Just wanted to dive in here amidst the politics and clarify that some of the movies were made during the Korean War, thus were in fact a wartime crime. And I don't think the popularity of the movies should determine the severity of the sentence.
wait.. the guy went to North Korea in the 60s, and made films during the Korean War (in the 50s)
obviously, we shouldn't ask why he did these films, we should ask how he traveled back in time.