Shin Sang-Ok Dies

The South Korean film-maker and his actress wife were best known for having been kidnapped by Kim Jong Il to make movies in North Korea, most infamously the stoner cult classic “Pulgasari.” In Shin’s observations about the emperor and his court feature prominently in the writings of North Korea Kremlinologists, including Jasper Becker’s Rogue Regime.

Apparently at the orders of Kim Jong-il, then North Korea’s heir apparent and a film buff, both he and his wife, the actress Choi Eun-hee, were kidnapped in Hong Kong in 1978 and spirited away to the North. After he shot seven films for the Workers’ Party there, the couple engineered a dramatic escape with the help of the U.S. Embassy in Canberra and lived temporarily in Southern California.

His films after that escape were much more political and related to North Korea. “Mayumi” (1990) delved into the bombing of a Korean civilian aircraft by a North Korean agent; “Evaporation” traced the fictional kidnapping of an official of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency.

Mr. Shin was a member of jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1994. Yesterday, President Roh Moo-hyun’s spokesman, Kim Man-soo, said the president had sent a condolence message to Mr. Shin’s wife and had given the director a special award honoring his contribution to the development of Korean cinema.

It’s unfortunate that Shin, who appears to have been a filmmaker of considerable artistic merit, will be remembered for the pap he produced at gunpoint. Shin was 80.