A Kim Jong-Il Production Read online

  * * *

  In May 1964, Jong-Il graduated from college, and his career in the leadership ranks of the Party, the career that had always been expected of him, began. His first post was as a member of the secretarial staff of the Central Committee, under Uncle Yong-Ju, who took him under his wing and taught him everything he knew about the Party’s inner workings—how personnel was hired, promoted, and demoted; how every department worked and how it reported back to the Leader. Uncle Yong-Ju had a large brood of his own children and was looking after their interests too, making sure they all reached positions of importance within the Party. After a year his uncle moved Jong-Il to the Executive Department to learn about housing allotment and food rationing. Jong-Il didn’t take to what was, essentially, the life of a civil servant, and did the work without much dedication. “He wasn’t taken seriously,” former Central Committee member Kim Duk-Hong said. “He was regarded as the black sheep of the family.” Jong-Il’s half brother Pyong-Il (born to Kim Il-Sung and his second wife, Jong-Il’s despised stepmother) was much more promising: he spoke very good English, had served in the military, and looked and carried himself like his father. Jong-Il, on the other hand, seemed erratic and undisciplined, with rich tastes and unreasonable appetites but lacking in charisma. He seemed destined to live a life of idle, useless leisure.

  In truth, Jong-Il was happy to be underestimated. He knew what his strengths were and was waiting for a way to put them to good use. Luckily, an opportunity to distinguish himself was coming—and along with it the one job he wanted most in the entire Party.

  * * *

  Purges are a regular part of life in a dictatorship’s elite, feared and expected in equal measure, coming a few times every generation, like a medieval surgeon bleeding a patient to balance his humors and keep him in health.

  The Kapsan purge, when it came, was the bloodiest in North Korea’s history. The People’s Republic had had an impressive fifteen years since the end of the so-called Liberation War. Bankrolled by the Soviet Union and by China, the country had rebuilt rapidly after the war and taken huge economic strides, attracting headlines worldwide as a model socialist state, a shining example that communism could work. The regime claimed proudly that all of its citizens now had roofs over their heads, reliable and regular food rations, and jobs to give them purpose; that every village was wired for electricity; that there was no crime, homelessness, or unemployment. By and large the regime was telling the truth. The system was Spartan, but, for a time, it worked.

  Now there were disagreements about the next step to take. Vice Premier Pak Kum-Chol suggested demilitarizing, decentralizing, and investing the funds currently being funneled into ideological campaigns into skills training and innovation to create a generation of scientists and engineers who could move the republic forward. His followers, known as the Kapsan faction after a county in Ryanggang Province, attempted the production of a motion picture celebrating their leader. This was their mistake. North Korea was Kim Il-Sung’s country and his alone. He did not share the spotlight. In the spring of 1967 Pak and his followers were charged with treason, flunkyism, and factionalism, and removed from their posts. Many of them were “sent to the mountains”—the euphemism North Koreans were beginning to use for being condemned to a labor camp—or executed. The purge became an excuse for a far-reaching attack on “revisionists.” Books, including the works of Karl Marx, were burned on bonfires; Soviet songs and “unsuitable” traditional Korean tunes were banned; dozens of painters, writers, and artists were sent to penal colonies for work suddenly deemed “too Western.” When the dust had settled, no one was left in North Korea who disagreed with or undermined the genius and omnipotence of Kim Il-Sung.

  But there was still the problem of the Korea Film Studio, which had taken part in the failed Kapsan film project. Several of its leaders, who thought they had merely been doing their jobs by developing a complimentary picture about the vice premier, a Party hero, were now being accused of “anti-Party activity.” In September 1967, Kim Il-Sung convened a special Politburo meeting at the studio. His son, who never missed an opportunity to go to the studio, went along. After all the studio executives had stood up and meekly confessed how they had failed the Party, it was Kim Il-Sung’s turn to speak. He launched into a long, vituperative sermon, jabbing at the men with endless accusations and rhetorical questions. “Does anyone here,” he growled, “actually have the courage to volunteer to guide this studio back in the right direction, in accordance with the Party’s policies?”

