Kim Jong-Il Production (Fischer) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[The abduction of Shin and Choic] seems, from afar, to be this book’s main subject, but Mr. Fischer can’t tell it without providing a lot of other information. Fair enough. Kim Jong-il requires a lot of explaining. In fact, Kim’s part of the book is mostly more interesting than the filmmakers
Janet Maslin - New York Times


[T]here’s no shortage of detail.... Fischer is a fluent writer, clearly knowledgeable about film, and he has a dramatic story to tell. But we end up with a huge number of printed words concerning a case whose outlines remain familiar to many people. Although it’s fair to call the book a nonfiction thriller, I suspect many readers will put it down multiple times before managing to finish it.
Bradley K. Martin - Washington Post


An entertaining new book…details how [Shin and Choi] finally seized their chance to seek asylum…A stupefying, novelistic read.
Boston Globe


Gripping… A Kim Jong-Il Production tells the absurd, harrowing, and true story of Choi and Shin’s ordeal, which reveals the importance of film as propaganda to the North Korean regime.
Esquire.com


North Korea is a nightmarish movie theater without an exit in this gripping true-life thriller.... Fischer’s entertaining narrative paints an arresting portrait of a North Korean "theater state," forced to enact the demented script of a sociopathic tyrant.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) By examining the lives of...two extraordinary people, Fischer sheds light on politics, society, and culture in secretive North Korea. This enjoyable read is highly recommended for North Korea watchers as well as movie aficionados. —Joshua Wallace, Ranger Coll., TX
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Fischer matches keen cinematic analysis with an unusually cogent and vivid brief history of the two postwar Koreas. The most compelling facets of this book of astonishments are Fischer's insights into the relationships between Choi, Sun, and their diabolical captor... Gripping and revelatory, Fischer's true-life thriller provides a portal into the mad tyranny of North Korea.
Booklist


(Starred review.) Exhaustively researched, highly engossing chronicle of the outrageous abduction of a pair of well-known South Korean filmmakers by the nefarious network of North Korea's Kim Jong-Il. Filmmaker Fischer carefully presents a well-documented story of the kidnapping ... A meticulously detailed feat of rare footage inside the DPRK's propaganda machinery.
Kirkus Reviews