Entertaining Assessment in Slate today of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's current Dictator For Life. Unfortunately, they negelect his frequent, sometimes pornogrpahic fan letters to American actresses, but there's this:

Like many sons, Kim didn't always want to follow in his father's footsteps. What he really wants to do is direct. Kim's video library reputedly contains between 15,000 and 20,000 films, and in 1973 he wrote a 300-page book on film, titled On the Subject of the Cinema. In a less academic vein, he authorized the separate kidnappings of a South Korean movie director and his wife in 1978. After keeping them apart for five years (with neither knowing of the other's whereabouts), Kim reunited them and explained that he hoped to turn North Korea into some kind of East Asian Hollywood with their help. The three made six movies together before the two captives escaped, including one that won a best-director award at a Czechoslovakian film festival. In a 1994 interview with the Los Angeles Times, the liberated actress-wife said Kim could have been a top-notch movie producer had fate not led him down the path of totalitarian dictatorship. "We nicknamed him 'micro-manager,' " she said. "He pays attention to everything. He keeps track of everything. He is simply amazing."