  Jong-Il was standing in the back of the room, watching. His voice, thin and almost feminine, rose unexpectedly behind everyone. Heads turned to look at him. “I will take on the responsibility,” he said. “I’ll try it.”

  The Great Leader must have smiled. Jong-Il had worked in the Central Committee and was familiar with its functioning, he was blood, and he had been an obsessive fan of the movies since he was seven years old. As far as Kim could tell, the boy had as good a background as anyone for the job. On the spot, Kim Jong-Il was promoted to Cultural Arts Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department, in charge of movies, plays, and publishing.

  He was twenty-five years old.

  * * *

  As soon as he took over, Jong-Il called a special meeting, to which he invited a few of the key filmmakers and actors. “All of us are comrades and fighters for the Party,” he told them, “who share life and death with each other.… Nobody is more precious than comrades to a revolutionary fighter. I shall believe in you, and you will have to believe in me, and we will work together.” One by one he handed each of them official photographs of themselves, which he had duplicated from the studio’s personnel files. When they looked down they saw that each photograph bore a handwritten note—“Let’s work together forever,” or “To our eternal comradeship, let’s advance forever along the same road”—with, below, the date and Jong-Il’s signature. Just weeks before, these men had been convinced their fates were sealed and that they would join the other victims of the Kapsan purge. Now the Leader’s son stood in front of them and promised to stand by them if they returned the favor.

  After a few token “subversive elements” had been dismissed, Jong-Il bestowed Party membership on all remaining film workers, at a time when Party membership was a highly prized social honor reserved for the elite. He improved the crews’ food and lodging; built a dedicated department store for the film workers, where they could buy goods unavailable through their weekly rations; and provided a bus service between their homes and the studio so they wouldn’t have to cycle or walk to work. He also showered them with gifts—“clothes, food, watches, record players, and television sets,” an insider said—some of the items so lavish that the average North Korean could spend a whole lifetime without ever setting eyes on one of them. When a film worker died, Jong-Il made sure the Party paid for the funeral and that surviving family members were looked after, and had the most distinguished actors, directors, and screenwriters approved for burial in the cemetery reserved for Patriotic Martyrs, on a hill overlooking Pyongyang. “Comrade Kim Jong-Il loves and treasures especially film artists,” a studio handbook said of him. “When he gets something good, he shares it with the film artists. And he immortalizes them while in life and even after their death.”

  When the workers had been retrained ideologically, Kim set out to retrain them artistically. He pulled past Soviet and North Korean films from his private collection and screened them with the staff, critiquing them and asking for suggestions about how the work could be improved. The Korea Film Studio hadn’t been renovated since the war, so he expanded it to a ten-million-square-foot lot (by comparison, the MGM lot in Culver City, California, the largest back lot of Hollywood’s golden age, was a mere 7.6 million square feet). He got rid of the old Soviet equipment from the 1950s, flying in the latest available cameras, lights, editing beds, and shooting rigs from Moscow and East Germany. He watched rushes of every film and gave his notes on them, his feeling of
where a story was falling short, contributing what he called his “innate sense of the minute flow” of a picture. The young son of the Leader, by virtue of his wide-ranging film education, had insight that none of his underlings could possibly have. His dedication impressed his subordinates. The Korea Film Studio had so far been run by Party politicians, never by someone who really loved the movies—or knew anything about how they were made. Jong-Il, on the other hand, virtually moved into the studio, spending long hours on the premises day after day.

