Will the Real Kim Jong-Il Please Stand Up?

Startling news today from the Times of London:

Is Kim Jong-il for real? The question has baffled foreign intelligence agencies for years but now a veteran Japanese expert on North Korea says the “dear leader” is actually dead – and his role is played by a double.

The expert says Kim died of diabetes in 2003 and world leaders including Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China have been negotiating with an impostor.

If true, it would be an interesting explanation for the dictator's erratic behavior. The expert alleges that a cabal of four senior NK officials actually run things through their stable of dopplegangers; if the minders clash, or the stand-ins are left marooned without instructions, some pretty strange stuff could happen.

I'm pretty skeptical. I don't know who Toshimitsu Shigemura (the above-named expert) is, and I have no idea how he could figure this out while the world's intelligence agencies failed to notice. A side-by-side shows what looks to me like the same guy, a little worse for wear in the later shot.

Still, North Korea would be basing its actions on at least one recent precedent. And given Kim Jong-Il's well-known love for American movies, it's an example he and his advisers were likely to be well aware of: