A Kim Jong-Il Production

The movie The Interview is not kind to North Korea’s current dictator. In the movie, Kim Jong-un is enamored of James Franco’s TV host character. But the idea of a North Korean dictator obsessed with Western show biz isn’t entirely fiction. Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il, was obsessed with movies. He had his own personal collection of thousands of American films and wanted to build a North Korean film industry that would rival Hollywood. So he kidnapped one of South Korea’s most-famous directors and his actress wife to force them to make films for him. The strange episode is chronicled in a new book, and we hear from the author.