The Invitation-Only Zone Read Online Free Page A
Author: Robert S. Boynton
France, andHolland. Among the reasons Japanese nationals were abducted was to steal identities with which to create fake passports. The targets tended to be unmarried low-status men who lived far from their families and wouldn’t be missed. Japan’s traditional family registration system ( koseki ) had yet to be fully centralized in the late seventies, so there was no reliable national database against whicha forged passport could be compared. And a Japanese passport granted the holder access to virtually any country on earth.
* * *
“Thank you for coming, Madame Choi. I am Kim Jong Il.” 5 Choi Eun-hee, South Korea’s most famous actress, felt a sense of terror the moment she heard his name. It was January 28, 1978, when Choi’s boat entered the port of Nampo, on North Korea’s western coast. Aweek earlier she had flown from Seoul to Hong Kong to discuss a project with an acting school she had been running since the closing of Shin Films, the studio she ran with her husband, the director Shin Sang-ok. The meeting, it turned out, was a ruse to lure Choi into the hands of her North Korean captors. Kim Jong-il reached out to greet her. “I didn’t want to shake hands with the man who had engineeredmy kidnapping, but I had no choice,” she writes in her memoir. At the moment they shook hands, a cameraman popped up to take their photo. “I didn’t want any record of that moment. Nor did I want any long-lasting proof of my unkempt and ugly state.”
Kim Jong-il with camera (Associated Press)
Three weeks after Choi disappeared from Hong Kong, Shin went looking for her. Although they had divorced two years earlier, they were still extremely close. He had warned her that the invitation to Hong Kong seemed suspicious, and he was now determined to rescue her. Often called the Orson Welles of South Korea, Shin had made three hundred movies atShin Films, the country’s largest studio, before running afoul of President Park Chung-hee. At the time of his ex-wife’s abduction, Shin was considering moving to Hollywood to continue his career. After a few days in Hong Kong, he, too, was taken to Pyongyang.
Shin was a less compliant “guest” than his former wife (whom Kim Jong-il had put up in one of his finest palaces) and made several escapeattempts. As punishment, he was sentenced to four years in prison. Once he promised to stop trying to escape, he was released. On March 6, 1983, Kim Jong-il staged a party to reunite the couple. “Well, go ahead and hug each other. Why are you just standing there?” he said. The room erupted into applause as the two embraced. The Dear Leader hushed the crowd. “Comrades. From now on, Mr. Shin ismy film adviser.” The attraction of Shin was considerable. He was the most creative and influential director in South Korea, so his “defection” would be perceived as a criticism of its system. Shin was Kim’s ideal director: trained in Japan and China, he had made films in the United States and was familiar with the most recent Western film techniques. Yet he was Korean (born in prewar North Korea,no less), so Kim couldn’t be accused of bowing to the imperialist West.
Movies have played an important role in North Korea since 1948, when Kim Il-sung lured South Korean filmmakers north with promises of unlimited funding and artistic freedom. Kim believed film was the perfect medium for raising national consciousness. Dozens of duplicates of every North Korean film were circulated throughoutthe country, with color copies going to the big cities and black-and-white to rural areas. Movies about Kim Il-sung himself were always distributed in color, and only on the highest-quality film stock from the United States (Kodak) or Japan (Fuji).
Before entering politics proper, Kim Jong-il ran the Movie and Arts Division of the Workers’ Party Organization and Guidance Department. Kim was ahuge film buff who watched movies every night. Enlisting the aid of North Korea’s embassies,
* * *
“Thank you for coming, Madame Choi. I am Kim Jong Il.” 5 Choi Eun-hee, South Korea’s most famous actress, felt a sense of terror the moment she heard his name. It was January 28, 1978, when Choi’s boat entered the port of Nampo, on North Korea’s western coast. Aweek earlier she had flown from Seoul to Hong Kong to discuss a project with an acting school she had been running since the closing of Shin Films, the studio she ran with her husband, the director Shin Sang-ok. The meeting, it turned out, was a ruse to lure Choi into the hands of her North Korean captors. Kim Jong-il reached out to greet her. “I didn’t want to shake hands with the man who had engineeredmy kidnapping, but I had no choice,” she writes in her memoir. At the moment they shook hands, a cameraman popped up to take their photo. “I didn’t want any record of that moment. Nor did I want any long-lasting proof of my unkempt and ugly state.”
Kim Jong-il with camera (Associated Press)
Three weeks after Choi disappeared from Hong Kong, Shin went looking for her. Although they had divorced two years earlier, they were still extremely close. He had warned her that the invitation to Hong Kong seemed suspicious, and he was now determined to rescue her. Often called the Orson Welles of South Korea, Shin had made three hundred movies atShin Films, the country’s largest studio, before running afoul of President Park Chung-hee. At the time of his ex-wife’s abduction, Shin was considering moving to Hollywood to continue his career. After a few days in Hong Kong, he, too, was taken to Pyongyang.
Shin was a less compliant “guest” than his former wife (whom Kim Jong-il had put up in one of his finest palaces) and made several escapeattempts. As punishment, he was sentenced to four years in prison. Once he promised to stop trying to escape, he was released. On March 6, 1983, Kim Jong-il staged a party to reunite the couple. “Well, go ahead and hug each other. Why are you just standing there?” he said. The room erupted into applause as the two embraced. The Dear Leader hushed the crowd. “Comrades. From now on, Mr. Shin ismy film adviser.” The attraction of Shin was considerable. He was the most creative and influential director in South Korea, so his “defection” would be perceived as a criticism of its system. Shin was Kim’s ideal director: trained in Japan and China, he had made films in the United States and was familiar with the most recent Western film techniques. Yet he was Korean (born in prewar North Korea,no less), so Kim couldn’t be accused of bowing to the imperialist West.
Movies have played an important role in North Korea since 1948, when Kim Il-sung lured South Korean filmmakers north with promises of unlimited funding and artistic freedom. Kim believed film was the perfect medium for raising national consciousness. Dozens of duplicates of every North Korean film were circulated throughoutthe country, with color copies going to the big cities and black-and-white to rural areas. Movies about Kim Il-sung himself were always distributed in color, and only on the highest-quality film stock from the United States (Kodak) or Japan (Fuji).
Before entering politics proper, Kim Jong-il ran the Movie and Arts Division of the Workers’ Party Organization and Guidance Department. Kim was ahuge film buff who watched movies every night. Enlisting the aid of North Korea’s embassies,
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