Film fanatic Kim Jong-Il looks forward to summit gifts

[teddybear67]

Film fanatic Kim Jong-Il looks forward to summit gifts

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Il is a big fan of popular South Korean actress Lee Young-Ae and he will receive DVDs of her hit dramas and films as gifts at an upcoming summit, a report said Saturday.

"Chairman Kim likes to watch South Korean TV programmes. Among South Korean entertainers, he favours Lee Young-Ae the most," an unidentified South Korean official was quoted as saying by the JoongAng daily.
"DVDs of South Korean movies and dramas, including those featuring Lee Young-Ae, will be included as summit gifts," the official said.
Lee, 26, has a great fan base in Asia. She starred in Dae Jang Geum, a popular TV drama that played a key role in the advent of the Korean Wave, a surge of South Korean pop culture in the region.
Aside from DVDs, South Korea is mulling a cutting-edge home theatre system and DVD players as gifts for Kim, a movie fanatic, who will hold a summit with South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun in Pyongyang on October 2-4, officials here said.
Kim Jong-Il is said to have a collection of more than 20,000 foreign films in his private library and has reportedly produced several films himself, mostly depicting revolutionary heroes.
His obsession with developing North Korea's film industry was so great that in 1978 he reportedly ordered North Korean agents to abduct a famous South Korean movie director, Shin Sang-Ok, and his ex-wife, actress Che Eun Hui.
The couple stayed in the communist state for eight years while making propaganda films. They escaped in 1986 and wrote a memoir about their saga.
In July, North Korea reportedly ordered the shutdown of karaoke bars, online game rooms, video-screening rooms and Internet cafes as part of a battle to stem a flood of South Korean pop culture.
Defectors say South Korean pop songs and movies are popular in the isolated communist country, despite a steady campaign to weed out what state media has termed "decadent foreign culture and ideals."
Videotapes and CDs of South Korean films, music and TV soap operas enter mainly via neighbouring northeast China.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_asia_afp/nkoreaskoreasummitfilmoffbeat