman Slave Ship,

which was one of Shin's film scripts.

I remember the first time I met Shin.

There was something quite distinctive about him.

He had a bit of a swagger, good-looking and very confident.

It's difficult to articulate instinct,

but we felt there was something about Shin

that didn't sit comfortably with us.

His answers were somewhat inconsistent,

and he appeared to be very evasive.

He was quite clear that he had nothing to do with it,

but wanted to have police protection.

He felt that Choi had been abducted by the North Koreans.

He was obviously quite concerned

about what was going to happen to him.

Yi: Many different stories spread.

Speculations.

Shin contacted Kim Kyu-hwa.

He was Shin's old friend and business partner.

But Shin did not know...

he was also a North Korean agent.

Choi: (speaking Korean)

¶ (film soundtrack plays) ¶

Choi:

Pierre Rissient: I was in Hong Kong for the film festival.

And because I had heard about Shin Sang-ok,

I wanted to meet him and to see some of his films.

I do not remember exactly how it came about.

I remember that I found out that he was at this hotel,

that I was surprised that it was such a cheap hotel.

Clearly, he was not doing well.

From 1974,

the South Korean government decided to stop his activities.

He was not authorized to make films.

He was an outcast in Korea.

He had to try to find work somewhere else.

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Jang-ho: (speaking Korean)

Rissient: The suspicion was that he was dead.

The suspicion that he could have been killed by the Korean CIA.

Shin Sang-ok:

¶ (singing Korean opera) ¶

Choi: (speaking Korean)

¶ (opera continues) ¶

Shin Sang-ok:

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Shin Sang-ok:

Man: (speaking Korean)

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Shin Sang-ok:

Jeong-kyun: (speaking Korean)

Shin Sang-ok: