REVIEW 'Madam B' tells story of North Korean caught between two Koreas
(A trailer for “Madam B,” or “Mrs. B., A North Korean woman.” From Zurich Film Festival's YouTube account)
By Jung Da-min
The poster of “Madam B,” or “Mrs. B. A North Korean Woman,” which will be released on Nov. 15 at local theaters. Courtesy of CINESOPA
“Madam B” or “Mrs. B: a North Korean Woman” is a real-life documentary, on which director Jero Yun's first commercial film “Beautiful Days” is based. The latter was the opening film of the 23rd Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), receiving attention for actress Lee Na-young's comeback to the screen after six years.
Madam B, a North Korean woman, was engaged in the illegal business of handing over North Korean women to bars and other nightspots for commissions. She also sold drugs smuggled from North Korea, a crime that later caught up with her, blocking her effort to gain citizenship in South Korea.
She left North Korea on Dec. 30, 2003, to make a living for her husband and two sons.
Like many North Korean women defectors, she was also deceived by a broker into being “sold” to a Chinese man in a rural area.
She agreed to marry the Chinese, thinking she would go back to North Korea after earning some money. She worked hard for several years but could not make enough.
Then she felt affection for the Chinese man she had lived with for about 10 years and decided to stay with him.
She left China for South Korea in 2013 to join her North Korean family she had helped to leave North Korea. Her plan was to marry the Chinese man after getting South Korean citizenship so she could live with him in South Korea while also taking care of her sons.
But the National Intelligence Service suspected she was a spy from the North and started investigating her life in China.
Was Madam B a spy from North Korea? Or is she a heartless woman who wants to abandon her family again?
Without answering these questions, the documentary focuses on a woman making a painful journey from North Korea to China and then to South Korea, but ending up a pariah belonging to none of them.