A Kim Jong-Il Production

12 hrs. 24 min.

Miscellaneous

Language Russian

Author Paul Fischer

Narrator Kirill Radtsig

Description

Love, cinema, espionage, North Korea, a mad dictator who’s a movie buff—an unbelievable cocktail that could have served as the basis for an implausible action blockbuster, but it happened in real life. Paul Fischer’s documentary novel is an extraordinary and authentic story about North Korea and the most audacious kidnapping of the century. Kim Jong Il, the son of North Korean leader Kim Il Sung and the second man in the state, was literally obsessed with cinema. Before taking his father’s place at the head of the country, he ran the North Korean film industry. The younger Kim loved Hollywood and had a special weakness for historical blockbusters with Elizabeth Taylor and Bond films with Sean Connery. But his love of cinema went much further. He dreamed of making movies himself so that North Korea’s film industry would, once and for all, outdo Hollywood. The only question was: who would make those films—and who would star in them? Kim Jong Il found the answer quickly. Right under his nose, in South Korea, the film industry was booming—it had long moved beyond national borders, and all that was left was to kidnap the main star and the chief director…