Kim Jong II, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of North Korea, sat in his director's chair in the soundstage outside Pyongyang. He was happy. For the first time he was happy. He was doing what he wanted. And no one wanted to kill him anymore.
Not that they hadn't tried. If it wasn't the generals who hated him, it was his half brother who feared him or his stepmother who despised him.
All had tried to kill him—and failed. It was getting to be ridiculous. Bombs in his pillows. Poisoned Bim Bam Bop. Diseased courtesans. Nothing worked.
In the end they had cut the unkillable Dear Leader a deal.
Surrender the reins of power to his ambitious half brother and lead a life of luxury and privilege.
It was too good to be true. But since they were all holding pistols and rifles on him and he was soaking in his gold-plated tub, he had agreed.
They marched him out at gunpoint, his stepbrother looking especially nervous, and into a waiting army truck. Naked.
He was sure he was going to be shot. But as they drove, their seething rage suggested otherwise. If he was really going to be killed, they would be gloating over him. Certainly spitting in his hapless face. Kicking him, too. Especially his stepmother, who did that a lot since his father had died.
Instead, they had set him up in production.
"I don't get it," he said in his Hollywood-style Korean as he surveyed the converted aircraft hangar now emblazoned with a Hangul sign that read Dear Leader Productions.
"It is simple," his half brother had barked. "The Western markets are open to us. We need their currencies. To get their currencies, we need the product they want. The Chinese are making a fortune selling epic motion pictures starring a tart named Gong Li."
"Ah," sighed Kim Jong II. "I would give anything to direct Gong Li. She was magnificent in Red Sorghum."
"Make movies the West will pay to watch," said his half brother, slapping him on the head as if he were a naughty child instead of the greatest director in the history of Korean cinema.
And so Kim Jong II had returned to his first love, directing. After a while it all made sense. A dead Kim Jong II, after so many botched assassination attempts, would bring down the whole flimsy regime. For he had been groomed to be the next Dear Leader of North Korea, and all the people knew it. They would accept no substitute.
On the day the South Korean forces rolled across the Thirty-eighth Parallel, Director Kim Jong II was lounging in his Dear Leader director's chair trying to get his leading actress to pout correctly for the camera and wishing he had Gong Li, the hottest Asian actress on the planet, instead of this simpering country-faced wench.
But one worked with what one could scrounge. It was hard to get anyone to visit North Korea in these post-Iron Curtain times, much less settle here.
In the middle of the pivotal scene where Princess An jilts King K'on, sirens began wailing so loudly they pierced the soundproof former bomber hangar.
"Cut!" shouted Kim Jong II, bouncing off his director's chair, his plump body encased in an electric blue silk jogging suit like so much sausage in a foil package. "What the bleep is going on!"
An old gaffer cried, "The Americans are back with their B-52s!"
"Don't be ridic," snorted Kim Jong II. "They're more savvy than all that."
But when he poked his head out the soundstage door, he saw clear skies and a string of official limos coming up the road, their sirens screaming their approach.
"Uh-oh. Dear Leader doesn't like the looks of this setup."
Ducking back, he went in search of a place to hide. But the soundstages had glass offices just like in Hollywood—he had insisted on that, and the glass wasn't exactly bulletproof.
They caught him climbing into the princess's kimono with the actress who was still occupying it and screaming that she was being raped.
"Hail the son of Kim II Sung," boomed a squeaky voice.
And recognizing the voice of the Master of Sinanju, Kim Jong II blurted, "Oh, shit. I'm dead. They hired the best."
Falling to his knees, Kim Jong II implored the Master of Sinanju with these words. "Just make it quick, okay? No pain, no blood, but a clean death. I'll go quietly, I promise."
"I have come because a year ago you offered work to the Master of Sinanju."
Kim Jong II blinked. Was he hearing correctly? "You want to work for me?"
"As eldest son, you have the right of first refusal."
Kim Jong II opened his closed fingers and climbed to his feet. His vision, which had irised down into a gray tunnel with a peephole at the end of it, began to clear.
He saw the Master of Sinanju, resplendent in a poppy-red kimono, along with a white he recognized with a start.
"Does your white slave come in the bargain?" he asked, indicating Remo.
"What's it to you?" Remo demanded.
"Hey! Cool it, baby. I remember you from last time. No hard feelings. Just saying is all."
"Where do you get that talk?"
"Movies. Where else?"
"My son in spirit will serve whatever emperor the House favors," intoned the Master of Sinanju.
"Don't count on it," said Remo.
"Okay. Deal," said Kim Jong II.
"Not without agreeing on payment," Remo said quietly.
"Excellent point," said Chiun. "We must come to terms."
"Gold I ain't got."
Chiun frowned.
"I have gold," said Kim Pyong II from the shadows. He stepped out, surrounded by stern-faced generals.
"Who invited you?" Jong said sourly.
"I must have gold," said Chiun.
"I have something more valuable than gold," said Kim Jong II. "Assuming you want it, that is."
Chiun sniffed, "There is nothing more valuable than gold."