Rotten Mango - #95: Kidnapped By North Korea Part 1 (Case of Choi Eun-hee)

Episode Date: September 9, 2021

She couldn’t believe it. They wanted her to write a letter to her kidnappers thanking them for all that they have done for her.  Are these people out of their minds? She missed her old life in South Korea - she had been a famous movie actress, her children, freedom, she missed it all.  Now she was kidnapped in a foreign country forced to write letters of love to the men who ordered it.  She started the letter - Dear Kim Jong Il The Supreme Leader of North Korea… Book Rec: “A Kim Jong Il Production” - by Paul Fischer (Even my Korean parents who grew up with this case on the news learned so much from this book! 10/10) Don't forget to check out - https://www.analuisa.com/rotten  Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rambles. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are, whenever we need it. Download the free Peloton is for all of us. Wherever we are, whenever we need it. Download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay to description starting at $12.99 per month. Your greatest asset isn't how much money you have, or your house

it's honestly you. You matter, and you're awesome. Don't try to fight me on this, I'm standing my ground. Ask your friends, visit betterhelp.com slash rotten. Take care of number one with some online therapy because you deserve to invest in your greatest asset Which is you but I being but a boom welcome to this week's main episode of rotten mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue and I'm your co-host Mr. Mango Okay, we gotta find a way to do this more seriously, you? Show people that we're really serious about this podcast. Stop, okay? Let me just drop you off in the middle of the crime.

Now you're gonna write a letter to them. This is what this person is telling the kidnapped woman. Thank them for everything that they've done for all of us. I mean, she couldn't believe it. They really wanted her to sit there and write a letter to her kidnappers thanking them for kidnapping her, are you kidding? She would have never thought. She wants the kidnapper to write a letter to himself?

No, another person's there, another woman's there. Oh. And she's like, this woman is crazy. You want me to write a thank you letter to my kidnappers with wrong with you? I mean, she would have never thought that she would end up in this position. She used to be one of the most famous South Korean actresses of her generation. She met the president of South Korea the first lady she partied with Marilyn Monroe. Her husband was once the greatest film director in South Korea and now she was kidnapped in a foreign country

writing a letter to her kidnappers thanking them for kidnapping her. Okay. So while she wrote this letter, the woman next to her kept saying, you know, not everyone has this privilege of having their letters read by these great men, but they will read yours. I'm sure of it. So go on, write a beautiful letter. It went something like this. I would like to express my deepest gratitude and thanks.

I would also like to wish you good health for the next year. Thank you for taking me into your confidence and helping me see the new light. From Che In-hee to Kim Jong-il, the supreme leader of North Korea. Oh, yeah! This is this! Did you know? Okay, we know a lot of stuff about North Korea. At least we think that we do. But did you know that Kim Jong Il, who was the dad of Kim Jong Il in the current, quote-unquote, supreme leader of North Korea, and I say quote-unquote,

because supreme leader, I didn't know that was like an official job title anyway, continuing on the day after. Wait, can you talk about North Korea like this? Oh yeah, we're about to,. See, I don't know. Isn't there is like a lot of people getting... Can I opt? Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah.

Okay, yeah. Okay, just wanna make sure you know what you're getting yourself into. I actually don't, so if you see Rotten Mangle just vanish from the internet, um... I don't know what I would advise you to do. I guess I would advise you to do something for me. Yeah. They're all driving in their car and they're commuting out like, that's fine. It was something on backup.

So, we just had a quick little intermission and I've decided to take out half of my notes on North Korea because I'm terrified. Yeah, I'm so, you know what, even 50% is going to be quite shocking. So, I'm just going to hit you with a 50% spiel on North Korea. Did you know I was born there? Almost born in North Korea? That's dramatic, I'm sorry, I don't know why, that just came out of my mouth,

that was a blatant dramatization of what actually might have happened. So both of my grandparents on my mom's side and my dad's side, they were born in what is now North Korea when all of Korea, the peninsula was united. So they're born on the North side, they were living there, they were doing business there, their whole family was there,

the whole setup was there. This is before my parents were born. And then the war breaks out. So my grandpa on my mom's side had to pay to leave the North side because they started kind of divvying up the space and was like, well, you can't leave the North like you got to fight in our troops. So you had to pay a bunch

of money to move down south. Why did you want to do that? It's just better freedom. I see. I mean they were not trying to join the Communist Party I guess. So they moved down south. My dad's side, they actually escaped. Not like as you would imagine now, it's much easier to escape before the border was actually existed. So when they were trying to take over Seoul, the North, they ran away. They're just like, okay, let's just go down and act like we're trying to help the army overtake Seoul, but we're actually just going to stay here and pretend like we've been here all along.

So they were both originally supposed to be in the North side? Yeah, so my grandpa and my mom's side actually was, I believe, born, I don't want to say born and raised, but he's been most of his time, his adult years in Pyongyang, which is the capital of North Korea. Ah, yeah. Okay. It used to be a much bigger city than Seoul until it was divi'd up in ruined. Okay.

Yeah. So you almost, yeah, that was really dramatic, but I don't know. This made me feel a lot of shivers when my parents told me this because I feel like they would constantly tell me something like this when I was young. Like, did you know you could have such easily had a different life? You should appreciate your life in this great country of America. And I'd be like, yeah, yeah, mom. I'm gonna go back to my texting.

I'm gonna text some boys. And now, now I'm like, wow, I feel really grateful for some odd reason. Maybe it's age is getting to me. So full source notes are available at rottingmaneuropodcast.com but there's such a good book on this. It's called a Kim Jong Il production. And it's written by a film producer who studied film in Paris,

has directed a ton of movies, a documentary movie called Radio Man that I had no idea, has directed a ton of movies, a documentary movie called Radio Man that I had no idea that he had a part of. His name is Paul Fisher. I mean, this is his first and only book. I don't even know what to say. Conducted over 50 interviews. This guy is meticulous. He gets all his facts. He even talked to North Korean defectors. He traveled to South Korea, Austria, Germany, Hungary, Hong Kong, North Korea. Even North Korea? Yeah, he even stayed in the exact hotel rooms that the victims stayed in.

I mean, this is the most meticulous book that I have ever seen on a subject like this. I was bonding with my parents and there were things in this book that my parents had no idea happened. They're like, what? Like I lived through this. How do I not know that this happened? But yeah. In order for any of this to make sense, I got to take you to the Korean War. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. So back then, from 1910 to about like 1945-ish, I believe, Korea was actually colonized by Japan.

The peninsula of Korea was a colony of Japan, and it was nothing like what you imagined South Korea to be now. Korea was really not like a first world country back. Then it was not a developed country. They were struggling. There wasn't a lot of resources. There wasn't development done. So after World War II ends, Japan surrenders to the Allied powers. And Korea was divided into two zones.

The northern part of the Korea was taken over by the Soviet Union, so the Communist Party. The South was occupied by the United States. So we've got this kind of like back and forth tension and then a full on war break sound between the two political zones. The North are like we're communist, we're the true leaders of the peninsula, the South is like we're Democrats, we need to have a true, you know, recognized government, and they were just fighting and fighting, and then finally there was an agreement. Not a peace treaty, just like a hey, let's stop killing people. An agreement, and they

established the demilitarized zone. So this is the 160 miles of no man's land that my dad wanted to take me to, and I was like, mmm, like I don't think so thank you. Oh yeah. Yes, yes, yes, I remember that. I don't know. He's like do you want to see it? Do you want to see it? I was thinking, you know, I don't know, I thought maybe I could eat some more street food. I get that there's a lot of history there, but it's also terrifying to go there.

Oh my God. You're just making eye contact with the guards across the water. Hello. You want a selfie? Exactly! Say hi, you're on my YouTube channel. I just didn't really think it was appropriate. So that's where the border was formed.

Now North Korea goes on to become one of the harshest offenders of human rights violations the world has ever seen. They call themselves an independent socialist state. They have quote unquote elections. But let's be real, it's a dictatorship, and all the family leaders are of the quote-unquote Kim dynasty, the Kims. Okay, they take over the place. It started with Kim Ye-sung, then Kim Jong-il, who we're talking about today, and then now it is currently Kim Jong-un. So technically, in North Korea, everything, healthcare, education, housing, food production are all state-funded. But because of corruption, I mean, they're practically not funded.

