North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has disgraced star scrubbed from TV show and digitally replaced
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has erased a TV hunk from reruns of the 1998 hit show and digitally replaced it with another actor because of the star’s femininity and ties to the hated uncle he executed in 2013 “for not well applauded’
- Choe Ung Chol has been replaced as the lead actor by actor Pak Jong Taek
- Advanced video technology has now been used to remove him from the series
The North Korean regime has digitally excised a disgraced actor from an old television series in its latest effort to remove any trace of defectors.
The series in question, The Taehongdang Party Secretary, aired in the rogue state between 1998 and 2000 and previously starred North Korean actor Choe Ung Chol.
It is clear that Choe displeased the Pyongyang regime for his alleged womanizing and favoring Jang Song Thaek, the disgraced uncle of Kim Jong Un who was executed in 2013.
Advanced video technology has now been used to remove it from the series and leave the rest of the program unchanged.
Instead, Pak Jong Taek now stars in Korean central television reruns on the show depicting the lives of North Korean potato farmers in the 1990s amid famine.
Pak Jong-taek now stars in Korean Central Television after replacing Choe Ung Chol in The Taehongdang Party Secretary
Pak Jong Taek (pictured) looks identical to how Choe Ung Chol did in reruns of The Taehongdang Party Secretary
The change of actor was noticed by Tatiana Gabroussenko, a professor at Korea University in Seoul, and an expert on North Korean culture.
She wrote for the NK News website: “If the regime sees someone as an enemy, they will relentlessly hunt down and destroy this threat, quashing every indication that they ever existed.
“North Korea is clearly adept at highly advanced digital editing techniques, creating something of a fake character for a TV series that is a quarter of a century old.
“Propagandists have apparently found an appropriate solution to the decades-old problem of how to erase problematic figures from an otherwise pro-regime cultural artifact without completely destroying it.”
In the reruns, Pak Jong Taek appears identical to how Choe Ung Chol did, reading the same lines verbatim, reproducing mannerisms, and interacting with the other actors in identical ways.
Gabroussenko described it as a “remarkable feat of digital editing,” but says Pak’s “casting in the role doesn’t quite work.”
The expert on North Korean culture also contacted defectors about the change, who said Choe was known to defectors as a notorious womanizer and associate of Jang Song Thaek.
Jang allegedly confessed to plotting a coup against Kim, distributing pornography and not clapping enthusiastically enough.
Choe was supposedly known to defectors as a notorious womanizer and associate of Jang Song Thaek (pictured)
It is not an unusual practice for the rogue state that often deletes records of dissenters. Pictured: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects nuclear warheads at an undisclosed location (undated)
“Apparently, Choe was a promiscuous playboy in high political circles in Pyongyang,” Gabroussenko wrote.
“Jo may even have fathered other love children among the upper echelons of the Pyongyang elite, rumor has it, and some defectors even say he used these connections for unspecified financial schemes involving Workers’ Party officials.”
This is not an unusual practice for the rogue state that often removes records of dissenters from its libraries or destroys films featuring disgraced actors.
Gabroussenko concluded, “The Taehongdang Party Secretary series is likely just the tip of the battle to completely realign North Korean films of yesteryear with the values and priorities of the regime in 2023.”