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Film about DPRK's Kim being made

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-07-17 07:22

The DPRK leader Kim Jong-il (front R) visits the newly-built Taedonggang Tile Factory in Pyongyang in this picture released by DPRK's official news agency KCNA on July 14, 2009. [Agencies]

SEOUL: The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has started making its first documentary about Kim Jong-il's life amid renewed speculation about the 67-year-old leader's health and who will inherit leadership of the country.

The retrospective film would be a rare acknowledgment that Kim is getting on in years. The Republic of Korea's (ROK) Chosun Ilbo newspaper noted yesterday that the DPRK began producing a similar 20-part film about Kim's late father, national founder Kim Il-sung, in 1993 - a year before he died of heart failure.

Analyst Koh Yu-hwan of Seoul's Dongguk University said the move appears to be aimed at laying the groundwork for naming one of Kim's sons as his successor.

"A Kim Jong-il biopic would be closely related to Kim Il-sung," the professor said. "That could be used to demonstrate the inevitability of a son (of Kim Jong-il) taking over so as to make North Korean (DPRK) people to accept the succession as a matter of tradition."

Since early this year, it has been widely reported that Kim's third and youngest son, 26-year-old Kim Jong-un, is being groomed as the heir, but the country has made no announcement to the outside world.

Pyongyang's state media said on Wednesday that the country has produced the first part of a Kim Jong-il film that "will comprehensively deal with the immortal 'songun' (military first) revolutionary exploits performed by" Kim.

The first part is about Kim's birth and youth, and how he advanced "military ideas and theories and tactics of President Kim Il-sung," the official Korean Central News Agency said.

It is the first time the DPRK has produced such a film about Kim, though the country has made a number of documentaries about his public activities, Seoul's Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo told reporters yesterday.

But she declined to comment on what the new film might signify about Kim's health.

A ROK TV report recently said Kim - believed to have suffered a stroke last August - also has "life-threatening" pancreatic cancer.

However, some analysts questioned the YTN report, saying Kim's brisk pace of public appearances this year make it unlikely he has cancer.

DPRK state media released new images on Tuesday of Kim touring a tile factory in which he appears thin but no worse off than in other recent photographs. The latest factory visit brings the total number of such trips this year to 82, compared with 57 visits during the same period last year, according to the Unification Ministry.

AP