By the state, by private entities, like there's just no funding going in there, at all, whatsoever. What was did the citizens or malnourished? Hundreds of thousands of people have already died from just pure starvation in North Korea. So the Soviet Union has control over the North and they install a new leader named Kim Il Sung. He had no political experience. He was disciplined. He was a promising officer. He was considered reliable, brave, and he spoke Korean, Russian, and Chinese. So this was important so he could communicate with Stalin. Yeah, I know. We're going back into history, okay?

He could communicate with Stalin. They were at Biffles. They were best friends for life. Biffles. I don't even know what to say about that. And he was ready to have complete power, complete control. He wanted his people to call him dear leader, supreme leader. They would essentially worship him, the ground that he walked on, everything he touched, if he walked into your little village, stayed in a room, that room forever would be gated off. It would be a relic. No one was allowed there ever again. You would go in there with school projects and just kind of study the bed that he slept

on, the things that he might have touched. He's still alive, like it's not like we're looking at George Washington's old room, you know, like the students alive. We talk about cults a lot, but imagine a cult leader has given access to an entire population of people, an entire country, with the backing of other powerful countries to do whatever you please. The population has no power to rise up against you because you stripped them of everything.

They don't even have their own food. They're so busy about trying to find some resources that they're not thinking about. Well, let's stand up against our government. It was miserable for everyone. If you had family trapped in the North or the South, which there were a lot of families like that, it didn't matter if it was your mother, your sister,

your brother, your father, does not matter. If you talked to anyone from the opposite group, you were considered a traitor, not just in North Korea, but even in South Korea at the time. You talk to anyone from the North, you're a communist, you're a traitor, and you will be thrown in prison. Like, there was no, there was no leniency from either side. Obviously, now, you know, South Korea is a very diplomatic, they don't do stuff like this, and you and you really only feel that North Korea would throw you in prison for trying to talk to someone from the South. But back then, when you're talking war times, I mean everybody's up for grabs. One of the first things that North Korea did was they established a class system.

So they had three levels, a core class, which was the upper elites, the right hand man's of Kim Jong Il and Kim Min-yoo's song, then you had the wavering class. You're just there. It's like the middle class. You could easily go down. You can never go up, but you could just maybe stay there, maybe go down. With one bad luck, you're all the way at the bottom.

Then something called the hostile class, which is people that were suspicious. Families of wealthy people, landowners, someone who had a family in South Korea, someone who believed that the United States was not the most evil entity in the world. Maybe you thought they were the second most evil, then you are part of the hostile class. The hostile class was actually relocated to move and live on the most infertile, unfarmable

land in North Korea. Every area, every zone had 20 families that were placed there by the government that were in for months and you had no idea which families were in for months. Their duty, their full-time job was to keep tabs on everyone in the village. Now these villagers, they're not doing nothing crazy, they're not talking to South Korea, they're not making weapons, they're literally just farmers. But you're keeping tabs on farmers. Today, this farmer take an extra grain of rice.

Prison. They can come into your house, your office at any time, you could be sent to prison for anything. Using more than your electricity ration? Yeah, because everything's funded by the state. So you have a certain amount of electricity that you can use. And if your lights are on after that point, you might even die.

Like, they could kill you if they wanted to. You're wearing blue jeans. Ah, that's a sign of capitalism. Get out of here. You're going to jail. Yeah, blue jeans are capitalism. Are you for it? Yes.

That is. Clothing with Roman writing. I don't know why that's a thing. Capitalism. Jail. You wear your hair longer than you're allowed to have it because everyone has to be, you know, uniform, jail. If you were found guilty of that, which by the way, there's no trial, so if they assume

that you did something, you are guilty. There's no trial. How is this? Okay. It's not that, just you go to prison. It's three generations for your one supposed crime. So you wear blue jeans, we guess who's going to prison with you,

your mom and your dad, and your grandma and your grandpa. You got kids, they're coming too. Informing is rewarded and enforced. So if you find out that person A made fun of the way that one of the Kim's looked, you could just say, oh, you know, one of the Kim's is kind of losing hair. He's got a little bit of a weird hairline. Yeah, you're going to prison. But let's say I heard

you say that, and I didn't report you. But person B over here heard you say that, saw me. Here you say that, and I didn't report you. All of us are going to jail. And jail was bad. If you got a sentence that was longer than a few years, your family considered you pretty much dead. That's how bad these prisons were. Men and women were in the same prison. If you gave birth in prison, they would strangle your baby the minute it came out of your womb.

In front of you, they would strangle the baby with their bare hands and they had the rights too. Well, quote unquote rights, like orders given by the leader. If they wanted to perform a quote unquote abortion, they would inject poison straight into the fetus through your stomach. That doesn't work. Why are they killing babies? They just don't want you to have babies. But you end up getting pregnant and that could easily be a guards baby because guards were permitted the rights to rape any prisoner that they wanted. If you got pregnant, they could either cut open your womb and just take the child out.

And then have you figure it out or you just bleed to death. I mean, they don't care. You're going to die anyway. According to the book, someone tried to escape, and the guards beat him. They beat him so bad that he couldn't walk anymore. And he was laying on the ground, and they forced all the inmates to line up in a row and walk on top of him until his bones were completely crushed and his organs were crushed and he died. If a prisoner was executed by hanging, other prisoners were forced to throw rocks at them.

The informant policy didn't stop when you got to prison. You still had to inform the guards of any little wrongdoing any prisoner did. Inside of the prison. Inside of the prison. And you were rewarded with a tiny piece of meat. Because your meal likely consisted of salt soup with pebbles. With barely any rice. If they wanted to torture you, they would hang you over a bonfire to torture you. Super medieval. They would stick fishing hooks into you and pull as hard as they could. They chopped off fingers.

They broke limbs. There was something that they did for fun, the guards did this for fun, it's called clock torture. They would make you stand on this table, in front of all these prisoners, all these guards, they would yell at a time. You've got to use your arms and your legs to show that time on the clock and you do this until you collapse from exhaustion. There was a woman who was laid down on her back. They put a plank across her stomach and two full-sized male guards were using that plank as like a sea salt.

They were just bouncing back and forth until she could not even walk or even digest food. Rooms were so small that you couldn't lay down. There were spikes on walls so you can't lean up against the walls. If you commit suicide in prison, because the conditions are so rough, most of your family members are probably in prison with you, right? They would get tortured. Or, if you had any remaining family members not in prison, they would be thrown in jail, because you committed suicide in prison.

If you did not die from torturing or the hard labor that they made you do every single day, you'd probably get sick from an infection. I mean, this place was infested with cockroaches, rats, just body-leaf fluids, blood left everywhere. You weren't allowed to wash your clothes for years, or you starve. Because like I said, food was mainly saltwater with pebbles. Sometimes, some corn and beans barely, barely any rice. The first thing that the new regime in North Korea did was that they started brainwashing its people heavily and thoroughly. The birth story for Kim Jong-il, for example, the son of Kim Ye-seung, there was a storm that night. And it stopped the minute that he exited the womb and a double rainbow appeared in the heavens above

And this happened on the most beautiful most treasured mountain on the Korean peninsula In reality, I believe he was born in Russia And his name was Yura for the longest time Yeah, but then he changed it to Kim Jong Il Yeah, but then he changed it to Kim Jong Il. Yeah, we wasn't Kim Jong Il also like went to some foreign schools. Yeah, they all go to like foreign schools and get trained. Yeah, and there's like classmates of Dude, she's just imagine sitting next to that. I'd be terrified. I don't think they were terrified, but now looking back Yeah, they're like, huh. So that was my classmate.

I called that, I was gonna say that, be it. So I'm like, oh, I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. Chicken and broccoli, Lomint, crispy, ginger, chili, beef, Octoberfest, smoked fest smoked cheddar curry worst you're salivating and so am I okay listen I love eating good food you guys know this I have a

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And trust me, it's a game changer. Everything's delicious. Everything's ready fast and everybody loves the food. Check them out at marleySpoon.com today. They also said that Kim Jong-il learned to walk at three weeks old. He was talking by eight weeks old. You know, as a child, he also dipped his hand into ink in a war zone. They were full on war with Japan and there was this map, the map of the world. Little child Kim Jong-un dips his finger into some ink, swipes it across Japan. And suddenly typhoons, and hurricanes, swarmed that area of Japan that he had swiped the ink on his fingers off of, I mean this kid controls the weather.

