Release dates
September 23, 2016
107 months agoCinema
Released
TBA
The Lovers and the Despot release date
The movie The Lovers and the Despot is already released on Cinema in the USA. The upcoming DVD release date in the USA is to be announced, upcoming VOD release date in the USA is to be announced, upcoming Blu-ray release date in the USA is to be announced and the upcoming Streaming release date in the USA is to be announced.
What the critics say
Based on 14 reviews, The Lovers and the Despot gets an average review score of 66
In this stranger-than-fiction doc, film legends Shin Sang-ok and Choi Eun-hee were held prisoner and forced to make films — then they made a break for it.
3166d ago
A coolly gripping account of one of the most bizarre true-crime stories ever to emerge from the film world.
3166d ago
An alluring and informative documentary providing a wonderfully illustrated glimpse into territory, and a personal story, hitherto less known.
3166d ago
“Lovers” suggests that any film — even this one — can have the manipulative power of propaganda.
3166d ago
Despite its flaws and will to kitsch, The Lovers and the Despot has enough enigmas and chills to merit a look, even if some of its spookier moments involve cinephilia rather than the usual weapons of mass destruction.
3166d ago
The Lovers and the Despot never finds time to examine at length the most fascinating of questions: What movies did a mind like Kim Jong-il's dream of? And within those dictates, under that pressure, did Shin and Choi — now remarried — still achieve artistry?
3166d ago
You may harbor doubts as well, but the story on the whole appears to be true, and the integrity of the documentary suffers little, if at all, from its co-directors’ decision to illustrate some of the more extravagant aspects of the lovers’ journey with charmingly sleazy clips from commercial potboilers that Shin, who died in 2006, had made in South Korea.
3166d ago
The Lovers And The Despot blandly recounts a fascinating true story.
3166d ago
Directors Rob Cannan and Ross Adam have made a picture that’s technically rough-edged but absorbing.
3166d ago
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.
3166d ago
The tale of ‘The Lovers and the Despot’ is better than the movie.
3166d ago
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.
3166d ago
A frustrating missed opportunity, "The Lovers and the Despot" takes a fascinating story about filmmaking, politics, kidnapping and propaganda and gives us almost no insight into the work of its two main characters, a director and his actress wife.
3166d ago
There’s an incredible story somewhere in this tale of how an actor and her husband were forced to make films for the late dictator, but this documentary buries it by way of over-measured effects and chronic pussy-footing.
3166d ago