Choi Eun-hee

Biography

Early career and success in South Korea Choi was born in Kōshū, Keiki Province, Japanese Korea, (today Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province), in 1926. Her first acting role was in the 1947 film A New Oath.

After she married director Shin Sang-ok in 1954, the two founded Shin Film. Choi went on to act in over 130 films and was considered one of the biggest stars of South Korean film in the 1960s and 1970s. She starred in many of Shin's iconic films, including 1958's A Flower in Hell and 1961's The Houseguest and My Mother.

After she was diagnosed with infertility, they adopted two children together, Jeong-kyun and Myung-kim.

Abduction and years in North Korea

In 1976, Choi divorced Shin after seeing news that he had fathered two children with young actress Oh Su-mi. Choi's career began to suffer after her divorce, and she traveled to Hong Kong in 1978 to meet with a person posing as a businessman who offered to set up a new film company with her.

In North Korea, Choi and Shin were remarried, at Kim's recommendation.

Escape and later life The couple finally staged their escape in 1986 while on a trip to Vienna, where they fled to the United States embassy and requested political asylum.

On April 16, 2018, Choi died at 91 in a hospital where she was due to undergo kidney dialysis in the afternoon. In January 2016, at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, in the World Cinema Documentary Competition, a documentary about the North Korean ordeal, entitled The Lovers and the Despot, directed by Robert Cannan and Ross Adam, was presented.

Select filmography

Blue Dragon Film Awards

Grand Bell Awards

Other awards