Secret Recordings Reveal Voice and Insecurities of Former North Korean Leader Kim Jong-il

Here is an interesting read from Barbara Demick in the LA Times about the bizarre kidnapping of a South Korean actress and film director by the North Koreans that has come back into the public’s focus with the release of tapes that feature the voice of former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il:

The voice on the tape recording is squeaky and excitable, the speaker using such a strong dialect that it is difficult even for native Korean speakers to understand. What comes across is that the man speaking in a rapid clip is anxious about his own shortcomings, and his country’s.

The speaker, in fact, is Kim Jong Il, the leader of North Korea from 1994 to 2011. Tape recordings of him from the 1980s are featured in a new documentary, “The Lovers and the Despot.” Although Kim died in 2011 and was succeeded by his son, Kim Jong Un, the tapes provide rare insight into the psyche of the North Korean regime, both its audaciousness and its insecurity.

It is one of the strangest stories out of a strange country: In 1978, the South Korean film actress Choi Eun-hee was kidnapped during a business trip to Hong Kong and brought to Pyongyang on the orders of Kim Jong Il. When her former husband, Shin Sang-ok, a leading film director, went to look for her, he was captured as well. Reunited, they were coerced to make movies for Kim Jong Il, gradually earning his trust to the point that he allowed them to travel to Eastern Europe, then still part of the Soviet block, to shoot films and attend film festivals. In 1986, the pair escaped to the U.S. embassy in Vienna.

Shin feared rightfully that nobody would believe this outlandish story, so he and Choi secretly taped Kim Jong Il. With a microrecorder stashed in Choi’s purse, they captured Kim, who was then in charge of the film industry, pouring out his insecurities about how his country lagged behind capitalist rival South Korea.

“Why do all of our films have the same ideological plots? There is nothing new about them. … We don’t have any films that get into film festivals. In South Korea, they have better technology. They are like college students and we are just in nursery schools.”

In the tapes, Kim also confesses that he had ordered the couple to be kidnapped so that they could make movies for him.

“I asked my adviser, who’s the best director in the south? He said that his name is Shin.”

Later, Kim apologized to Shin for the mistreatment he endured from the agents who kidnapped him, and for the fact that the couple were kept apart for four years.

“I didn’t tell them about my plan to use you and collaborate with you. I just said bring them to me.”  [LA Times]

You can read more at the link.