Die Another Day is a 2002 spy film and the twentieth film in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It was produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and directed by Lee Tamahori. It is the fourth and final film to star Pierce Brosnan as MI6 agent James Bond; Halle Berry co-stars as NSA agent Jinx Johnson, the Bond girl. The plot follows Bond as he attempts to locate a mole in British intelligence who betrayed him to North Korea and a Icelandic billionaire who is later revealed to be seemingly connected to a North Korean operative that he fought against in North Korea.
Plot[]
MI6 agent James Bond infiltrates a North Korean military base where Colonel Tan-Sun Moon is trading weapons for African conflict diamonds. After Moon's right-hand man Zao receives notification of Bond's real identity, Moon attempts to kill Bond but Bond blows up the case, making an escape and a hovercraft chase ensues, ending with Moon's craft tumbling over a waterfall. Bond survives by grabbing onto a bell but he is captured by North Korean soldiers and imprisoned by the Colonel's father, General Moon. After fourteen months of captivity and torture at the hands of the Korean People's Army, Bond is traded for Zao in a prisoner exchange across the Bridge of No Return. He is sedated and taken to meet M, who informs him that his status as a 00 Agent has been suspended under suspicion of having leaked information under duress to the North Koreans. Bond is convinced that he has been set up by a double agent in the British government. After escaping MI6 custody, he finds himself in Hong Kong, he heads to his regular hotel in the city where his old colleague Chang works. He is given new clothes, a meal and a clean shave. However Bond suspects that he's being watched, and after breaking his mirror finds Chang, who works as a Chinese agent. Bond tells him he wants to help Chang settle a score by taking out Zao for killing three fellow Chinese agents, and Bond a chance to get even. Chang obliges but says he'll have to speak with Beijing first. Soon Chang tells Bond that Zao is in Cuba and gives Bond a Thank you gift for his help.
In Havana, Bond meets with NSA agent Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson, and follows her to a gene therapy clinic, where patients can have their appearances altered through DNA restructuring. Jinx kills Dr. Alvarez, the leader of the therapy, while Bond locates Zao inside the clinic and fights him. Zao escapes, leaving behind a pendant which leads Bond to a cache of conflict diamonds bearing the crest of the company owned by British billionaire Gustav Graves. Bond returns to London on a first class flight and learns that Graves only appeared a year prior, apparently discovering a vein of diamonds in Iceland leading to his current wealth and a celebrity being knighted. At Blades Club in London, Bond meets Graves along with his assistant Miranda Frost, who is also an undercover MI6 agent. After a fencing match that escalates into a claymore duel, Graves invites Bond to Iceland for a scientific demonstration. M restores Bond's Double-0 status, and Q issues him an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish with active camouflage. At Graves ice palace in Iceland, Bond is at a celebration for the demonstration and Jinx is there as a magazine writer while she apologizes for ditching him, she points out he could look out for himself. Graves unveils a new orbital mirror satellite, "Icarus", which is able to focus solar energy on a small area and provide year-round sunshine for agriculture. Bond seeks into the mine afterwards but soon discovers that the mine is just a cover up. He ends up triggering the security alarm but escapes and as a cover he seduces Frost while Jinx infiltrates Graves' command centre, but is captured by Graves and Zao. Bond rescues her and discovers that Graves is Colonel Moon, who has used the gene therapy technology to change his appearance and amassed his fortune from conflict diamonds as a cover. Bond confronts Graves, but Frost arrives to reveal herself as the traitor who betrayed him in North Korea, forcing Bond to escape from Graves' facility. He returns in his Vanquish to rescue Jinx, who has been recaptured in the palace. As Graves uses Icarus to melt the ice palace, Zao pursues Bond into the palace using his Jaguar XKR. Bond kills Zao by causing a giant ice chandelier to fall onto him, and revives Jinx after she had almost drowned.
