Well tonight We're going to be talking about is the story of North Korea's stolen filmmaker.

The story of Shin song oke and Choi Unhi one of the strangest spy tales of the twentieth century.

North Korea orchestrated the abduction of a celebrated South Korean film couple to jumpstart its propaganda machine.

The targets were Shin sang ok, one of South Korea's most famous directors, and his former wife Choi unh.

In nineteen seventy eight, Choi was lured to Hong Kong under the guise of a business meeting.

There, she was drugged, kidnapped, and taken a pong.

Months later, Shin, while searching for his missing ex wife, was also abducted.

The mastermind behind the plot was Kim Jong Ayle, who at the time was overseeing North Korea's film industry and was frustrated by his poor quality.

Convinced that better films could shape the regime's international image, he forced the pair to make movies for him.

Over the next several years, Shin and Choi worked under surveillance, but were treated with relative privilege compared to ordinary North Koreans.

They were even remarried to Kim's assistance.

Between nineteen eighty three and nineteen eighty six, they directed and produced a series of films, including Pool Gasati, a monster movie reminiscent of Godzilla.

Kim reportedly attended screenings with them and gave detailed notes, aspiring to be a film producer himself.

Despite outward appearances of loyalty, Shin and Choyd secretly plotted their escape in nineteen eighty six.

While in Vienna for a film festival, they slipped away from their guards and sought asylum went to the US embassy.

Their dramatic defection exposed North Korea's bizarre kidnapping scheme.

The episode revealed the extent of Kim Jong eel's obsession with cinema and demonstrated how far an authoritarian regime would go to harness culture as a weapon.