Wow. And the brainwashing was really intense. So they had these museums that all of these North Korean children now being born into this country were forced to go to, forced to attend, with quote unquote historical art from a few years ago. They were all hand-drawn. There was no photographs, no pictures, and they all showed Americans shooting kids in the head, lining them up execution style, just pop pop pop.

So they drew and they said, well this happened in real life. We drew it because it happened in real life. They showed Americans letting wild dogs eat peasant farmers and they're just giggling hee hee ha ha, skinning people alive, burning them in bonfires, scalping children, raping women on the streets of South Korea. Or North Korea. No South Korea, they're like this is what's happening in the South you guys. You're so lucky that the Kims have saved you to the North, you are special people,

you were born into the country of freedom and dreams. Because America, they're looking what they're doing. They would grab a piece of paper, these American soldiers would grab a piece of paper with capitalism propaganda on there and would nail it to people's heads with a big old bolt. That's what the picture is depicted. They're all hand-drawn. North Korea had won the war. It's what they're telling everyone. There were real photographs of American troops with white flags hanging out of their windows. This is a real picture. It was for the agreement.

North Korea told them, listen, we're not going to come up. We're not going to show up to even sign this agreement. If you don't show up with white flags out your window. So the American troops said, yeah, whatever, that's not going to hurt us. So they threw out white flags. And North Korea did that so that they could take a picture. And they said, see, whatever, that's not going to hurt us. So they threw out white flags. And North Korea did that so that they could take a picture. And they said, see, they surrendered to us

because we are the greatest power on this planet. They had a museum called International Friendship Exhibition Museum. This sounds like a pop-up. But it's like a real museum where it was just displaying gifts from other communist leaders around the world that showed their love for the Kims. They said, look at what Stalin gave us. Yeah.

If that's not dystopian enough for you, there was something called the mass games, which was just army parades, choreographed gymnastic performances, and apparently 10,000 people would hold these like mosaic tiles to create pictures of the deer leader, then it would graciously like a little wave in the sea transform into the North Korean flag. Kids were forced to stand and wet themselves for hours because they weren't allowed to move. It was just all praising the Kim family. At the end, people's hands would be bright red because if they didn't clap, they die,

and they clap for so long and so hard, it was painful. The performers are chosen as young as five years old and the rest of their lives are spent every single waking day preparing for the mass games. It just doesn't really seem that productive to me, okay? I don't know how to run a country, I'm just saying. Every citizen is given a portrait of Kim Yersung and they would have to hang it in their house.

It represents that he's always watching over you. Every morning with breakfast, which later on they don't get breakfast because there's no food, you would have to thank the dear leader for the meal. You were given a special white cloth only to use to clean that specific portrait of the Kim family. The military could come in at any moment if there was even a speck of dust on that portrait straight to prison. If your house was on fire and you don't save the portrait, you might as well go back into the house and die because you're going to be killed in prison. You never get to celebrate your own birthdays, only the birthdays of the great leaders, and eventually the rations would stop coming. You get less food every time. The meat got smaller. The rice bags were filled with stones rather than rice.

So what the Kim family did is they just, they did not care about sustainability. They just ravaged the land of North Korea. It was all about like immediate money, immediate funds. I mean, they defaulted on, I believe, like billions of dollars of loans from foreign aid, foreign countries. It was really bad bad the people were getting no food Sometimes the rations would stop forever and you just you can't even work for food because who has food nobody has food You already had to work seven days a week for the government without being paid you had no free time There was no such thing as even rest or leisure

The only time that you could relax was when a movie came out. And you would have to run to watch it. We're talking about movies later, okay? Or it gets wild. Let's say you find someone to marry. You would have to ask the government if they can be married. They have to be in the same class as you. There's no such thing as marrying up.

You can't move away from the place that you were born, even if you were to go to a neighboring village for an hour, you need to apply for a permit. If someone is spending the night at your place, you need to apply for a permit. But it's not just paperwork, they just don't issue these. Like, it's not like you can just walk into an office and like, oh, fill out a mandatory piece of paper and like find someone sleeping over. No, like they're not going to let someone sleep over. But in the beginning, these people might have felt really grateful

because the news was monitored so much. The only information you were getting was what the rest of the world was in ruins. At least in North Korea, you had life. South Korea was collapsing. Crime was rampant. American soldiers used South Korean children for target practice.

Shut them dead in the streets. Women were raped nonstop by the soldiers in alleyways and restaurants and bars. Even young boys were sex slaves to the American army. That's what they were teaching the North Korean people. AIDS was killing all the capitalistic societies. And American troops were bringing it into South Korea by way of the soldiers who couldn't stop raping people. It was an apocalypse out there.

So of course you're sitting there, you're listening to this 24-7 because if something is being broadcasted you had to listen to it and you're thinking, wow, yeah I don't have food, I don't have, you know, quote unquote freedom but this is safe. So Kim Il Sung, the great leader, he ends up having a son. Kim Jong Il, the prodigy. Now ever since he was young, he loved movies. Stories started quote unquote spreading. They were mainly told, taught, planted, okay?

That Kim Jong Il, at seven years old, started taking notes while watching a Russian movie. The filmmakers had messed up, he said. He said, you know, the Soviet Union, who at that point was really good at making movies, right? Had messed up. That even a seven-year-old like him had realized, why was there no snow on the people

if everything else was covered in snow? If snow fall was depicted, and are using cotton for snow because it looks so crude, it looks fake. And of course, the Soviet Union conveniently reshotted all thanks to the wonderful splendid advice of 7-year-old Kim Jong-il before releasing it to the public because of his great points. Now we can speculate that none of this is true, but these are the stories that were spread in North Korea.

It was almost destined that he would take over the movie business in North Korea, except here's the interesting thing about the movie business. It wasn't really a movie, it wasn't really a business. It was straight up propaganda. The people were not allowed to watch anything besides what the government allowed. They allowed nothing but praise for the dear leader. So their news, their stories of, you know, anything that was on the television were of people sacrificing up family members as traders. Kids who turned in parents who were talking due to about the

great leader, they were seen as just heroes to the Communist Party like wow. They would talk about what the great leader did, what he said, what other great speech he made, what he was going to do for his people, the great liberator of Korea and the only thing that mattered was the revolution. They were going to revolt and take over the southern part of the peninsula. The only thing. They had defeated the powerful Japanese and now all they needed to do was reunite South Korea and North Korea but all under communist control. So anyway, Kim Jong-il is obsessed with movies. He watched every single movie that he could get his hands on. And all the outside movies had been banned at this point, so he was really only watching these North Korean films.

And he just kind of wanted more. He wanted to see what's out there, what's going on in the western media, what are the Europeans watching, what's America watching, what's South Korea doing. So he created a full team of people whose full-time jobs, about 250 full-time employees who would smuggle in movies for him. Then he would force a team of people. He needs to smuggle. Why can't he just say, Daddy, can't be some movies? I guess his dad would have been like, no.

Also this is behind the dad's back. So then he forced another team of people that spoke different languages to translate these movies. Then he hired Korean dub actors. So they would sit in a recording studio and dub these movies so that he could watch them. I mean, the dude I guess doesn't want to read subtitles which is weird. Then he would, you know, get these archivists. He wanted to make sure all of these were stored properly. I mean, it's said that he probably had one of the biggest private collections of movies that ever existed.

I mean it's like probably a lot of movies. A lot of money went into this. He was hooked. He loved movies. He loved the power of movies. So he realized that every single movie makes you feel something and it's intentional. It's not a happy accident. The director probably went in with this saying after they leave leave the theater, they're gonna feel this and this.

So the strength that this could have on propaganda was insane and he saw this as an opportunity because he was not the only son of Kimi's son. There was another son from his stepmom. So he's the son of the first wife, but she ended up passing away tragically. And then the stepmom had some more sons. Okay, wow. So he hates the stepmom, and I'm assuming he doesn't like his house siblings. So he's thinking, how can I do this in a right way?

