South Korean actress once kidnapped to North dies at 92

Choi Eun-hee

By Park Jin-hai

Actress Choi Eun-hee, who was abducted with her then divorced husband and director Shin Sang-ok by North Korea, died from illness at the age of 92, Monday, according to her family.

Choi, born in 1926, debuted in the 1947 film "A New Oath." Following this she had had a stellar acting career, opening the "Era of the top Three Actresses," along with Kim Ji- mee and Um Aeng-ran between the 1950s and '60s. She married director Shin in 1954 and appeared in many films he directed including "A Flower in Hell" (1958), "To the Last Day" (1960) and "Mother and a Guest" (1961).

Choi had been suffering from kidney failure and complications since the early 2010s. Following the death of her husband in 2006, her health deteriorated. "While Choi was in hospital for kidney dialysis in the afternoon, she died there," her family said in a press release.

Choi and Shin, whom she had recently divorced at the time, were kidnapped in Hong Kong by North Korean agents on the orders of Kim Jong-il in 1978. The couple, remarried on the recommendation of Kim, and kept in North Korea for eight years, making some 17 films in the most reclusive regime in the world.

After two failed attempts, the couple finally escaped the North in 1986 on a trip to Vienna, fleeing to the United States Embassy and requesting political asylum.

In 2015, an English-language biography of her life was published by Paul Fischer titled "A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker." A documentary about their years in North Korea, "The Lovers and the Despot," directed by Robert Cannan and Ross Adam, was screened at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival.

South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee, left, and her husband film director Shin Sang-ok are photographed with former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, following their kidnapping by North Korean agents, in this 1983 photo. They escaped the North during a trip to Vienna and returned to South Korea / Yonhap

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