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Liz Sutherland

Paul Courtney Hyu

Leo Wan

Sarah Lam

Wendy Kweh

Isabella Inchbald

Samuel James

Charlie Clements

Gary Duncan

David Reakes

Ellie Darvill

Sasha Yevtushenko

Lucy Catherine

Drama on 4: Lights, Camera, Kidnap!: Episode 1

Lights, Camera, Kidnap!

Episode 1

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Lights, Camera, Kidnap!, Episode 1

True story of how a movie star and her director ex-husband were kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il.

The true story of how a South Korean movie star and her estranged director husband were kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il, brought to the DPRK and forced to revive the film industry.

By Lucy Catherine

Set in that most secretive of hermit states, North Korea, we begin in the late 1970s when Kim Jung-Il, the Great Leader's son, is put in charge of the country's film industry at the age of 25. Like his father, Jung-Il sees cinema as an instrument of mass propaganda. But he's also a genuine movie buff and is appalled by the poor quality of North Korea's offerings. After all, this is the age of Spielberg, Scorsese, Coppola - and Jung-Il can clearly see that his own country's unsophisticated melodramas are decades behind the West.

He is determined to put DPRK on the map through its movies and he concocts an audacious plan to kidnap South Korea's star film director Shin Sang-Ok and his estranged wife, the much-celebrated actress Choi Eun-Hee - and persuade them to work for him.

What follows is a truly remarkable narrative involving the kidnapping of both stars, Shin's failed escape attempts, his five-year incarceration in a labour camp, Choi's growing 'friendship' with her captor, her eventual re-union with her husband, the plotting of their escape while making 6 films for Jung-Il, the re-kindling of love, and their eventual escape to the US Embassy in Vienna. ,

An 'audio-film' about love of the movies, love in captivity, a hidden culture, and one of the most eccentric dictators in history.

Written by Lucy Catherine, and drawing on material from the book A Kim Jong-Il production by Paul Fischer.

The songs were translated and arranged by Emma Harding, and sang by Wendy Kweh.

Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko.

Drama on 4: Lights, Camera, Kidnap!

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The true story of how a South Korean movie star and her estranged director husband were kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il. By Lucy Catherine.

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