Choe Ik-gyu

By the time Kim Jong-il took over the country's film industry in 1968, Choe was the most experienced filmmaker of North Korea.

Sea of Blood (1968) and The Flower Girl (1972) were "Immortal Classics" that, in addition to being popular successes, profoundly shaped the industry.

All in all, Choe has been sacked five times from the Propaganda and Agitation Department: first in 1969, then in 1977 as part of purges, in 1986 after the Vienna affair, in 1993, and finally 2010.

Choe Ik-gyu was born on 26 February 1934 to a poor family in Hwadae County,[2][3] North Hamgyong Province, Korea.

[3] Choe also studied in the Soviet Union and graduated from the Red Flag Mangyongdae Revolutionary School in Pyongyang, at some point.

His eldest daughter Choe Il-sim is an aspiring scenario writer, having written scripts for the five-part movie series The Country I Saw (1988–).

Their collaborations became immensely popular, Choe directing and Kim producing films that would become known as "Immortal Classics" and People's Prize winners.

By the end of the decade, Choe had been appointed as a supervisor of the film industry section of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea.

[12] Choe was promoted as the vice director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department and elected a member of parliament in the fifth Supreme People's Assembly.

Choe Ik-gyu played a role in the abduction of Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee, a famous South Korean director-actress couple.

[17] After years of separation,[18] when Shin and Choi were re-united by their captor, Kim Jong-il, on 6 March 1983,[19] Choe was present.

[21] First, Choe accompanied Shin and Choi on a trip from Pyongyang to Moscow, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia.

[22] The purpose of the trip was to scout for locations for the first film Shin had agreed to make for Kim Jong-il: An Emissary of No Return.

[24] Shin gained back control of the project by threatening to report to Kim Jong-il about Choe's behavior.

Choe produced, directed and wrote scenarios throughout the production of the 50-part film series, which Kim Jong-il considered the last work made under his personal guidance.

[3] Choe became the Minister of Culture in September 2003 but retired temporarily some two years later because of diabetes and other chronic health issues.