FORMER North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was the world's best golfer, sparked a fashion phenomenon and didn't defecate - that is, if you believe everything you read.

Here are some of the most interesting reports about the pint-size former dictator.

He had a supernatural birth

Kim Jong-il was born in Siberia in 1941 while his parents were during the Japanese occupation of Korea, according to Soviet documents.

But according to official North Korean literature, he was born in a log cabin at his father's secret base on North Korea's sacred Mt Paektu in 1942.



The same reports claim his birth were heralded by a swallow and caused winter to change to spring, a star to illuminate the sky and rainbows to spontaneously appear.



He was the best golfer the world has ever seen

In 1994, Pyongyang media reported that Kim Jong-il shot an amazing 11 holes-in-one to achieve an unprecedented 38-under-par game on a regulation 18-hole golf course - on his first try at golf.



Reports say each of his 17 bodyguards verified the record-breaking feat.

He loved film so much he kidnapped two filmmakers

A filmmaking author with a collection of over 20,000 movies, Jong-il's passion for the art led him to kidnap South Korean director Shin Sang-ok and his actress wife Choi Eun-hee to make Pulgasari, basically a socialist version of Godzilla.

The couple made an escape while in Austria on a trip to finalise plans for Pulgasari's sequel by fleeing to the American embassy.

He was a fashion icon

Pyongyang announced the leader had become a worldwide fashion icon after Rodong Sinmun, a communist party newspaper in North Korea, reported Kim Jong-il's suits had become a global fashion phenomenon.



An "unidentified French fashion expert" agreed: "Kim Jong-il mode, which is now spreading expeditiously worldwide, is something unprecedented in the world's history."

He didn't defecate

According to the official biography on the North Korean state web site, Kim Jong-il didn't defecate. The biography has since been taken down.

He lured short people with a wonder drug that promised to make them tall, then kidnapped them

Kim Hyun-sik, a former tutor to Jong-il, said the government handed out pamphlets to thousands of people selling a wonder drug that would make them taller. When they responded to the ad, they were sent away to "uninhabited islands in an attempt to end their 'substandard' genes from repeating in a new generation," Hyun-sik said.

He only ate rice of uniform in length and colour

A nephew of Jong-il's first wife, Lee Young Nam, wrote that the obsessive leader insisted his rice be cooked using trees cut from Mt. Paektu (the mountain where he was born), and that he had female staff inspected each grain of rice to make sure it met his strict standards.

He was the world's biggest Hennessey drinker

A study by Dr. Jerold Post, a former CIA psychologist, revealed the former dictator loved a Hennessey cognac that retails for $630 a bottle in Korea - $270 less than the average Korean annual income, $900.



"He is the largest customer over the last 10 years, averaging between $650,000 and $720,000 a year."

Originally published as Fashion icon, golf pro. Seriously