My Take
Kim Jong-il is one of those figures who is genuinely hard to look away from — not out of admiration, but sheer fascination. He ran North Korea as a hermetically sealed personal fiefdom for nearly two decades, inheriting power from his father Kim Il-sung and turning it into something even more theatrical. What always gets me is the contradiction: here was a man who reportedly held thousands of films in his private collection, published a book on cinema, and even ordered the kidnapping of a South Korean director just to improve his country's movie industry — all while presiding over famines and a gulag system that defies description. The platform shoes, the jumpsuits, the cult of personality built on propaganda so extreme it became almost surreal — history will keep dissecting this one for a very long time.
Overview
Kim Jong Il (16 February 1941 or 1942 – 17 December 2011) was a North Korean politician and dictator who was the second supreme leader of North Korea from the death of his father Kim Il Sung in 1994 until his own death in 2011. Posthumously, Kim Jong Il was declared an Eternal Leader of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK).
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Kim Jong-il
- Name (Japanese)
- 金正日
- Reading
- 不明
- Born
- February 16, 1941 – December 17, 2011
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Aquarius / Snake
- Origin
- Vyatskoye, Russia
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- politician / military personnel / film producer / film actor / voice actor
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Kim Il-sung University
Awards & achievements
- 1995 Jubilee Medal "50 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
- 2005 Jubilee Medal "60 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
- 2010 Jubilee Medal "65 Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945"
- Hero of the Republic
- 1978 Order of Kim Il Sung
- Order of the National Flag
- 2005 National Order of Merit
- 1983 Order of the Republic, 1st Class
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
- Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%87%91%E6%AD%A3%E6%97%A5
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.