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News Articles
'Typhoon' tells story of N.Korean defector
by BO-MI LIM, ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
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[January 31, 2006]
SEOUL, South Korea -- A North Korean refugee boy rejected by
South Korea for asylum narrowly escapes North Korean guards who
kill his parents, growing up to become a pirate on a vengeful
mission: drenching the peninsula in a nuclear rainstorm.
The South Korean action film "Typhoon" strikes many viewers as
implausible, but North Koreans who risked their lives escaping
the communist regime know better.
"I think it's the first movie that accurately depicts the
reality of North Korea," said Kang Chol Hwan, who met President
Bush last year to discuss his memoir of growing up in a prison
camp. "This is the true story of us. I cried throughout the
movie."
"Typhoon" tells the story of Choi Myung Sin and his family, who
flee to China and seek refuge in South Korea after breaking into
the Austrian embassy in Beijing. Fearing a diplomatic conflict
with China, South Korea rejects their asylum bid and secretly
repatriates them to the North.
During yet another escape attempt, Choi's parents are shot dead
by North Korean guards. Choi and his older sister manage to run
away, but their life in hiding means scavenging for food and the
sister gets raped by a Chinese farmer while trying to steal a
few dumplings for Choi.
The reality for North Koreans trying to flee the totalitarian
regime is "far more tragic and tearful," said Kang, who was sent
to a North Korean prison along with his family at age 9 because
his grandfather was accused of anti-government activity.
At a recent press screening for the movie, Kang talked about a
North Korean woman who was sold to work on a Chinese shipping
boat, where she was constantly raped by seven ethnic Korean
crew. She was dumped into the sea when she died, Kang said.
Nearly 7,700 North Koreans have fled to South Korea since the
end of the 1950-53 Korean War, with more than two-thirds
arriving since 2002 amid famine and increased economic
hardships, according to the South's Unification Ministry, which
handles inter-Korean affairs.
Still, thousands more North Koreans are said to be living in
hiding in China, which is obliged to send them back under a
bilateral treaty. Activists say China repatriates up to 400
defectors every week to the North where they can face harsh
punishment.
"North Korean women, in particular, are in extreme peril in
terms of being snared by human traffickers either to be sold
into marriage to a Chinese person or to be pulled into the sex
trade," said Tim Peters, founder and director of Helping Hands
Korea, a Christian charity group supporting North Korean
refugees.
Activists estimate more than 70 percent of North Korean women
who try to defect become victims of human trafficking in China,
while North Korean defectors say the figure is much higher,
Peters said.
"Typhoon" director Kwak Kyung-taek, whose father fled the North
during the Korean War, said he was trying to portray the "kind
of hostility the North Koreans would harbor against South Korea"
when they were sent back to their communist homeland.
The anger is personified by Choi Myung Sin, played by top star
Jang Dong-gun. Choi becomes a pirate named Sin who conspires to
explode nuclear waste over both the South for rejecting his
family and the North for killing his parents.
In the movie's climax, Sin berates a South Korean navy officer
trying to thwart him. What's maddening about the situation, he
shouts, is "that you and I speak the same language."
The movie virtually evolved from the line, Kwak said in
interview with The Associated Press.
"There is a great sense of alienation between South and North
Koreans, but when we meet we can easily communicate," Kwak said.
"This is the ironic situation on the Korean Peninsula."
So far "Typhoon" is only showing in Asia but the makers hope to
distribute the film in the United States and Canada later this
year.
The movie is South Korea's most expensive, costing $15 million
to make. Despite the big budget, the film has drawn just over 4
million viewers since its Dec. 14 premiere.
Critics complain of clunky action scenes and a plot with too
many holes centered on the much played-out subject - at least to
South Koreans - of the divided Koreas. But defectors say South
Koreans are too apathetic to their Northern brethren.
"Other countries are concerned about problems of North Korea's
human rights and defectors. On the contrary, South Koreans are
just not that interested in the North Korean defector issue,"
Kang said. "I hope the movie helps raise South Koreans'
awareness of North Korea's human rights situation."
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