  * * *

  Two things are to be expected of a great movie impresario, and Kim Jong-Il made sure to do both his very first year in charge of the studio. First, he made an epic, defining film, one that official histories would dub his first “Immortal Classic” and come to represent his filmmaking style. Sea of Blood was based on an operetta allegedly written by Kim Il-Sung during his guerrilla days, and tells the story of a 1930s Manchurian family standing up to Japanese oppression. It features all the elements that would become Jong-Il’s trademarks: a popular theme song, a strong female lead (in this case, the family’s mother, who joins the Communist resistance and starts smuggling explosives for them), stock foreign villains, an undercurrent of racial nationalism, and a curious mix of violence and schmaltz. North Korean films didn’t have credits, fostering the illusion that they were entirely collective works, but Sea of Blood was produced by Kim and directed by Choe Ik-Gyu, the studio’s previous head. Arguably the single North Korean most knowledgeable about film, other than Kim, Choe had studied in the Soviet Union in the early days of the North Korean film industry, had studied Russian language and literature at Pyongyang University, and by 1956 was running the Korea Film Studio, at the age of twenty-two. He was the one man in North Korea whose experience Jong-Il was keen to learn from. Sea of Blood was filmmaking on a grand, epic scale, the equivalent of a modern blockbuster tentpole production. North Korean audiences were surprised and delighted by it, and suddenly Kim Jong-Il, the Leader’s son and artistic prodigy, was the talk of Pyongyang.

  Next Jong-Il did the other thing all good old-fashioned film showmen did: he fell in love with one of his actresses.

  Sung Hye-Rim was one of the most famous leading ladies in North Korea. She looked striking, with a wide face, thick eyebrows, and strong chin, her skin pale and bright. She was kind and introverted. She had studied at the Pyongyang Movie College in the fifties, dropping out at eighteen to have a daughter before reenrolling and graduating. She had married young to Lee Pyong, the son of the head of the Korean Writers’ Association, and the marriage was not happy.

  She was five years older than Jong-Il, and he was smitten from the instant he met her. On his regular visits to film sets he always made sure to see her. Hye-Rim’s affection for the Leader’s son was less immediate, but she was moved by his stories of his motherless childhood and felt a kinship with his love for the arts, and Jong-Il, unlike her husband, knew how to be charming and treat her well. Hye-Rim completed the movie she was filming, quit acting, and left her husband and child to move in with Kim.

  Their relationship became, out of necessity, the best-kept secret in North Korea. Jong-Il knew from the start that he could never marry Hye-Rim, because she was already married with a child but also because she was older than him, a balance of ages that was still severely frowned upon in Korean society, especially for the Leader’s son, who would be expected to embody Korean virtues. He had to keep the affair a secret from the public and from his father, who was sure to put an end to it. Still, the relationship managed to be romantic and exciting. Jong-Il had Hye-Rim accepted into the Party and bestowed on her the title of Distinguished Actress, reserved for performers whose work has especially served the revolution. He flew her to international film festivals, giving her an international platform no other North Korean actress had yet received, and when she returned he spent all his free time with her, picking her up from the studio in one of his cars (by now he owned a Mercedes 600, two Mercedes 450s, several Cadillacs, and a Rolls-Royce) and at least once flying her to a location by private helicopter. At night they stayed together in one of Kim Il-Sung’s many empty villas. At first, Hye-Rim enjoyed being in a discreet relationship, away from gossip and social pressure. She didn’t foresee that the relationship would remain hidden for its full term.

  * * *

  It was still dark and cool outside when Hye-Rim’s sister, Hae-Rang, was woken by the stubborn honking of a car outside her bedroom window. The noise echoed between the walls. Only the wealthiest among the elite owned a car. Who could possibly be parked outside now, making a scene like this?

  As the honking grew more insistent she jumped out of bed and ran to the door. A luxury Mercedes was parked outside, Kim Jong-Il standing beside it. He asked her to get in the back with him so they could talk privately. She climbed in, quietly shutting the door behind her. “My relationship with your sister,” he began, “may have become more complicated.” Hye-Rim was about to give birth to a son. Under no circumstances could Kim Il-Sung find out about it.

