I'm sorry but how the hell is this guy a hero in any way? Undeterred by sex slavery, assassination, execution, and forced labor he neglects his first batch of children and allows the second to be interned, and he says he can't wait to get back to the DPRK. He only informed the Japanese because they were holding him.

The thing that made him so interesting to Kim Jung Il is his innocence. He didn't know about these things - sex slavery, concentration camps, and the like - he was just a guy making sushi and partying with the leader of a country.

Maybe not a hero - but he's certainly an innocent bystander for the first few years of the story. He's not aware of all the evil that surrounds him which makes him so interesting.

Not aware, or simply indifferent? After being educated in what really goes on in NK, he still chooses to return, and besides talking to the police and providing valuable intel on the NK government's insides, he didn't - at least not in this article - do anything to improve the situation.

Or at least, not directly. He introduced Jong-Un to basketball and both him and his father to a lot of western culture, influencing to the point to where Jong-Il's burial is modeled after a movie they once watched.

Which is why I said "the first few years". At some point, he realized people in his apartment building were disappearing, and he began to understand his life was in danger if he pissed Dear Leader off too much.