But he doesn't really do anything immediately. Other than just obsessively watch movies, throw parties in his free time, he hated stunning, didn't like listening to others, wanted to do his own thing. He was called a playboy. Nicely, behind his back, otherwise you'd be executed. There was whispers that if you wanted to be on the right side of history, you would get in the rights with his half-brother. Because the half-brother was going to be the future leader, he was studious, he spoke

English, he served in the military, he was dignified, he carried himself really similarly to Kim Il Sung. Just seemed like a leader. He had this authority, he had this aura about him, whereas Kim Jong-il, he was just hanging out all the time, he loved money, he loved all these expensive things, he truly had heart, was the purest form of a capitalist. Really, not a communist, the dude loved chandeliers, the dude loved fast cars. He had a Rolls Royce. He had jet skis. Boats a yacht. Yeah, he had a yacht.

But Kim Jong-il had a master plan. In his head, he was going to impress his father by making movies for him that the whole country would see. Because the best way to become the favorite son is to make people love the Supreme Leader even more. To build up his legacy. It's not about outshining him. It's not about, you know, making it seem like you can do better than him. You are the future. No. You want to make sure that he is preserved. His legacy is preserved forever. That's who his dad's going to choose. So at 25 years old, Kim Jong-il becomes the cultural arts director of propaganda and agitation

department of North Korea. He took over a large team of film directors, tried to train them force them to watch movies with him, they would all sit and brainstorm after each movie of, how can this be better? There were North Korean films, Soviet Union films, he had this, he made a giant 10 million square foot lot for the North Korean film studio. I have many Hollywood. In comparison, it was a massive Hollywood. The biggest studio in Hollywood at that time was MGM and it was only 7.6 million square feet. Oh wow.

Yeah. Started importing the best gear from all over the world. The first movie they made was called Sea of Blood. It was about how the Supreme Leader saved the Koreans from imminent death. Of course it was. It was an instant hit because the people were forced to watch it. So technically, you're like 100% of the population watched it. Yeah, well... They love that.

They love that they love that Villages that were too poor to have a cinema the local post office turned into a viewing place You were forced to watch it and compared to the radio and the news. This was a treat Yes, it's still propaganda the people knew it But it's a movie it's a plot if you're gonna have the shove down your throat and might you might as well enjoy it After the movie you had to sit and stay for a criticism session, which sounds strange. There's a land of no criticism without death, right? But essentially, it's just you talking in a circle about the meaning of the movie,

and you better walk out with the same meaning that Kim Jong-il wanted you to walk out. There's no interpretation of art here. There's no, you don't get brownie points for being unique or different, or, you know, thought provoking. Get out of here, you're dead. And the message was always very similar. The supreme leader had always and will always save the day. He should be protected and loved like a god in the sky. Uh, am I risking my life for this podcast? For the first time ever I do feel like I am. Now it's reported that Kim Jong Il falls in love with the lead actress of one of his movies, very film director of him and her name was Song Hydeam.

Any? Song Hydeam. What the heck? Why'd I say it's so American, okay? Song-hee-hidim and she was super kind. She was already married, though, to the son of the head of the Korean writer's association. And she had a child. But how can you say no to the supreme leader's son? How can you say no? So what does she do? She quits acting, leaves her husband, leaves her child, moves in with Kim. Now Kim knew that his father would never approve. Get the whole thing a secret, even when they had kids. Are you serious? Yeah.

Why wouldn't the father approve? Because she had, you know, they're very conservative. Oh, okay, okay. She had already been married to her children, and I'm sure maybe there was a plan for him. So it seems like the father is not like, you're my son, you do whatever you want. No, no, no, no, no.

Everything's behind his back, it seems. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, bonk, bonk, bonk, you don't even have to play with them. Just boop them on the nose. Nobody knew that he had kids. They were trapped in their toy room all day long. There was a little story from the book about the children. The guards that were watching the children were talking about how one of their teeth hurt so bad. We'll join with your teeth. I can't chew, I can't do anything.

The dentist doesn't have enough gold to give me a filling this month. So I gotta try to go maybe in the next couple of months. The little kid walks over to his safe. He's like five years old. Hands him a filling this month. So I gotta try to go maybe in the next couple of months. The little kid walks over to his safe. He's like five years old. Hands him a full gold bar. Can you make a filling out of this? Kim did anything for his kid. He got him a Cadillac.

When he was too young, he couldn't even drive. Got him guns. Whatever he wanted, he got it. He just wasn't allowed to leave the house. Is this kid Kim Jang-eun? No. Wow, okay. If there was a comedian that this kid loved, wanted to see him live. 무슨 일을 원하는지 모르는 것 같다. 이게 김정은? 네. 아, 오케이. They try, it doesn't work, so they just search North Korea for a lookalike. Have him learn the routine and perform it in front of his kid, but the kid was smart, the kid knew. It's a dad, that's not the same person.

This really isn't the true comedian. And he threw a little tantra, meanwhile, the lookalike was dragged to a prison for the rest of his life, allegedly, probably killed, because he knew too much. No one was supposed to know that Kim Jong-il had a kid. Oh my goodness. I mean, they knew this going in, that this performer would perform, and then he'd be off. Because it can't get out. And then the kid's mom, who was this actress, she was trapped in this luxury prison for the rest of her life,

she was terrified, depressed, anxious, couldn't talk to anyone outside of Kim Jong Il and the guards. Sometimes, Kim Jong Il was easy to talk to, a cultured man. People said that he loved self-deprecating jokes. Sometimes though, with the snap of a finger, he was evil, violent, homicidal. A defector who knew him personally reported him being impatient, shy, and scheming. It seemed like he was always making these secret plans.

He was always very clever. At the same time, he was incredibly impulsive. So you have this side of him that's meticulous, wants to plan things in secret, has these great big diabolical things in the works. But if you were to just piss him off for a moment, second, just by like breathing too close to him, he would, he would fire you. He would have you killed without so much as a second thought. Just on a whim. He would fire you. He would have you killed without so much as a second thought. Just on a whim. I even got my fiance sister hooked on this, okay, because she's always like, well where do you get your jewelry? I wanna have a variety of different rings, necklaces, bracelets, but I'm at the age where I don't really want to waste my money on these really cheap pieces of jewelry that's gonna turn my finger green. I'm probably gonna have an allergic reaction and after a couple wears, that's gonna turn my finger green. I'm probably gonna

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sustainable jewelry, so go to analuisaid.com slash rotten. The book said, from a defector, and I quote, I could see that he craved power. He was always organizing everything in secret and he executed his plan in secret. That was his specialty. And like that, he was able to get his uncle out of favor from his dad. His stepmom had a fall from grace, the one he hated so much.

His half-brother, Pyeong-il, he was sent to exile outside of North Korea. To like Finland, Bulgaria just bounced around. All because of him. He skamed them out of power. That's so scary. The one person that may have been able to control him was gone. And that was his mom who had suffered from a heart attack.

They were so close. I mean, who knows what kind of woman she was. Maybe she could have turned him into an even bigger monster. But this was the only person he truly loved. They were close, oddly enough, when he cheated on his girlfriend, the mother of his children, and later his wife, because you'd actually marry another woman. They all looked like the younger version of his mom, the mistresses, allegedly. So he devotes all his time to making movies, because he still has this really strong

inkling that this is what's going to gain him power.. This is what's gonna gain him that favor of his dad. So he makes a movie called The Flower Girl. It's about this very poor Japanese village and a young girl is selling flowers to support her family. The dad's dead. Mom is really sick. The sister had been blinded by boiling water thrown at her by the landlord's wife, Evil. Evil, evil, evil. She's about to give up on life but she's rescued not by the rich dude that lives down the street or another farmer boy that she falls in love with but by Kimi's song the Korean Liberation Army of course there is no such thing as a love story unless it involved the Kim family your love and your devotion does not go to the boy next door

or the high school sweetheart. No, it goes to the Kim dynasty. Every film after that was the same. And everyone foreign that was shown in these, yeah, they did white face. So they would get all these North Korean actors and they would force them to kick on just pure like, think, white us snow make up, like just powder. On their face, and they would force them to kick on just pure like think why does snow

make up like just powder on their face and they would pretend to be Americans. If you were foreign you had to be evil greedy and torturing rapist you also had to have like a limp. I don't know why he made everyone Americans someone have like a limp or really insane facial hair. The main lead was always the sad sad poor person who needed rescuing and of course the heroes of every movie Were the Kim family and the Korean Liberation Army These were just giant ads for the Kim family But the people didn't know better they were constantly told that North Korea had the best movies the best advanced film industry in the world It was internationally recognized to have some of the top blockbuster hits internationally.