  6

  Fathers and Sons

  Kim Jong-Il’s son, Jong-Nam, was playing in his huge playroom. Choosing what toy to play with was always a bit of a challenge; the playroom was restocked every year with new toys flown in from overseas, so many it would take a whole day to just walk around the room touching every one of them, but Jong-Nam was rarely allowed to leave the house, so he had gotten used to it. His minders were sitting in the corner, keeping a distracted eye on him. As Jong-Nam unconsciously moved closer to them, he saw one of them rub his cheek and complain that he needed a filling, but that the state dentist didn’t have enough gold to fit one, so he’d had to wait. To Jong-Nam, this sounded like a very peculiar problem to have. He put his toy down and ran to his personal safe, spun the dial to unlock it, and took out a solid gold bar. His babysitter had jumped up and followed him. Jong-Nam handed the bar to him, a smile on his face, and asked, “Maybe the dentist can make a filling out of this?”

  The man peered inside the opened safe. He spotted several more such gold bars, stacks of banknotes in various foreign currencies, and, most disturbing of all, what looked like the boy’s very own handgun.

  * * *

  Kim Jong-Nam was, his aunt tells us, “the biggest secret in North Korea.” When Hye-Rim checked into the maternity ward in May 1971, Kim Jong-Il had to stay hidden, waiting outside the hospital in his car. After the baby was born, Hye-Rim got out of bed, walked over to the light switch, and indicated the birth of the child and its sex by flicking the room’s light on and off in a prearranged sequence. Jong-Il communicated his understanding by flashing his car’s lights. He waited until Hye-Rim turned the lights off and went to sleep and, still unable to see his newborn son, drove through the nighttime streets of Pyongyang, honking his horn and shouting to himself, “It’s a boy! It’s a boy!”

  Jong-Il and Hye-Rim had just recently moved into a sprawling compound resort on the outskirts of Pyongyang, which made avoiding Kim Il-Sung’s gaze much easier. Jong-Il was already relying on his own channels of power, networks of certain Party and embassy staff who, either out of fear or because they were from Jong-Il’s generation and had grown up with him, were loyal to him rather than to his father. Protected by members of Jong-Il’s new personal bodyguard corps, all handpicked by the younger Kim without the Leader’s input or consultation, the new family lived in luxury. Jong-Il, in particular, doted on his son. The room had a thousand-square-foot playroom for Jong-Nam, and on his birthday embassy staff in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Berlin, and Geneva sent crates full of the latest toys to fill it. Jong-Nam couldn’t attend school or go out with other children, lest he give away the secret of his illegitimacy and of his parents’ relationship, so he was tutored at home and only occasionally allowed out into the city, in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes he was not allowed to exit. He pressed his nose against the glass and looked out, wondering what the lives out there were like.

  His son’s seclusion did mean that Jong-Il could spen
d a lot of time with him. When he worked late into the night, eating dinner at his desk, it became habitual for Jong-Nam to join him; Jong-Il would pick the boy up and sit him on the desktop next to his papers. He read Jong-Nam books before bed—his favorite was Anne of Green Gables—and if the boy couldn’t sleep, Jong-Il would patiently walk up and down the hallways with him on his back, the rhythm gently lulling him to sleep.

  Maybe Jong-Il didn’t realize he was repeating the same dysfunctional family environment that had been applied to him growing up, or maybe he thought necessity made it unavoidable. In any case, Jong-Nam grew up cheerful and optimistic, but like his father, the isolation also made him moody and demanding. It didn’t help that Jong-Il spoiled the child. When a very young Jong-Nam commented on how much he liked his father’s Cadillac, Jong-Il bought him his own. When he told his father how exciting it was to watch him shoot guns, Jong-Il started giving the boy guns as presents, including a special pistol from Belgium that inspired a tantrum when it was delayed in transit. When Jong-Nam wished that he could see his favorite South Korean comedian perform live rather than on television, Jong-Il tried to have the comedian abducted; when that failed he sent his men on a nationwide search for a lookalike, trained him to mimic the comic, then had him perform for Jong-Nam instead. The boy immediately recognized the man as a fake and stormed out in a tantrum. The impostor, having seen too much for his own good, was shipped off to an unknown fate.