42
The Film Stage by Daniel Schindel
The most frustrating aspect of The Lovers and the Despot is its refusal to do more than simply recite its tale, ignoring the interesting concepts lurking within it.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
80
Time Out London by Dave Calhoun
The Lovers and the Despot is compelling as a Cold War-era thriller, but it also offers a small window on life in the higher echelons of power in North Korea at that time.
70
Screen International by David D'Arcy
The visual textures of The Lovers and the Despot, edited by Jim Hession — and the Kim audio tapes — make for vibrant cinema.
75
Consequence of Sound by Dominick Suzanne-Mayer
As both an utterly mad true story and as a document of the boundless reach of the cinema across borders and cultures and even ideologies, The Lovers and the Despot is wild, valuable viewing for all.
63
The haphazard blending of fact and clips from disparate films unrelated to Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee's ordeal confuses an already intricate tale.
40
The Guardian by Jordan Hoffman
It’s one hell of a yarn, which makes The Lovers and the Despot’s strangely soporific style something of a disappointment.
80
While a more thorough archival survey of Choi and Shin’s work together (pre- and post-abduction) would have allowed for a deeper perspective, this real-life romantic thriller/escape saga still boasts enough fascinating details and angles to qualify as essential stranger-than-fiction viewing.
67
The Playlist by Oliver Lyttelton
The tale of Choi and Shin is a true stranger-than-fiction one, as good a piece of material as a filmmaker could help for. It’s just a shame that, for the most part, The Lovers And The Despot feels like it’s giving you the Cliff Notes version of the story.
75
A tale worthy of a hundred Cold War thrillers.
80
The Hollywood Reporter by Todd McCarthy
Fascinating on personal, political and cinematic levels, the film resourcefully plumbs all sorts of resources, including secret tape recordings of Kim himself, but also omits certain aspects of the tale that would merely have added to its intrigue.