That couldn't be farther from the truth. I mean people who watched it felt like North Korea was stuck in a time warp. Like what's going on? Like we've moved on to the godfather. What is this shit y'all are making? I mean it was like a hee hee ha joke. People were laughing at North Korea if they ever saw these movies. It's said that they didn't even plan out scenes when they were filming.

If they had three scenes, one in an office, and let's say another one in a cafeteria, and then back in that same office, instead of filming the same two office shots, and then building the cafeteria set, they would film one office shot. De-build the set, build the cafeteria set, undo it, rebuild the office set for that third shot. Why, why did they do that? Because it seems like they were just making up the script as they go. They just were not that advanced. Most dialogue was dubbed in post, even though it was in Korean because they just had really bad audio. So they were, it was just to turn out strange. If you were an extra

or even the main lead and you committed a quote unquote crime wearing blue jeans, they would just edit out every single part with you on it, but still release it for the public. So imagine a movie without all the main character parts. Without the main character. Because if you were the main character and you were caught wearing blue jeans, you'd be sent to prison. They would edit out all your parts. So imagine releasing a movie, but the main character is gone. None of it would make sense. What are you even watching at this point?

There's no plot. But they would just edit it and they would release it and be like, oh, yeah, it's an international thing. Everyone loves it. Okay. They had nothing to compare it to. They had never seen a movie outside of the ones that they were shown in North Korea. So who's to say?

They had these fascinating rules that they had to follow. South Korea and Japan always had to be depicted in rain or at night. Only North Korea was the one allowed to be shot with sunshine, with natural light. He could trick and lie to his people all he wanted, but internationally everyone, just regular citizens of other countries scoffed and laughed at his films. And meanwhile, South Korea was on the rise. Film, music, all slowly starting to get national and international recognition. No where near where it is today, but it was, you know, getting there.

It was like the beginning. Everyone's got to start somewhere. This was the starting of it. Japan had always been killing it in the movie industry. Now South Korea was trying really hard to keep up. They wanted to be a power, like a powerhouse in the eastern hemisphere. They wanted to compete in movies too. And it seemed like after the agreement was written and the Allied forces, you know, America

is still in South Korea. North Korea was just kind of being forgotten. It's just not in the news anymore. There's no cultural talks of North Korea. They're just being swept away. And they don't like that. No no no. So he comes up with this plan.

If you can't beat the South Koreans, you can kidnap them. The best director, the best actress, kidnap them and forced them to make North Korean films. Be international superstars, have them win the awards not for South Korea, but for North Korea. But who does he kidnap? That's the most important question. Let's talk about a woman by the name of Che Eun-hee. I'm going to call her Eun-hee, even though it's going to be weird because in Korean you're not supposed to call older people by their first name. 아, 은희. 아, 은희. 아, 은희. 아, 은희. 아, 은희. 아, 은희. 아, 은희.

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I am serious about this art like she was passionate. This was her dream. And it's not as easy as going to New York City or Los Angeles because this is a war-torn area. So she's, you know, in this air raid shelter right after she runs away. She couldn't even like go to a theater. She's in this shelter where she meets another actress who invites her to the agent's office and she takes any job she was offered. Starts sewing dresses for the costume department. Eventually like a month later she was put on stage for a tiny little part and she she's shined. They set off camera. She's reserved. She looks like she got a lot of thoughts for a 17 year old.

But on stage, whatever role was thrown at her, I mean, she was truly talented. She gets casted in her first film. She marries a cameraman on set who was 20 years older than her. He was absolute the scum of the earth. After they got married, he started brutally beating her. Where are you washing the dishes? Cook me better food. I want a child. Also, you better make all the money because I don't want to work. Then Korea went into the full-on Korean War and he was drafted into the army.

And then he was trapped in the North. Couldn't get down to the South in time. Didn't have the money to pay her way down South. So she was taken in by the communist party and she was signed up as an entertainer for the communist party army for a year. Quote unquote entertainer, forcibly. But thankfully she said in North Korea the army men were so focused on winning the war they really didn't care about her. They didn't care for her company or primarily, quote unquote, comfort. Just kind of was there.

I mean, it was miserable, but she was there. A year later, she gets quote unquote rescued by the South. Now, I say quote unquote rescued because it was better for her long term, but in the short term, she was enlisted in the South Korean army as another entertainer, same job, but the opposite side. And she said it was absolute hell for two years. South Korean army was not as focused on the war, they wanted her comfort and they were

willing to forcibly take it. She was dragged into offices of high ranking officials, slapped, had guns pointed at her and was viciously raped. Meanwhile, she heard other girls getting viciously raped in the next door. It's traumatic like you can hear these women crying out in pain and you can't do anything to stop it because you two are being raped. So when she's released, you can't report that back then. First of all, I mean, she would have just been victim-blamed to hell and back. Nobody would have supported her. They would have said all in the name of war,

you gotta serve your country. They would have said, they didn't rape you. It's because your husband found out once you got back, huh? That's why, huh? You were trying to live a comfortable life in the army during war. That's why you're sleeping with all these army men, like these are things that they would have said. Nobody would have supported her. Any woman who tried to stand up to support women in this situation, they were silenced. They had act like, yeah, okay, well, yeah, maybe she is lying. So since she was a well-known actress before the war, people wanted distraction during this time. They wanted celebrity gossip and they were ruthless.

Did you hear about Annie, the actress? Did you know she played both parts? Yeah, I heard she, quote unquote, entertains the armies of both parties. No, I heard she's a mistress for just top generals of the United States. I heard the Western men love to go to bed with her. Bison, she married. Oh, yeah, that's the saddest part.

Her husband was injured and war, so she started cheating on him. Disgusting. Did you know I heard she was taken by the entire squadron in the army like a whole team? What a cheating little slut! That's what they were calling her when she had been viciously raped for two years. Because these people wanted escape and the best way to do it was throwing down the celebrity. Now the husband eventually heard of these rumors and even though he knew his fake, he was in the army, I'm sure he knew in the back of his mind that it was right because he saw what was going on.

But he still took it out on her. He beat her with his cane every day. She was almost always covered in bruises and wells and he started viciously raping her to get revenge. There was nothing she could do. It was unheard of for women to leave their husbands even if there was evidence or proof of domestic abuse. If you left, you would never remarry and it'd be hard to find a job. You were blamed with the failing, you know, of this marriage. You were the toxic one, you were the disgusting one, and so she continued to be the main breadwinner of this family.

During one of her plays, though, when she's on stage, because she's got to make all this money. She's overworked, supporting her husband, who's not working a day in his life anymore, starving, she's not working a day in his life anymore, starving. She's not eating enough. Not for the aesthetic, for the film industry, she just can't pay for food. Couldn't even afford heat for the house. This is a war-torn state. And she's an entertainer, like she's performing in theaters.

That's the last thing people are doing. They have no money. Most people don't have money to even put food on their own tables. They think they have money to go watch her plays. So she's given it her all. Absolute all. This is what everyone says of any. She gives it her all in everything that she does.

Just 110%. It doesn't matter if there's one person watching. She will give it her all. And she dramatically, during one of her plays, collapses to the ground. And everyone's shocked. What do we do? Is this part of the play? I don't think so.

This man jumps up from the audience. Man handles her in like the most romantic way. Pigs are up. So the rose her over his shoulder runs to the closest hospital. No taxi. There's no taxi. He's pecked then, I guess.

