LOS ANGELES -- North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-il, is not quite the "madman" portrayed in news media reports in the West but rather a meticulous planner who executes his projects with iron determination, according to South Korea's premier actress and film director, who were kidnapped by Kim and held captive for eight years in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.


Had he been born to another life instead of the eldest son of Kim Il-sung, the world's longest-reigning dictator until his death earlier this month, the younger Kim might have made a great movie producer, Choi Eun Hee and her husband Shin Sang Okk said in an interview.


At the same time, the pudgy 52-year-old, who loves movies, theater and the circus, would use "any means" to fulfill his goals, they said.


As experts try to figure out what Kim is really like, negative images persist of a man who abuses alcohol and women and is possibly unpredictable enough to start a nuclear war.


"He's not that rash, even though he may appear that way to those who don't know the inner workings of North Korea," said Shin, who had many long talks with Kim. "North Korea's nuclear program is the only bargaining tool he has. He'll use it as a tool."


The Kim Jong-il he knew between 1978 and 1986 would not start a nuclear war, he said, because it would amount to a suicide for his nation.


Choi and Shin provided a close-up view of the reclusive North Korean leader about whom so little is known. The two, who were kidnapped to North Korea from Hong Kong six months apart in 1978 on orders of Kim Jong-il, are among the few outsiders who came to know the younger Kim.


The couple escaped from their North Korean captors and now live in Beverly Hills, California.


The kidnappings were examples of Kim's moves to achieve what he believed was good for his country, said Shin. As a movie buff who recognized the power of the medium, his dream was to create a first-class movie industry in his country. To achieve that, he plotted to abduct Shin and Choi.


"If you measure him with Western standards of freedom and human rights, Kim is irrational," said Shin. "On the other hand, if you analyse him in the context of Stalinism, he is not crazy."


From their intimate encounters with him, Choi and Shin are convinced that Kim has the ability to assume and retain power over North Korea.


"The so-called North Korean specialists don't know anything," Shin said. "They've never met the man."


Referring to "experts" who have speculated that Kim may not survive beyond the next two years because he doesn't have his father's credentials and charisma, Shin said: "If Kim Jong-il goes, so do all the people around him. Do you think they will let that happen? Kim Il-sung didn't groom him to be his heir just because he was his son. Kim Il-sung chose him because he knew he was capable."


The younger Kim has been running the day-to-day operations of the Pyongyang government for the past 20 years, said Shin, an assessment shared by numerous North Korea watchers.


During the movie couple's eight years in Pyongyang, they dined with Kim, watched movies with him and visited his home -- a rare privilege.


They spent scores of hours discussing movie projects, which Kim considered a key to mobilizing his peoples' support. Their bizarre odyssey began when Choi, South Korea's most popular actress since World War II, was kidnapped in Hong Kong in January 1978 in Repulse Bay. Out of nowhere, several men appeared, picked Choi up and put her on a freighter -- sobbing, screaming and then fainting -- to the North Korean port of Nampo near Pyongyang, she wrote in the couple's joint 863-page memoir.


Several days later, Choi was met at the dock by Kim Jong-il, whose welcoming remarks were: "You have suffered a great deal trying to come here. I am Kim Jong-il."


She was driven to one of his villas. For many months, she locked herself in the bathroom and cried, she recalls.


Shin was abducted six months later, after mounting a fruitless search for Choi. He, too, was lured to Repulse Bay, bound and anesthetized and taken by different boats to Nampo.


For five years Choi and Shin did not know whether the other was alive or in North Korea. They were held captive separately until they were reunited on March 6, 1983, at a banquet hosted by Kim at Communist Party headquarters in Pyongyang.


Choi was moved from villa to villa, subjected to indoctrination and constantly under watch. Shin was held in a political prison for four years, after he twice tried to escape.


After the pair were reunited, they plotted their getaway. The only way out was to cooperate with Kim, they said.


On Oct. 18, 1983, Kim hosted a 57th birthday party for Shin. That night Kim asked Shin to be his special adviser on motion pictures. Kim asked Shin to forgive their "recent difficulties" and admitted his involvement in the kidnappings.


Kim told Shin he wanted to export movies to improve his country's image.


That very night Shin Film Inc. was created, and two days later the movie couple were off to Eastern Europe with diplomatic passports and $3 million to make a movie Kim Jong-il wanted completed for his father's birthday, six months later.


Kim Jong-il's 15,000 movies, one of the world's largest private collections, included all of Shin's films -- more than 100 in all.


"Kim Jong-il liked both of us -- long before he met us," Shin said. "So did Kim Il-sung."


Now, having won Kim Jong-il's confidence, the two were permitted to travel, even to Western Europe, though they were always accompanied by North Korean officials. They made half a dozen films for North Korea.


In January 1986 they were in Vienna, Austria, on the way to Budapest, Hungary, where they were to begin work on a film about Genghis Khan. Choi and Shin, helped by a Japanese journalist they knew, made a daring escape in a taxi, eluding their guards who were in hot pursuit. They dashed into the U.S. Embassy and sought refuge. For two years after that they lived in a Washington suburb, under the protection of U.S. officials until 1988. A furious Kim Jong-il had placed a $1 million bounty on them.