Madame Choi and the Monsters: A True Story

The true story of how a famous movie star and her ex-husband director were kidnapped by Kim Jong-il and forced to revitalize North Korea’s film industry

The incredible-yet-true story of celebrated South Korean actress Choi Eun-hee, abducted in 1978 by North Korean secret agents on the orders of their film-crazed future leader Kim Jong-il. Six months later, filmmaker Shin Sang-ok, Choi Eun-hee’s ex-husband, is abducted in turn. Choi and Shin remain unaware of each other’s fates until they meet again at a dinner hosted by Kim Jong-il in 1983. Kim forces Choi and Shin to make films, including the infamous kaiju cult classic Pulgasari (1985), all while convincing the world that they serve North Korea willingly. Choi and Shin’s love rekindles slowly in this reunited captivity. Only at the 1986 Vienna Film Festival do they escape, fleeing in a daring car chase to the American embassy.

Patrick Spät lives as a freelance author and editor in Berlin. He studied philosophy, sociology and literary history in Mannheim, Leipzig, and Freiburg, ultimately receiving his doctorate in philosophy in 2010. As an author, he mainly deals with historical and sociopolitical topics. He was a finalist for the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung Comic Book Prize in 2019 with the graphic novel Der König der Vagabunden (The King of the Vagabonds), published by Avant Verlag. Sheree Domingo studied at the Kunsthochschule in Kassel and at the Luca School of Arts in Brussels. As a cartoonist, she works and lives in Berlin. She was a finalist of the Berthold Leibinger Stiftung Comic Book Prize in 2016 with her graphic novel Ferngespräch (Long Distance Call), published by Edition Morderne. In 2022, she and her collaborator Patrick Spät went on to win the same prize with the German edition of Madame Choi and the Monster.