This article examines the 1967 spy incident called the East Berlin (Tongbaengnim) Incident against the backdrop of North Korea becoming an increasingly contentious political issue in 1960s South Korea. The spy incidents of the 1960s occurred as South Korean public opinion became divided over North Korea’s reality and prospects. During this period, as the international political order was becoming multipolar and the North Korean regime was consolidating, while theories predicting North Korea’s collapse significantly weakened, existing unification policies and anti-communism ideology needed revision. As a result, the targets of spy accusations expanded beyond just political opponents of top leadership to include ordinary citizens, and their scope widened to encompass students and workers abroad rather than remaining limited to domestic cases. The 1967 East Berlin Incident occurred as the Park Chung-hee regime selectively accepted new changes emerging at three levels—international politics, inter-Korean relations, and North Korea’s realities— while blocking and limiting discussions that crossed certain boundaries. This can be seen as the government’s attempt to monopolize and control the pursuit of nationalist unification policies while accepting contemporary changes in anti-communist bloc policies, the Hallstein Doctrine, and unification approaches.

This article analyzes the portrayal of spies in Korean cinema. Spies have been a significant theme in Korean films, reflecting the ideological division of the Korean peninsula into North and South. Having experienced war amid intense ideological conflict, spies represented a tangible threat in everyday life. Even today, 80 years after the division, controversies about spies continue. Given this social context, it was natural for Korean films to feature spies as a central subject. However, the cinematic portrayal of spies has evolved over time. Until the 1980s, spies were depicted as serious threats to South Korean society. After 2000, they began to be portrayed as ineffectual. This shift in representation reflected changing inter-Korean relations. Subsequently, spies were depicted less realistically and more as imaginary villains or heroes with dual identities.