In this undated image made off KRT footage distributed by APTN on Tuesday, July 14, 2009, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il claps while visiting Taedonggang Tile Factory, in North Korea. (AP Photo/KRT via APTN)
(AP)
Analyst Koh Yu-hwan of Seoul's Dongguk University said the laudatory film celebrating Kim's achievements appears aimed at laying the groundwork for a succession announcement.
A biopic like one made to chronicle Kim Il Sung's life "could be used to demonstrate the inevitability of a son taking over so as to make North Korean people to accept the succession as a matter of tradition," he said.
"Kim Jong Il desperately feels the need to look back on his life and hand power over to his son" as his late father did in the early 1990s, said Cheong Seong-chang, an analyst at the Sejong Institute security think tank outside Seoul.
In his later years, the elder Kim started penning a memoir and commissioned a movie to capture his life story on film, Cheong noted, all part of building up the mythology of the Kim dynasty.
A movie series seems apt for Kim Jong Il, a noted film buff.
Part 1 of "The Sun of Songun Shedding Its Rays All over the World" focuses on his early years and his development of the "songun," or "military first," policy that has defined his leadership, the official Korean Central News Agency said Thursday.
"Impressive scenes" contained in Part 1 show how Kim devised the military-heavy policy based on his experience during the Japanese colonial era, North Korea's early years following World War II, the Korean War of the 1950s and the postwar period — all events that helped shape "the perfect personality and qualification to be possessed by a leader," KCNA said.
It is the first time the North has produced such a film about Kim, though the regime has made a number of documentaries about his public activities, Seoul's Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo told reporters Thursday.
But she declined to comment on what the new film might signify about Kim's health. Images sent Tuesday via North Korean state media showed Kim touring a tile factory. He appears thin but no worse off than in other recent photographs.
Do you have more information about this topic? If so, please click here to contact the editors of ABC News.
