The Korean Wave 2006 - Korean Cultural Service

The New York Times, friday, june 2, 2006
E12
Mr. Shin said
he introduced the word love and the kiss to North Korean films.
22
Mr. Shin’s greatest fame in the West came when he and
his wife, from whom he was estranged, were kidnapped
in 1978 by North Korean agents. When Kim Jong Il,
the North Korean dictator, demanded that he make propaganda
movies, he refused. After eating grass and bark
in prison for five years, he was suddenly released by Mr.
Kim, who told him he could make any movies he liked.
Mr. Shin made seven films before escaping in 1986 during
a stopover in Vienna. He and his wife turned up in Reston,
Va., where their insights into Mr. Kim’s personality, backed
up by recordings they had secretly made, were of considerable
interest to United States intelligence officers.
Mr. Shin was born in Chungjin, at the northeastern part
of the Korean peninsula, during Japan’s colonial rule.
He graduated from what is now the Tokyo National
University of Fine Arts and Music. He started his career
as an assistant production designer on Choi In Kyu’s
“Viva Freedom!,” the first Korean film made after the
country achieved independence from Japan.
He quickly became a prolific director, completing an average
of more than two films a year. He also worked as a cinematographer,
and in the 1960’s produced about 300 movies.
One of the most famous films he directed was “The
Eunuch” (1968), which revolves around incarcerated
concubines and enslaved castrated men and their excruciating
passions. South Korea’s first onscreen kiss was in
the 1958 film “Jiokhwa.”
In 1976 he experienced a very public, scandal-flecked divorce
from the woman he married in 1953, the actress
Choi Eun Hee. (They later remarried.) He soon ran afoul
of the frequently repressive government of Gen. Park
Chung Hee, and his studio was closed.
In 1978 Ms. Choi was abducted by North Korea, and,
when Mr. Shin went looking for her, he was kidnapped
too. Mr. Shin, who in addition to turning down Mr. Kim’s
initial invitation to make movies glorifying Communism,
further angered the leader by trying to escape.
After five years in prison, the couple, neither of whom
had known the other was alive, were released.
In an interview with The Seoul Times in 2002, Mr. Shin
said there was less censorship than commonly believed.
He said he introduced the word love and the first kiss to
North Korean movies. He also said that he made the best
movie of his career in the north, “Runaway,” the tragic
story of a wandering Korean family coping with Japanese
oppression in 1920’s Manchuria. His “Pulgasari,” named
for a Godzilla lookalike who likes to eat iron, has become
a cult favorite.
In addition to enjoying relative artistic freedom in
North Korea, the couple lived in a mansion and drove
a Mercedes, but Mr. Shin said he could not live happily
in a place where most people suffered. He denied North
Korean charges that he stole $3 million that he had been
advanced to make a film on Genghis Khan.
Mr. Shin and his wife moved to Los Angeles in 1989 after
living under the protection of the Central Intelligence
Agency for three years. He said that he got the idea for
his humorous “3 Ninjas” movies, done for Disney, by
repeatedly watching “Home Alone” and trying to think
of a way to do something similar that would involve the
martial arts.
He produced, directed or wrote “3 Ninjas Knuckle Up,”
“3 Ninjas Kick Back” and “3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega
Mountain,” all under the pseudonym Simon Sheen. He
returned to South Korea in 1994 and continued to produce
movies there.
Mr. Shin is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters.
23
Copyright © 2006 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.
Copyright © 2006 by The New York Times Co. Reprinted with permission.