Delayed Reaction: The Lovers and the Despot

The Pitch: The true story of an actress and director kidnapped by Kim Jong-Il.

Choi Eun-hee and Shin Sang-ok were a famous South Korean actress and director respectively. They were married for many years but divorced in 1976. In 1978, they were separately abducted by North Korea. After years in isolation, they were eventually put in charge of [re]vitalizing North Korea's film industry. They did this for many years until escaping in 1986. "Filmmakers kidnapped by North Korea" is an intriguing pitch. I watched this as soon as I saw it was available on Netflix after having been made aware of it as part of one of my monthly previews.

I'll be honest. I was underwhelmed by this. I'm not sure what drove Robert Cannan and Ross Adam to make this documentary. They tell the story of the kidnapping and the time in North Korea, but it didn't feel like they had much to say about it. They could've really delved into the kidnapping, the propaganda, the films themselves, Kim Jong-il, or any number of things. Instead, they told the story at a measured pace, like they didn't appreciate the oddity of the situation. The story is inherently pretty interesting, so that sustains a lot of the documentary. If the documentarians had something pointed to say about it could've made it great. As is, it's still worth seeing if for no other reason than the Wikipedia pages about this as pretty bare.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend