He has been the spitting image of Kim Jong-il for more than decade, with his bouffant hairdo, large glasses and olive green suit.
And while he got plenty of abuse in the street from the misguided few who really thought he was the North Korean dictator, South Korean Kim Young-sik was never short of work as his double, according to the Daily Mail Friday.
But now it looks like the good times are over and southern Kim will have to hang up his wide-waisted trousers for good following the death of northern Kim.
“People try to comfort me, saying some figures are more famous when they're dead, but I don't think it will be the case with Kim,” said the engraver, according to the newspaper. But he added wistfully, “I feel very empty, as if a part of me died.”
Kim Young-sik, 61, said he never dreamt of becoming a part-time communist ruler and fell into the role by accident.
He said, “One day after I got out of the shower and my hair was very curly, people told me I looked like Kim Jong-il.”
When then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung began the Sunshine Policy of reconciliation with the North in the late 1990s, he started to be noticed and was invited to appear on television.
Since then, he has enjoyed an illustrious career appearing on Japanese TV, in a Middle East chocolate commercial, and in 1995 South Korean film “The Rose of Sharon Blooms Again,” the Daily Mail reported.