The Lovers & the Despot

This documentary film tells the remarkable ordeal of a famous South Korean actress and a film director, who were kidnapped by North Korea in 1970's to strengthen the North Korean film industry. The actress recounts her multi-year ordeal, together with interviews from multiple people and the film director's voice recordings to tell the world their experience.

"The Lovers & the Despot" is a well executed documentary. It appears comprehensive, as it has extended interviews by Choi, Choi's children, US government officials, international film critics and even a Hong Kong police officer. It tells a horrible story of kidnapping, brainwashing and torture. It must have taken them great courage to speak up on record against the most secretive regime in the world. It is engaging and captures me throughout. Even though it is comprehensive, I am quite sure it only scratches the surface of what they have gone through in North Korea.

Not knowing much about this story I was naturally intrigued to watch this doc. In a way, its a shame that even a few of the major elements of plot are given away in the promotion for the film, because its clear the film makers approach is to not take the viewer's preconceptions of the story as given, and the initial pace setting up the context and characters reflects this. It is an amazing story, and for the most part well told in an atmospheric noir fashion.

Personally, I am in favor of some kind of initial build up, as most modern docs, and fiction films too, have a pretty rushed pace. I liked the tone and eerie atmosphere in the first half, especially when we hear from some pretty amazing secret tape recordings. But I also feel that in the second half something was missing, I wanted to hear more about the couple's experiences in North Korea and I get the sense that much was left on the cutting room floor. Perhaps there will be a directors cut?

Overall, it is a pretty compelling documentary worth your time, as so much of it simply beggars belief, but I do wonder if a more interesting approach to the story could have been found. Having seen the excellent Listen to Me Marlon, could the film makers could have achieved the same kind of effect, just using tapes and movies?

One thing though, if you are going to watch it, don't read anything more about the story, just do it.

To outsiders, the North Korean government seems not just cruel but downright bizarre, no more so than in this story of the time that Kim Jong-il, then heir apparent to the Presidency, allegedly kidnapped two famous people from South Korea's film industry so that North Korea could outshine its neighbour. Some said they went willingly: what is less ambiguously true is that they did indeed make films for their "dear leader", and in the end fled, in fear of their lives. It's a very odd tale, although actress Eun-hie Choi tells her side of it convincingly. But although as defectors the protagonists provided western intelligence with their best view yet into the mind of Kim, he remains mostly an inscrutable figure, whose true intentions (and grasp of reality) we can only guess at.

This film is a shining example of a concept that many filmmakers grapple with today: simply presenting an intriguing story, then stepping back and turning on a camera does not assure a successful film. This failure of execution is of particular death to a documentary because the whole point is connection with the audience on an emotional level, thereby creating engagement and usually suspense --- suspense often much more cogent because it's not fiction. Talented doc-makers can achieve this with virtually any subject: food, talking-head philosophers, even type-settings ("Helvetica").

You'd think a doc about two filmmakers, Choi and Shin, kidnapped separately, then reunited and held against their will by a deranged dictator would be a snap to pull off.

But The Lovers and The Despot largely fails to achieve more than minimal engagement (unless, I guess, if you've never heard of the Kim dynasty or North Korea) because it rarely scratches the surface of the event itself or even the Koreas most of us know only from news footage. The film's pacing is extremely problematic in its sluggishness. It seems improbable to NOT know the basic premise even before going into this film: Struggle, abduction, pretend submission, veiled surveillance of the enemy, and escape. Yet it's forty minutes into the film before we exit act one and Choi is taken.

Yes, the Kims and particularly Kim Jong Il are huge mysteries. You could argue they are way more fascinating than Shin and Choi (who come off many times as shallow and facile. I doubt this, but when asked what films she is proud of Choi says "the ones that win awards"). Do we learn much about Choi's time --- FIVE YEARS --- with the dictator? No. It sounds for the most part as if she were left alone. I'm not discounting or minimizing Choi and Shin's ordeal. I'm attempting to relay how ineffective and downright boring much of this film is because the director, Paul Courtenay Hyu gives us so little information via interviews to engage with. For example, Shin obviously suffered after being sent to SIX camps after attempting escapes. How? No one knows or bothers to tell us.

I'm sure this film will have more resonance with viewers who have first-hand experience with totalitarianism. But that's not engaging with the film itself, it's engaging with the issue. We never get inside Choi or Shin's heads except to sympathize with their truly horrific ordeal of separation and that's a real shame. I feel this is largely the director's fault and the editing doesn't freshen anything either. For the most part the cutting is what you'd expect from a standard Behind The Scenes bonus feature, matching bits of Shin's film to the narrative in a numbing predictable way.

It's too bad but not too surprising to find many to this day don't believe Choi and Shin's story. This film doesn't go far in convincing anyone that it's beyond fiction, and that's the real tragedy since I do believe it's fact.

Just after a quick glimpse slightly confused. Why do the subtitles always say (speaking in Korean) and even say (Speaking in Korean) when 신상옥 recordings clearly have him speaking in Japanese? Why does the Hong Kong Police guy seem not very Police like - he also uses the date 30th February - is that used in Hong Kong?

Sorry stopped watching after these quibbles - tolerate! Watch it!