Shin Sang-Ok, along with his favorite actress and wife Choi Eun-Hee, made many controversial films. Often the couple itself was at the center of controversy. Their escape from North Korea was an especially unprecedented event. After the escape, director Shin has made two films in South Korea, both with a strong political tinge. The films are: <b>Mayumi</b>, a film about a Korean airliner bombed by North Korean terrorists, and Vanished, about the ascension and demise of the Park Jung-Hee regime. The director depicts the vicissitudes of the Park government in a theatrical manner. The incidents that influenced the history of the two Koreas overlap with the director′s personal history, drawing a strange hyperbolic curve. It is because of this fact that, although the film is about modern politics in Korea, it can be viewed as the director′s personal memoir and modern ′history film′. The version scheduled for showing at this year′s festivals is the one shown at the Cannes film festival, and is different from the version shown upon its initial release in Korea. (Kwon Yong-Min)