{"content":[{"text":"Journal of Modern Science tom 2/25/2015 \n 156 | Nicolas Levi Kim Jong Il: a fi lm director who ran a country \n Korea (Kim Il Sung passed away in July 1994 and Kim Jong Il in Decem- \n ber 2011) Actually, the son of Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Eun (b. in 1983), is \n ruling over North Korea. \n North Korea is a country localized on the north of the Korean Pen- \n insula. Th is country is bordered by two international economic powers: \n China and South Korea. Th e population of North Korea reached 24 mil- \n lion of habitants. Th e political system of this country is entitled as being \n kimilsungist. In our western media we call it a despotic regime or”one \n of the last communist countries of the world” (David Blair, Kim Jong-un, \n the child soldier, takes over in North Korea). Th e North Korean political \n system cannot be assimilated to systems which are functioning in other \n countries of the world. Its opaque and unidentifi ed structure put a lot of \n questions on the table: how to defi ne it? What are the pillars of this sys- \n tem? Who is ruling over this country? \n Th e content of this paper doesn’t aim at giving a preponderant answer \n to all of political issues which are oft en analyzed in research papers related \n to North Korea. In the current paper, I will also try to demonstrate how \n movies are emphasizing and explaining the nature of the North Korean \n system. Th erefore will also explain the passion of Kim Jong Il for cinema \n and how he used movies to strengthen the North Korean system (what- \n ever it refers to). Th is topic is especially essential to understand not only \n the North Korean system but also Kim Jong Il himself. Th is is a topic, at \n least as far as I know, which wasn’t covered by the western literature. It has \n to be underlined that whilst most of the literature focusing on Kim Jong \n Il has concentrated on his personal and political life, very little attention \n has been paid to his passion for cinema. Kim Jong Il’s passion for cinema \n is legendary: Kim Jong Il was reputed to have a library of about 20 thous. \n of movies and had a staff of about 100 people whose sole job is to subti- \n tle foreign fi lms in Korean. According to Shin Sang Ok, a South Korean \n fi lm-maker who spent eight years in North Korea making fi lms with Kim \n Jong Il, the Dear Leader’s favorite fi lm was “Friday the 13th” (Terry Mac- \n carthy, Th e Korean Succession – fears of power struggle in North Korea, \n 11th July 1994. “Th e Independent”). During the preparation of movies, \n Kim Jong Il was also in touched with North Korean actors, he also was \n present when they were some foreign contributors however, according to \n Johannes Schönherr, Kim Jong Il was never discussing with these foreign- \n ers (Johannes Schönherr, Films for the Great Leader?, “DailyNK.com”, 24th \n April 2010). Th is was probably done in order to maintain an auspice of \n secrecy around the North Korean leader.","bbox":{"left":0.132868,"top":0.0606,"width":0.721538,"height":0.873476}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}