The film The Red Agitator (1962), adapted from Cho Baek-ryeong’s 1961 play of the same title, is a representative North Korean art film that visualizes the Chollima-era imperative of internalizing collectivism through re-education narratives in the 1960s. This study examines the adaptation process from stage to screen and analyzes the artistic orientation and medium-specific transformations introduced by director Park Hak. Drawing on his background as an actor, Park actively exploited cinema’s formal advantages and audiovisual resources: characters depicted in a schematic, agit-prop manner in the original were reconstructed as multidimensional figures, and the circumstances of “backward” individuals were rendered in concrete detail, eliciting deeper emotional engagement from viewers. The protagonist Lee Seon-ja, formerly a party agitator concerned solely with propaganda, emerges in the film as both a daughter within her family and an autonomous subject who confronts and resolves problems on her own. Cooperative cadres such as Chi-uk and Pyeong-hun are also refashioned: Chi-uk’s performance-driven mentality is further emphasized, while Pyeong-hun evolves from an authoritarian leader into a humane and warm figure. Likewise, the backward characters Bok-seon, Kwan-pil, and Chin-o gain strengthened individual narratives and emotional backstories, becoming relatable rather than mere objects of ideological instruction. Through this adaptation and directorial approach, the film maximizes cinema’s emotive persuasiveness and visual power, transforming a straightforward propaganda drama into a work that moves the audience on a human level while naturally conveying its ideological theme. By comparing narrative structures and character portrayals in the play and the film, the present study illuminates the strategies of ideological education and the aesthetics of emotional persuasion that North Korean cultural policy sought to achieve through artistic media.