Just runs. Stays with her until she's discharged. I mean, the man was dedicated. And his name was Shin Sangok. I mean, the man was dedicated. And his name was Shin Sangok, and I'm gonna call him Shin. Shin was very different from In-yi. He was born into a rich family. His dad was a doctor, so he lived this really privileged life.

His parents let him study his passion, which was art, sent him to Tokyo to study painting. Wow. Yeah. After the war, the family moved from the north where they were born to Seoul, to South Korea. They had made it, and he had actually come to meet in the play. And he told her, I've always thought you were talented. Please, can you work for me? I'm not

established, I don't have any credentials, I'm trying to be a film director, and I will pay you whatever you need. Now this, whatever you need, wasn't a lot, but it was more money than she was making, and she really needed the money and he was shocked. How are you so poor? I mean you're like a household name these days. How are you so broke? I don't know, I guess I just don't get paid. And they were so different, but they bonded over the fact that they really put all of their, just everything, their emotion, their sweat, blood, tears, into their passion.

She never had a shitty performance. Everything that she did, she put her soul into it, and he was just as obsessed, if not more obsessed with filmmaking. He was just an artistic dude. He would tell her, and she would listen to, you know, every film I make, and he, you're gonna be the star. You're gonna be the lead. You're gonna be my muse. You're gonna be my motivation. And she said later that this is his way of showing her love. As by giving her the lead roles in his movies. He didn't smoke, he didn't gamble, he didn't drink. He was all about work and she was so attracted to it.

He would later say that it was his destiny to meet her. So she divorces her husband and marries young shinn, and at first it was pure public outrage how dare she leave her disabled husband who injured himself in war, a freaking war hero! For a young hot, like a young hotter dude, this is disgusting, faiola! The couple initially had to go on the run because paparazzi were chasing them down. They spent their first night together in this really disgusting motel room that was infested with bedbugs, but they were the happiest that they had ever been. And slowly they started working on changing their image. And it worked.

Shin would go out in every interview and he would tell people that anyone who would listen. I call her Madame Choi, like Mrs. Choi. And I do this as a sign of my respect and my attention and my just affection for her. Within three years of being together, they made four movies together. He was the director, she was the lead, and pretty much all of them were box office hits. One of them even received critical praise. From then on, they followed the winning recipe, the power couple of movies. People said that there was just something in the way that they worked. They were both so talented.

Some people go into this industry for fame, for attention, for money, but they, like you could just tell, they were in it for pure passion, both of them. And the fact that the husband was directing his wife on camera, I mean there was a certain level of romance involved in every movie. Outside of movies they were glamorous. So back then in Korea everyone was very attracted to the American way. So they were trying to emulate these American hairstyles, these American fashion styles, right? But this couple, they were in love with France, they were in love with Europe, so they kind of stood out even when they were wearing suit and tie, all these other Korean film directors would come dress the American way back then, not so anymore.

But this couple, they came dressed very French-like. People thought it was different. Wow, they don't really care. They don't want to, you know, look like an American. They're just like their own style. They're so impeccably dressed all this time. They had this air of sophistication about them. They were becoming a power couple, and they did not follow

traditional norms in a super-traditional country. When going on stage, and he would always walk in front of him, which was a very modern take, he also paid a ton of money to start in his films. Money that would otherwise never be given to any person on screen. Especially a female actress, are you kidding? But he paid her a lot. Very modern take I guess. They had massive budgets for their films, always tried new things for their movies, new ways of filming, pushed boundaries, and any off camera, she was a woman's rights activist she was also a

great wife she would iron shins clothes so of course the public loved her oh my god she loves having freedom and rights as a woman but the men love her because she still did domestic things she would still cook for her husband she even directed her own films according to the book she was only the third Korean woman to ever step behind the camera as a director. And they were all commercial and critical successes, which is important. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty self-conscious in public. And one of my biggest fears is when I'm at the airport, this is a very specific fear of

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the contiguous US, UK, Europe and Canada, and you can start your 100-day trial and shut the entire away lineup of travel essentials, including their best selling suitcases at awaytravel.com slash rotten. That's awaytravel.com slash rotten. The couple even edited all their films together. They were truly remarkable. They bought this beautiful house in a nice neighborhood, but something strange could happen. She'd buy furniture in the next day, it vanished. What? She would show up for work, and there was being used in a set. She'd buy furniture, and her husband, Shin, would say, you know what, that'd be perfect for this set

and he would just have it moved out for the set. Oh, so he's just obsessed with the work? Yes, and at first she was so annoyed but she said this was his way of saying that he loved a piece of furniture that she picked. So she grew to kind of admire him. But their real start-em came when they made a movie based on the tale of Chungyang. So apparently this is a very famous folk tale in South Korea based on the daughter of a sex worker. And the son of a higher-up government official, they get illegally married, the husband

is sent off to the city for work and this evil, corrupt, local governor tries to force the lead woman into being his concubine. And he's like, well you don't have a choice because you're the daughter of a sex worker I can do whatever I want. You're my object I do whatever I want but last minute the husband returns with this flashy new title secret royal inspector and saves the day. They were going to turn it into a big movie. It's like a household story except the other biggest film director at the time was also making his own version of it.

And that film director, they too were a married couple. And his wife was, honestly, the biggest celebrity in South Korea at the time. The press talked nonstop of whose version is going to be better. The underdog, Shin films, or this crazy, just power couple duo. The one that's always been successful. And add to the sheer unlock of it all, the big director would be releasing it one week earlier. So if you saw that one, you probably wouldn't be a stoked for Shin's version one week later. Technically, it's the same folktale that you already know.

If they failed, like most of the press assumed, shin films would be completely bankrupt. The couple would lose everything. They put their entire everything into this, financially, emotionally, mentally, physically. Huge director releases his films, sales were rough, pulled from theaters. Then it was shin's film released, broke every single record at the time, sold out for a month straight in so many different theaters, 15% of his whole entire population went to see it. It's just that good.

I think everyone was rooting for the underdog, and then it turned out to be an amazing movie. Wow. So this really thrust Shin films and a couple into complete and utter stardom. I mean, their next few movies were massive hits. And this really isn't just about their movies being great, but it seemed like this was the perfect timing.

South Korea was really in need of escapism. They wanted to escape this war-torn city. I mean, the war is kind of over at this point but everything's just demolished. They're trying to rebuild everything. Houses are falling apart. Places were burned down. They were miserable. Movie theaters had air conditioning. They had heating during winter months. And it's not the most expensive thing in the world. It's easy to go to a movie theater versus going on vacation. You just get to escape the miserable day-to-day life and Shin was ready to deliver. He came with all these movies. He had an action movie, then he had a pure romance movie, then he had like a political drama.

I mean, he had a range. And then he won his greatest achievement, which was at the Asia Pacific Film Festival. This is an international film festival, not just in South South Korea and he was the guest of honor. His film, The House Guest and My Mother, had one best picture. First South Korean film to win the biggest award at an international competition. It was such a big deal indeed that even the president of South Korea was in attendance, but yet everyone cared more about Mr. Shin. Shin films is a success. They're untouchable, but there's one thing on

Ine's mind. She wants children. She finally had the financial emotional capacity to really care for them. They keep trying, but she's not getting pregnant, and then she realizes she cannot bear her own children. It's speculated that it's the damage from her sexual assaults in the army that led to this. So they start adopting two children, a daughter and a son, and raise them as their own. When they first called her mom, she burst into tears. I mean, this woman was a great mom. And if the story ended, there would be way too easy, because this is not a happy movie.

This is not where the story goes. So censorship becomes huge in Korea. In South Korea, mainly because the government thought that they were too vulnerable, especially at this moment, wanted to have greater control. 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 한국에서 a music video. If you're driving without a seatbelt in your music video, they won't show it on TV. You can still find it on YouTube and the internet. Are you talking about today? There's a black pink music video where one of them isn't wearing a seatbelt in the car and it's banned from national TV. Oh wow. Because it's promoting reckless driving.

