But thousands of North Koreans lined up in temperatures of minus 8 degrees Celsius on Saturday to pay their respects to late leader Kim Jong Il on his birthday. Kim, the son of the isolated North’s founder Kim Il Sung and the father and predecessor of current leader Kim Jong Un, was born on February 16. Outside historians point instead to official Soviet records, which say he was born a year earlier in a Siberian village where Kim Il Sung was in exile. Kim Jong Il died in 2011 and his remains are preserved in a palatial mausoleum on the outskirts of Pyongyang, but officially he remains Eternal General Secretary of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea. Kim Jong Il was a film director himself and renowned cinephile, to the extent he had a top South Korean director and actress kidnapped so they could develop the North’s cinema industry.

Source: Punch February 16, 2019 10:46 UTC