15 Facts About Shin Sang-ok

Shin Sang-ok, anglicized as Simon Sheen, was a South Korean filmmaker who directed 74 films in a career spanning over five decades.

Shin Sang-ok is best known in South Korea for his efforts during the 1950s and 1960s, many of them collaborations with his wife Choi Eun-hee.

The couple remained in captivity for 8 years and Shin Sang-ok directed seven films for Kim, including An Emissary of No Return, Runaway, Love, Love, My Love, Salt, and Pulgasari, before they escaped in 1986 and sought asylum in the United States.

Shin Sang-ok's father was a prominent doctor of Korean medicine.

Shin Sang-ok studied in Japan at Tokyo Fine Arts School, the predecessor of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music, before returning to Korea three years later.

The production company he started, Shin Sang-ok Films, produced around 300 films during the 1960s, including Prince Yeonsan, the winner of the Best Film prize at the first Grand Bell Awards ceremony and a Grand Bell Award-winning 1964 remake of Na Woon-gyu's 1926 Beongeoli Sam-ryong.

Shin Sang-ok himself came under suspicion of causing her disappearance and when he traveled to Hong Kong to investigate, he was kidnapped as well.

The North Korean authorities have denied the kidnapping accusations, claiming that Shin Sang-ok came to the country willingly.

Shin Sang-ok was put in comfortable accommodation, but after two escape attempts was placed in a prison for over two years.

Shin Sang-ok's ex-wife was brought to the same dinner party, where she first learned that Shin was in North Korea.

From 1983 on, Shin Sang-ok directed seven films, with Kim Jong-il acting as an executive producer.

The couple moved to Los Angeles, where Shin Sang-ok worked in the 1990s as Simon Sheen, directing 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up and working as an executive producer for 3 Ninjas Kick Back and 3 Ninjas: High Noon at Mega Mountain.

At first, Shin Sang-ok was reluctant to go back to South Korea, because he feared that the government's security police would not believe the kidnapping story; he eventually returned to South Korea permanently in 1994 and continued to work on new movies.

Shin Sang-ok's last movie as a director was an unreleased 2002 film called Kyeoul-iyagi.

Shin Sang-ok died of complications caused by hepatitis two years later.