BBC News:
Kim Jong-il was one of the world's most reclusive and enigmatic leaders, presiding over a secretive and internationally isolated country.
The world's only hereditary communist ruler, he was criticised for flagrant human rights abuses and for threatening the stability of the region by pursuing a nuclear weapons programme and testing long-range missiles.
When he assumed power after the death of his father, Kim Il-sung, in 1994, very little was known about Kim Jong-il. He had seldom been seen in public.
He was said to have personally ordered the shooting down of a South Korean airliner in 1987.
The South Korean media portrayed him as a vain man, a playboy with a bouffant hairstyle and sporting platform shoes in order to appear taller.
Anecdotal evidence suggests he was not as stupid as his southern neighbours made out, though his over-fondness for food and drink was probably true.
Konstantin Pulikovsky, a Russian emissary who travelled with Mr Kim by train across Russia, reported that the North Korean leader had live lobsters air-lifted to the train each day which he ate with silver chopsticks.
The two men, he said, shared champagne with a bevy of female companions of "utmost beauty and intelligence".
He was seen draining 10 glasses of wine during his 2000 summit with then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and is known to have a taste for Hennessy VSOP cognac.
Those who met him say he was well-informed and he was said to have followed assiduously international events.
Some saw him as a clever manipulator, willing to take risks to underpin his regime.
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that Kim Jong-il was "very much on top of his brief".
His image in North Korea was one of a hero in the typical manner of the dictator's cult of personality.
Official North Korean accounts say he was born in a log cabin and the event was reportedly marked by a double rainbow and a bright star in the sky.
They say he wrote six operas in two years and designed one of Pyongyang's most famous landmarks.
In fact, according to outside experts, Mr Kim was born near the Russian city of Khabarovsk where his guerrilla father was receiving Soviet military support.
Subsequently, the young Kim spent the Korean War in China.
Like most of North Korea's elite, he graduated from Kim Il-sung University.
In 1975, he acquired the title Dear Leader and five years later joined the Central Committee of the Korean Workers Party and was given special responsibility for art and culture.
In 1978, he ordered the abduction of a South Korean film director, Shin Sang-ok and his actress wife Choi Eun-hee.
They were held separately for five years before being reunited at a party banquet.
They said afterwards that Mr Kim had apologised for the kidnappings and asked them to make movies for him. They completed seven before escaping to the West in 1986.
Kim Jong-il's love of the cinema bordered on the obsessive. He is said to have collected a library of 20,000 Hollywood movies and to have even written a book on the cinema. Elizabeth Taylor was believed to have been his pin-up.
He is also believed to have visited the state film company hundreds of times and produced a patriotic 100-part serial on North Korean history.
Famine
In 1991, he was elected supreme commander of the Korean People's Army. Analysts believe he was given the position to counter potential resistance to an eventual succession.
By now, North Korea's rigid centrally-controlled economy had slipped into an ever-deepening economic crisis exacerbated by the collapse of the country's main trading partner, the Soviet Union.
Trade dried up and the regime even ran out of fuel for factories and offices.
Natural disasters led to crop failures and hundreds of thousands are believed to have died. Potential unrest was quashed by the authorities.
This grave state of affairs continued after Kim succeeded his father on his death in 1994. However, Kim Jong-il did relieve the crisis somewhat by appealing for international assistance, particularly from China.
He also visited China several times, and was known to be interested in how communist China had adapted its socialist principles to a market economy.
After visiting Beijing and Shanghai in 2000 and 2001, North Korea began experimenting, on a small scale, with private entrepreneurship.
He also moved some way to improving relations with South Korea.
In June 2000, he met the South's leader, Kim Dae-jung, the first inter-Korean summit since the Korean War in 1953 which divided the nation.
The summit's main achievement was to increase links between the states, including allowing the reunion of families separated by the Korean War. More than a million Koreans were affected in this way.
Missiles and rumours
In August 2008 a report appeared in a Japanese news magazine claiming that Kim Jong-il had died in 2003 and that his supposed public appearances had, in fact, been undertaken by body doubles.
