Rare photos have been released of Kim Jong-un, the youngest son of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who seems certain to inherit power in the communist state's second dynastic succession.

Larking about with classmates and making playful V-signs for the camera, the boy who is now tipped to be the next leader of the hermit dictatorship of North Korea appears not to have a care in the world.

The bad boy and the good boy ... Kim Jogn-nam and Kim Jong-un. Credit:AFP

These childhood photographs purportedly of Kim Jong-un, the reclusive third son of North Korea's "Dear Leader", were released on Tuesday by South Korea's national Yonhap news agency, providing a unique glimpse into the privileged life of the country's elite.

Taken between 1996 and 2001, while Kim junior was a teenager studying at international school in Bern, Switzerland, the pictures show a grinning Kim at ease with his friends at a time when his countrymen were suffering a man-made famine that killed up to 2 million people.