Korea, U.S. to co-produce film on Korea's 'seductress spy'

SEOUL, Feb. 16 (Yonhap) -- South Korea and the United States will co-produce a
film based on the true story of a Korean seductress who allegedly charmed secret
information out of an American colonel and passed it on to North Korea,
filmmakers said Monday.

Kim Soo-im, often dubbed "Asia's Mata Hari," is believed to have engaged in
espionage activities in the late 1940s, when the United States and South Korea
were gripped by an anti-communist fever.
Tentatively titled "Against Conspiracy," the US$20 million-budget movie will be
will be co-produced by Hyde Park of the U.S. and Activerse Entertainment of South
Korea, the Seoul-based production company said.
Up to 70 percent of the film, based on a script written by veteran Korean
director Cho Myung-hwa, will be shot in South Korea and the rest in the United
States. Actors and actresses have yet to be named.
Cho has been planning a feature film on the espionage case since 2006 after Kim
Won-il, the son born between Kim Soo-im and her lover Col. John E. Baird, agreed
to have the story turned into a movie.
A Seoul elite who graduated from a top women's school in Korea, Kim allegedly
seduced Col. Baird into leaking secret information about his country and passed
it to her Korean lover Lee Gang-kook, a German-educated intellectual active in
Seoul's leftist movement.
Kim was executed by the South Korean military.
Some here claim that she was the victim of authoritarian, anti-communist movement
which punished people based on unfounded suspicions. Many young, educated Koreans
in the 1930s and 40s leaned left politically in opposition to Japanese colonial
rule.
The film will be a human drama depicting the lives of American and Korean
youngsters engulfed in the turbulent era, filmmakers said.
hayney@yna.co.kr
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