A month later US intelligence sources claimed Kim had suffered a stroke, following reports that he had failed to appear at a military parade to mark the country's 60th anniversary.
Amid rumour and counter rumour the North Korean authorities released a video in April 2009 which claimed to show Kim making official visits to factories during November and December 2008.
He made a dramatic appearance in August 2009 when former US President, Bill Clinton, flew to North Korea to secure the release of two American journalists, who had been arrested after allegedly illegally entering North Korea in March.
After meeting Mr Clinton it was reported that Kim Jong-il had agreed to pardon the two journalists and they returned to the United States.
Kim Jong-il's devoted commitment to his father's particular Marxist-Leninist vision was fundamental.
His insistence on maintaining the North's nuclear weapons programme in the face of international criticism, and the development and testing of long-range missiles capable of hitting American cities, cast Kim Jong-il as both a pariah and a maverick, and ensured that his country remained isolated.
His death at the age of 69 on 17 December 2011 was announced on state television.
(星島日報報道)許多到過北韓或從北韓逃亡出來的人，都形容金正日雖然外表嚴肅，卻過着「花花公子式」的生活，愛看外國電影，又愛吃世界各地的高級料理，也愛近女色。
未經證實的消息說，金正日共收藏了二萬部荷里活電影，甚至有傳聞指他收藏了不少成人片，以及在一九七八年指示綁架一名南韓電影導演和他的女友。
收藏大量成人電影
飲食方面，他愛吃世界各地的特色美食和高級料理，其酒窖更藏酒逾一萬瓶，愛豪吃龍蝦和豪飲干邑拔蘭地。
傳聞也指金正日生活淫亂，妻妾成群，據說共娶了五名妻子，但仍愛向俄羅斯跳舞女郎拋媚眼，而且有歌舞女郎提供性服務。
擁五名妻妾
金正日的情史很可觀，他曾三次結婚，非正式情人也有多名。第一任妻子是大學時代戀人洪一茜，兩人育有一女。接着是和打字員金英淑再婚，育有一子。第三任妻子成蕙琳和他育有長男金正男。
沒有婚姻關係的情人，則有高英姬和金玉。據傳高英姬是他的最愛，兩人育有次子金正哲、盛傳為接班人的三子金正恩，和一個女兒。金正日大多和高英姬及兩人的三個孩子一起生活。
靠政治宣傳變「神」
高英姬於二○○四年過世，金正日的私人秘書金玉據傳就成了他實際上的妻子。除此之外，謠傳金正日還有許多風流帳和多名私生子。
在北韓地位近乎「神」的金正日，被官方宣傳機構描寫成能人，聲稱他會駕駛噴射戰鬥機、會寫歌劇、擁有過目不忘的記憶、製作電影等，又指他在職業高爾夫球界締造無人能及的佳績，於首度在球場上顯身手時，有十一球一桿進洞。
金正日靠着政治宣傳、戰俘營、承襲北韓對他父親金日成的個人崇拜和廣大軍隊來穩固政權。
金正日上台後，北韓人民的日子苦不堪言，受到農作歉收和水災等影響，九十年代期間有約一百萬北韓人死於饑荒。
上台後人民苦不堪言
有人猜測金正日為餵飽國庫，曾計畫綁架日本人、透過大使館販賣毒品、並把北韓化身為偽鈔製造大國。
金正日早年展現冷酷作風。情報專家表示，他於一九八三年下令在緬甸發動炸彈攻擊，造成十七名高級南韓官員死亡。金正日還在一九八七年炸毀一架大韓航空公司飛機，機上一百一十五人全部喪生。
金正日的出生地可能是一個游擊隊陣地，他的父親金日成在該處指揮入侵的日軍，企圖阻止日本把朝鮮半島殖民化。
金正日長大後，於一九六四年大學畢業，在執政勞動黨內扶搖直上。他於一九八○年獲封為金日成的指定接班人。不過，金日成於一九九四年去世後，金正日等了三年，到九七年才正式上位。
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