News of a multi-series documentary has added to speculation about the North Korean leader's health, writes DAVID MCNEILL in Tokyo
HIS BIRTH was marked by a double rainbow and a new star, he hit 11 holes-in-one in his first game of golf, finishing 38 under par, and throughout his life has performed heroic feats impossible for mere mortals. When he shouts, “huge storms happen”.
The life of North Korea’s ailing leader, Kim Jong-Il, has long been extravagantly window-dressed by the state’s diligent chroniclers, but it is about to get the full regal treatment with a new film chronicling his exploits from childhood to becoming a living legend.
North Korea’s state media said this week that the first part of a multi-series documentary about Kim’s birth, childhood and early achievements, when he developed “military ideas and theories and tactics of [his father] president Kim Il- sung”, had already been produced.
Although other propaganda films extol Kim’s boundless virtues – one records that he came down from the heavens accompanied by a snowstorm – this will be the first to “comprehensively deal . . . with his revolutionary exploits”, said the Korean Central News Agency.
News that the 67-year-old dictator’s life is about to be sealed in celluloid has inevitably ratcheted up speculation on his health. Official television pictures released this month showed the once well-upholstered Kim looking gaunt and walking with a visible limp.
South Korean media has reported that he has had a stroke and may have pancreatic cancer.
Kim inherited an intense cult of personality from his father, dubbed the Great Leader, who was the subject of an official 20-part retrospective biopic in the last year of his life. Official histories of his fight with the Japanese imperial army in the second World War even had him walking on water.
Pyongyang watchers believe Kim Jong-Il’s youngest son, Jong- Un (26), is being groomed as his successor in the world’s only hereditary communist dictatorship.
Some speculated in the South Korean media yesterday that the retrospective film is another step in the countdown to a family takeover after Kim’s death.
The South’s unification ministry, which closely observes its reclusive northern neighbour, says, however, that Kim has stepped up official duties in a bid to dismiss talk about his health.
The ministry has counted 82 factory visits this year, up from 57 in 2008, a sign that he may be recovering from his recent illnesses.
Meanwhile, an arms specialist with the US Congress has alleged that North Korea earns more than $2 billion (€1.4 billion) annually in arms deals with Iran.
Larry Niksch, a researcher on Asian affairs, said the North was transferring missiles, parts and technical drawings for missiles between Pyongyang and Tehran.
Syria and Burma are also on Pyongyang’s arms list, he said.