hankyoreh

In a friendly gesture intended to warm up official summit talks, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun Wednesday offered film-fanatic North Korean leader Kim Jong-il an expansive DVD set containing a TV series that stars a top South Korean female actress believed to be Kim's favorite, television footage from Pyongyang showed.

Roh, who arrived in Pyongyang overland Tuesday for a three-day summit with Kim, walked the North Korean strongman past an array of cloth-covered tables on which Roh's presents from Seoul were displayed.

Kim eyed each of the South Korean-made gifts which included a blockbuster TV series, Dae Jang Geum, featuring Lee Young-ae, a 36-year-old actress, who played a leading role in it.

Lee commands wide popularity across Asia following ever-larger exports of South Korean pop cultural products, and is believed to have endeared herself to the North Korean leader through her successful acting career.

As the South Korean media were generally kept guessing last week over Roh's gifts for the fastidious North Korean strongman, an official confided to the local daily JoongAng Ilbo ahead of the historic trip that Roh would offer the TV series featuring Lee, adding Kim was a fan of hers.

The neatly packaged TV series, which revolves around the hardships of a female culinarian inside a dynastic palace, sat beside a pamphlet apparently touting the actress's qualities and topped the shelf that also contained a wide genre variety of South Korean DVDs.

Kim, who has also been presented with two wide-screen state-of-the art liquid crystal displays for the film-loving Kim, is often billed as a movie director of genius in his tightly-control country.

After looking at other products Roh has taken pains to bring with him, including delicate tea leaves collected across the South, a large traditional windbreak screen -- used primarily for artistic appreciation -- and a bookshelf that had other DVDs, Kim bluntly showed his appreciation.

"Thank you," said Kim as he walked across to enter a conference hall where the two leaders would hold their second-ever official summit talks since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

The first summit came in 2000, only nearly five decades after the war, with then-South Korean President Kim Dae-jung flying to Pyongyang to be greeted by a broadly smiling Kim Jong-il.

Kim, who appeared noticeably sullen as he welcomed Roh Tuesday afternoon in central Pyongyang, beamed smiles Wednesday as he walked alongside Roh to appreciate the South Korean-made offerings exhibited at Baekhwawon Guest House, where Roh had slept overnight.

Kim has reportedly collected tens of thousands of overseas films and went as far as to order the abduction of a prominent South Korean film director in the past. The film maker escaped the regime in 1986 after producing propaganda films for the North.

North Korean defectors generally testify South Korean cultural products are gaining growing popularity despite the communist regime's tight leash on the flow of information and products.

SEOUL, Oct. 3 (Yonhap)