HJ Park looks back at a movie tradition both dastardly and delicious.
The latest Bond novel Trigger Mortis is written by British writer Anthony Horowitz. According to The Telegraph, the book will be published in September and odds are it will eventually be made into a movie. The story has a retro setting, taking place right after the events of Goldfinger in 1957 when the Space Race between USSR and U.S. was heating up. Revisiting Bond’s past certainly opens up fascinating narrative possibilities. However, a James Bond picture, the saying goes, is just as good as its villain. The best Bond villain of them all may still be Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger. The scheming Bond villain in Trigger Mortis an evil Korean character named Jai Seung Sin. Sin is actually the third Korean Bond villain. The first one was the mute Oddjob (played by Japanese Olympic weight lifting athlete Harold Sakada) who was a Goldfinger bodyguard and assassin. The second one was Zao (Played by Korean-American actor Rick Yune) in Die Another Day. I wonder who will play Sin if the novel is made into a movie. But this time I will root for Sin instead of Bond: Long live evil Koreans! That may be a personal passion but I’m certainly not the only fan who loves to cheer for Bond girls and Bond villains. Without them, after all, a Bond movie would just be another spy movie with a charming spy. Through the years there have been various types of villains, some were cold-blooded killers and others were clownish characters. Perhaps the most memorable one was Auric Goldfinger in Goldfinger, generally considered one of the best Bond movies. German actor Gert Froebe played that gold-obsessed killer, who specialized in toying with Bond.
Goldfinger’s bodyguard, Oddjob, was a Korean in the novel, but in the movie he was played by a Japanese Olympian wrestler, Harold Sakada. Odd-job was a giant in black jacket and tie with a metal-trimmed black silk hat. He killed by throwing the silk hat Frisbee-like at opponents, with an ominous grin.
The second Korean villain was Zao in Die Another Day. Zao, played by Korean-American actor Rick Yune, was the right-hand man to a North Korean colonel (played by Korean-American actor, Will Yoon Lee) bent on invading the South. Jai Seung Sin, featured in the new Bond novel Trigger Mortis descends from that villainous tradition. Sin is a cunning, vengeful and sadistic character according to the previews. His role is said to be even meatier than Oddjob or Zao.
Horowitz is a well-known British writer of mystery novels. He is said to be greatly influenced by Ian Fleming and Conan Doyle. Trigger Mortis was commissioned by the estate of Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming. The opening chapter will contain a previously unpublished story by Ian Fleming for an unfinished television series, Murder on Wheels. By all accounts, the Fleming‘s family was very pleased with the novel’s outcome, praising it for successfully embodying Fleming’s own inimitable style. Contributing to the “homage”-feel the book also features the return of another classic Bond character: Pussy Galore (what a name!). A new Bond girl, Jeopardy Lane, is also introduced.
Any film adaptation that could recreate a fraction of the sexy frisson between the original Galore and Sean Connery would be halfway to success! Galore of course occupies a special place in the Bond Pantheon as the original villainous Bond girl, a character, which is both dangerous antagonist and love interest. The most terrifying female Bond villain may be Rosa Klebb (celebrated Kurt Weill singer Lotte Lenya), the female SPECTRE assassin in From Russia with Love. Rosa’s weapon was a deadly blade sticking out of her shoe and her disposition was just as poisonous.
Speaking of Bond women, Playboy, celebrated Playboy 007 was once married. That happened in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service when the second Bond actor, George Lazenby, fell in love with Tracy (Diana Rigg, famous for her role as Mrs. Emma Peel in British TV series The Avengers), the only daughter of Draco, an international criminal gang boss. Alas, Tracy came to an untimely end, killed by SPECTRE boss Blofeld (played by Telly Savalas) right after the wedding.
There was a back-story behind Bond’s love ‘em and leave ‘em attitude. In the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, he fell in love with a double agent, Vesper. After Vesper’s death, he felt terribly betrayed and wounded, and became what he has been ever since.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves with the Bond reveries … Before we even contemplate a Bond retro reboot, the 24th Bond movie, which itself carries the throwback title of Spectre, is scheduled to open in November this year. If we’re to judge from the villain and the girls we could be in for a treat. Oscar winning Austrian actor Christoph Waltz will be the designated Bond villain while Lea Seydoux and Monica Bellucci will double up on Bond girl duty.
HJ Park