Yeah. They're not even going like 70 miles an hour. Like it doesn't even depict like them swarming around or anything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's kind of wild, no? Interesting. Back then it was worse. Censorship in movies becomes insane. If an actor was complaining too strongly about the weather, man, there's weather sucks. It was deemed to be anti-social behavior and it was banned from the movie theater because it was promoting anti-socialness. Yeah, so there was just a lot of cracking down on a lot of different industries. Shin was dragged to court from bezel-man fraud, tax evasion, like things that were norm in the film industry were suddenly becoming, uh, let's crack

down on it. He was fined like $800,000. The passionate vital parts of every movie, they were getting banned, they were getting censored, that you couldn't even have them kiss on screen. He's getting frustrated. This doesn't make sense, like, you know, to non-creatives, especially non-filmmakers, it sounds crazy. Okay, just take it out, it's not that hard, you've already invested your whole life savings into it, you spent millions of investor funds into it, just take it out! Otherwise, you're gonna go bankrupt, but to film directors?

This is their passion, their name! They'd rather die! Then take out a scene that they deem important. They'd rather die, okay? They'd rather die broke! And all in the midst of this, there was breaking news. It's Shins Sun. Any had kind of taken a back seat, a step back from the film industry to raise her children.

There were new leads being casted in Shins movies of course, because they always need a lead female actress. The new Id girl had an affair with Shins and she was pregnant with his son. And Any found out through the press, and at first she was confused. It's probably not true. Yeah, they had just filmed in Paris together. But there's no way. I mean, she knew that he had cheated a few times. But nothing came before his family, and mainly his love of moviemaking. That's what made them them.

But now this one was a little bit different different because she was in his movie. They were making movies together. It wasn't just a random pretty girl off the street that he ought to one night stand with. Affairs were fine, but this woman was a part of the business now. So it felt weird. She didn't know what to think. She was in bear. She waited outside the mistress's house and saw she's sneaking out at night. So it's been confirmed. You know. He said he was at work, but he's not. So she confronts him and he says, no, no, no, no, baby, it's a brief affair. It's over. We don't have children. What are you talking about? You can't believe rumors like that. So she decides to find out for herself. You know what? This guy is a lying little... The next day she walks over to

the mistress's house, knocks on the door, and she comes out holding a newborn baby. The rumor was true. The mistress didn't even have to say anything, and he said that she looked at her as if she was saying, see, at least I can give him children, something you can never do. And she was conflicted, she said that she just wanted to hold the baby because it was still her husband's son. But she also knew that she could never be with him again. So she kicked him out and cried for weeks. The pain only got worse. She didn't went to jail for bribing officials to be lenient on his film for censorship.

Then, you know, when he was released, he lied and said it was over and he was trying to win her back. But then he was remaking a movie that she starred in, with this time, with the mistress as the lead. Then she finds out that the mistress is pregnant again, with his baby. All the while, their company is going bankrupt. It's impossible to put out new movies the way they wanted, with all this censorship, with all these rules and regulations.

They were swimming in debt, their movies were doing less and less in the box offices, the scandals didn't help. Not just because the fans chose sides, but because at the time, Korea was still really conservative. So if you don't like what Shin did, then you typically wouldn't go out of your way to support his movies, especially if they weren't hyped. Even if that meant hurting any. Eventually, Shin kept pushing the censorship laws so much that his license was revoked. Now, it was truly over.

The couple weren't living together. They had no money. Shin Films in Korea had to be closed for business. They still had a Hong Kong office. I believe they wanted to set up shop in the United States. Any had to open up this academy where she was teaching young actresses, and that was kind of her life line. She was just trying to make money out of that,

but even that wasn't doing that well. Shin decides, okay, well, I'm gonna move to the US. I'm gonna try and make it in Hollywood. The two, they start really drifting apart at this point. Anya spends all of her energy, her time, her love, at the academy, keeping it afloat. She felt like she owed these students. Then she gets a call one day from Hong Kong.

A massive film studio in Hong Kong wants to partner with her to have her run the sister schools of their academies. They would pay her enough so that she could save her school. She was stoked! She immediately made plans to fly to Hong Kong so that they could work on all the details of this. She called Shin to let him know. And he tries to persuade her, don't go. This doesn't make sense.

Why would they want you? Why would they pay you so much? Now, only at this moment, she felt like she didn't have a choice. But she also didn't know if she heard resentment in his tone. Is he jealous or something? She just wants to prove him wrong. She needs to make it on her own. So she finally leaves for Hong Kong.

For the first two days, she was shown around the city from the contact from the film company, ate these expensive meals, going out shopping, just did the most elaborate expensive things. But the whole time, they never talked business and she was getting frustrated like, come on dude, what's going on? And who are those men following us, taking pictures of us? This is like, do they not allow tourists in Hong Kong?

This doesn't make any sense. Like I'm taking pictures of this landmark in Hong Kong and these random dudes are taking pictures of me, taking pictures and it's freaking weird. So finally by the third day she's like, okay I'm gonna confront this dude and be like what's going on? When are we talking business who are these men? But the next day instead she goes to this shin film office in Hong Kong. She's just talking to the manager and there was a woman there with her child and her name is Mrs. Lee. She says oh my god I'm such a huge fan of your movies. Why don't I show you how to lunch tomorrow? Truly I am like your number one fan Okay, well, I guess I don't have plans to and you know any I have these film contacts in Japan that can help you out

We're really well connected there and if the Hong Kong deal falls through I can help you Okay, yeah, okay, let's get lunch The next day they got to lunch Mrs. Lee is like well, why don't we meet one of my friends? She's Japanese, has, you know, connections. She lives, you know, just an hour away. Okay, I mean, I guess I have nothing to do. They get into the car. As they get deeper into the town that they're headed, she starts getting skeptical because

she has no idea where they are. This is a foreign country to her. She's never been here. I mean, what did she do? What did I do? They get out the car and they're greeted by these two really long-haired men. Okay, strange. Hey, any come here. They're gonna take us by boat to meet my friend. She lives in this secluded villa. She's rich rich. I don't know how I feel about this. Um, you know, actually

maybe I should head back because I have somewhere to be by 6 p.m. I'm meeting someone. This was a lie. She was just terrified. And at that precise moment, before they even answer, the men grab her, throw her into a boat, and she felt like this is it. It's over. I'm gonna be robbed, thrown into the water, and I'm gonna drown on the coast of Hong Kong. Freaking great.

Just great. But then one of the men said her full name. How do you know my name? I thought you were from Hong Kong, you speak Korean? Are you Korean? She's asking Korean. And that's when she knew she was forked. Because they said, yes, I'm Cho-sun. In South Korea, we call ourselves 한국인, which I'm from 한국, which is Korean. Like, 한국어, in China, right? North Koreans call them Cho-sun. They don't call it 한국.

When they talk about the Koreans, they don't say 한국 사람, they say Cho-sun 사람. So this is when she knew knew they're not just Korean. They're North Korean. Where are we going? We're taking you to the Great Leader Kim Jong Il. And she starts screaming her head off and they drug her. When she wakes up, she's still on the boat. She's going to be on this boat for like a week, okay? She tries to jump off the boat. She's like I can't do this I'm gonna commit suicide

I'm not going to North Korea. They stop her right in time. Draug her again So finally they dock on the pier of North Korea and she gets off the boat and she's greeted by Kim Jong Il and Photographers he bought a paparazzi The taken pictures of her and she screamed don't take pictures of me Wait so so so so the whole gig was up was a fake yeah the whole invitation was fake from the Gekko from the Gekko Wow, I believe North Korea spent like a like tens of thousands of dollars setting all of it up And she's like don't take pictures of me not because she didn't want it to go back to South Korea, but she had been on a boat for

a week. And she said that she almost felt embarrassed. She was like, did I really just say that because I'm self-conscious of the way that I look when I'm meeting the dictator of North Korea right now? And she was also confused. Because South Korea news had been saying non-stop Kim Jong Il, the great son of Kim Il Sung, was lying comatose in a hospital after a tragic car accident. But here this man is walking. Doesn't look like he's been an accident in his whole life. Confused.

And he said, don't worry, you look beautiful. And why don't you take a walk around the pier? You had a long travel. This is a very strong suggestion because then suddenly two men forced her to walk around the pier you had a long travel. This is a very strong suggestion because then suddenly two men forced her to walk around the pier okay. Then into the car they go she looks out the window the road is unpaved I mean it truly looked war-torn. South Korea wasn't doing great but this is this something else. Nothing had been fixed. There was really no semblance of life. There were no street signs. All there were were just these massive signs that

said, long live Kimi-san. There were no street lights, no lights on in the buildings. They had no money to keep the lights on. Pyongyang was like this fake set. It's a beautiful city. But there's no evidence of life. No businesses, no restaurants, billboards, nothing, nowhere to sit, cafes, street vendors, there's no cars. Every single car

North Korea was assigned by the government. Nobody had even really seen the inside of a car. Unless they were there before the war, no street signs, no signs on buildings, just faces of the Kim family everywhere, except to the village she was taken to where the Kims lived. Where there were just two crystal chandeliers in a room, every room had just crystal. There was libraries, bedrooms, on bedrooms, hoarding of imported capitalistic goods, literally a capitalist dream like it's a YouTube mansion on crack. It's like a MTV crib's episode.

Architectural digest but worse. Like it was, how are you the leader of a Communist Party? And this is how you're living, I don't understand what's going on. This is ironic. Buying a car is stress inducing. Okay, I just get, I want to break out into hides, like it itchy, I get stressed, I want to pull out my hair. It's really just difficult, especially the market right now.

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Visit Edmonds.com to see their to your perfect vehicle. Visit Edmonds.com to see their best car rankings and search for vehicles near you. That's edmunds.com for cars, there's Edmonds. He had multiple mansions, he had water parks in his backyard, yet a sushi chef that stayed with him all the time traveled with him and his four shit suits that he loved when everywhere with him, all of his furniture was either imported from France or from Switzerland. Every room of his house had to be kept at 71 degrees, and all of his mansions even when

he wasn't there. That's why I ought. While the rest of the country was rationing electricity, he had horses, speedboats, rolls roises, golf carts, jet skis, helicopters, yachts. He loved the most luxurious food the world had to offer fatty tuna lobster. He spent close to a million dollars a year on just Hennessy, according to the book. Hennessy. His yearly income was estimated to be $500 million

to one billion a year. That's the sun. Yeah. So the father is obviously on a whole different level. Yeah. Because any money that the whole country was making was not going anywhere but to them. They took away all her stuff,

especially her idea and passport, the minute that she got there. They led her to her first meal in this huge dining room, just for her. Kim Jong-il was not going to eat with her. Fry Trump, Rausu-shi, B-Frippes, Korean food, Chinese food, Japanese food, all just for her. While the rest of the country barely got any food. How did she feel about that though? Uncomfortable. She could barely eat. She's miserable and scared. Why am I here? How did she feel about that though? Uncomfortable, she could barely eat.

She's miserable and scared. Why am I here? Why have I been kidnapped? She's in this luxury prison, not on like Kim Jong-il's lover. You know, she's guarded at all times, not a lot of communication ate the best food. But a no idea what it was going to be, what it was going to be, completely alone. Yet at the same time, she's watched non-stop and never really alone. Every day came with sender gifts, expensive makeup, skin care, lingerie, boxes of perfectly

tailored clothes they knew her size, all the stuff that she used in South Korea, all her favorite skincare products, were the exact ones she used, exact brand, exact item they knew it they had it for her waiting. Oh my gosh. He would send her boxes of fur coats. North Korean photographers would take pictures of her and he would send it to her like little gifts. Every single meal that she ate was a full buffet.

Every day a doctor would come check up on her, give her nutritional supplements with the forks going on and One day, so there was the Cinderella helper that was living with her a woman I forgot what she called her right like a teacher. She busts through the door dear leader comrade Kim Jong-il has invited you to a dinner party We must hurry up and get ready So she puts on this beautiful dress Kim picks her up in a car and the whole time he's trying to crack jokes with her, but she's so confused. I'm terrified, but also why

am I here? Takes her to the venue, very nightclub vibes. Everyone called it the Fish House, because it had a Florida ceiling 25-foot-long aquarium. She's like capitalists, so I don't even know what to say, okay? It's like his personal residence, and only the upper elite of North Korea 이 이 카펠리 사이사이 그 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한

시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한

시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 시원한 the Kims. They were all trained from the day that they were born to be perfect for, quote, unquote, entertainment. They were divided into three pleasure groups. I'm sure you guys have heard the term pleasure squad. It's real. They're called the pleasure squad. So you had one group that was known as the dancing and singing squad. They were dancing, singing, and the guests. Then you have the happiness squad who gave massages.

Then you have the satisfaction squad, which is more formally known as the pleasure squad who provided sexual satisfaction to whoever the Kims wanted. A lot of them are underage, by the way. You age out at like 21, I believe. They were heartbreaking, but also bizarre aspects of the party.

Kim had people follow him taking script or recording everything that he said, even when he was drunk. So that they could be later used as law. So at 3am if he's drunk off his butt and he says, I don't like that guy. Well guess who's going to prison the next day? Even if Kim doesn't remember saying that. Because he was drunk off his butt. Whoever him is is going to prison. Sometimes Kim would hang a giant piñata of gifts, shoot at it with a very special gun,

and watch the guests just trample over each other for the best ones. For the best guests. Imagine like being invited to a party like that. Even the upper class, right? Aren't they so freaking scared? Oh, just you wait. This is like the Hunger Games, but worse. So according to the book, he would force dancers to get naked and start dancing. Made every single man get up, stand up,

and dance with a woman, but said, but if you touch, you're a thief. You know what happens to thieves? They go to prison. Sometimes he would just in the middle of dinner scream, army! Everyone would reach underneath their chair where there was an army uniform. They would strip naked, change into their army uniform, and run circles around their table mid-dener until Kim Jong-il was happy and said, stop. Then he might scream Navy. You do the same process, but with your Navy outfit. And then he was confused why she had been taken. But she saw her role in these parties really clearly. I mean, she was armed candy. She was a toy. Famous actress sitting

right because she was famous even before the war remember? Famous actress sitting right next to Kim and all the parties she would sing for the crowd. He forced her to sing South Korean songs and she would break down into tears missing her old life but everyone thought she was wow a great performer. He wanted to talk to her about movies the one she was in, the movie World American Movies, and she'd be invited to these weekly parties that backed her luxury prison, depressed, confused, miserable. She even celebrated Kim's birthday with him, and she was shocked that the whole city lit up that night with fireworks.

While everyone was struggling, she had seen a higher up and upper elite scream. Because she had gifted her a box. Kim had gifted her a box and inside were bananas. This higher up had never seen a banana before. She screamed with joy? Yeah, what kind of fruit is that? They don't really get fruit in their rations.

And she said this is bizarre This is so bizarre then her lessons began every day she was forced to read about Kim Ye-sung the great leader and she had to memorize passages and she asked why am I here? to her teacher and they said according to the book and I quote When we carry out the revolution in South Korea under the leadership of the great leader, on that day you will have a very important role to play. The South Koreans think of us as monsters and savages, so after liberating South Korea, no matter how we try to explain our ideology to them, do you think they will accept it? But if you stand in the forefront and tell the South Korean people and

you say just a single word, it will be more persuasive than a hundred words from us. And anytime she questioned her teachers, because they would say, you know, South Korea, they only live in huts and they're all collapsing. No, I was there! The President is evil. No, I literally had met the President. He's not, I mean, yeah, everyone in politics is evil, but he's, I wouldn't say he's like, bad evil. How dare you question us? And she would be disinvited from that week's party. Then she'd be invited to movie showings with Kim Jong-il. She hated North Korean movies. They were boring, they were repetitive, it's like watching a two-hour long ad with the fork isless. And she kept asking, why why not love isn't every story better with a love interest fine keeper propaganda just throwing a little bit of like love something and he said well when director shin gets here we can figure it out and just like

that the main episode has come to a close yes this is a two-parter only because I did not want you to get tired out because that was a lot of information That was a lot of North Korea and this mini-sote you have to stay tuned because we're talking about the kidnapping the movies that they're gonna make Yeah, they're gonna make movies and then the great escape the final act How does it all work out do they stay together because every movie has a good love story? What's up with that and that one's actually gonna be dropping on Friday before your morning commute. So get in that car,

Skurr Skurr to work with some North Korea kidnapping news. And I'll see you guys on Friday. Bye.