Bond and Jinx head to a demilitarized South Korean air station where M and Jinx's boss Damian Falco are waiting for them. M is upset that Falco kept quiet about Jinx's mission and forgetting to tell MI6 that Miranda Frost and Colonel Moon were on the fencing team at Harvard. Although Falco points out he couldn't risk Jinx getting killed or compromising the mission. They find that Graves is in a North Korea Air Base, which is somewhere they can't touch him, Bond says he can though, so M sends him in to stop Graves, Falco not wanting the British to take all the credit sends Jinx to go with Bond, they manage to make it. Bond and Jinx pursue Graves and Frost to the Korean peninsula and stow away on Graves' An-124 cargo plane. Graves reveals his identity to his father, and the true purpose of the Icarus satellite: to cut a path through the Korean Demilitarized Zone with concentrated sunlight, allowing North Korean troops to invade South Korea and unite the peninsula. Horrified, General Moon rejects the plan, but Graves murders him. Bond attempts to shoot Graves, but is prevented by a soldier. In their struggle, a gunshot pierces the fuselage, causing the plane to decompress and descend rapidly. Bond and Graves engage in a fistfight, and Jinx attempts to regain control of the plane. Frost attacks Jinx, forcing her to defend herself in a sword duel. After the plane passes through the Icarus beam and is further damaged, Jinx kills Frost. Graves attempts to escape by parachute, but Bond opens the parachute, pulling Graves out of the plane and into one of its engines, disabling the Icarus beam. Bond and Jinx escape from the disintegrating plane in a helicopter from the cargo hold, with Graves' stash of diamonds. Later, they spend a romantic evening at a Buddhist temple.
Cast[]
- Pierce Brosnan as James Bond, an MI6 agent.
- Halle Berry as Jinx Johnson, an NSA agent, she was nicknamed Jinx because she was born on Friday the 13th. Before Berry's casting Salma Hayek, Saffron Burrows, and Sophie Ellis-Bextor were also considered for the role.
- Toby Stephens as Gustav Graves, a British entrepreneur and the alter ego of Colonel Tan-Sun Moon. Graves was modeled after Hugo Drax in Ian Fleming's original Moonraker, a Nazi war criminal who switched places with a British soldier at the end of World War II, became a well-respected and wealthy philanthropist, and used this cover to plan a nuclear missile strike on London. He was also modelled after Uday Hussein and Richard Branson.
- Will Yun Lee as Colonel Tan-Sun Moon, a rogue North Korean army colonel and the original persona of Graves.
- Rosamund Pike as Miranda Frost, undercover MI6 agent and double agent.
- Rick Yune as Tang Ling Zao, a North Korean terrorist working for Moon and living as an exile.
- Judi Dench as M, the head of MI6.
- John Cleese as Q, MI6's quartermaster and armourer.
- Madonna as Verity, Graves and Frost's fencing instructor.
- Michael Madsen as Damian Falco, Jinx's superior in the NSA.
- Samantha Bond as Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary.
- Colin Salmon as Charles Robinson, M's Deputy Chief of Staff.
- Kenneth Tsang as General Moon, Colonel Moon's father. He assists in Bond's release back to the West. The North Korean general wishes for a peaceful reunification of Korea, whereas his son is bent on war.
- Michael Gorevoy as Vladimir Popov, Gustav Graves' personal scientist.
- Lawrence Makoare as Mr. Kil, one of Gustav Graves' henchmen.
- Ho Yi as The Hotel Manager and Chinese special agent Mr. Chang. In early drafts of the script, it was Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) who aided Bond in Hong Kong, but the idea fell through and Chang was created to replace her.
- Rachel Grant as Peaceful Fountains of Desire, a Chinese agent working for Mr. Chang, undercover as a masseuse.
- Emilio Echevarría as Raoul, the manager of a Havana cigar factory, and a British sleeper agent.
- Vincent Wong as General Li
- Joaquin Martinez as Elderly Cigar Factory Worker
- Simón Andreu as Dr. Álvarez
- Deborah Moore (the daughter of former Bond actor Roger Moore) as Airline Hostess
- Mark Dymond as Mr. Van Bierk
- Oliver Skeete as Concierge At The Fencing Club
Production[]
The film marked the James Bond franchise's 40th anniversary. Die Another Day includes references to each of the preceding films. The film received mixed reviews. Some critics praised the work of Tamahori, while others criticised the film's heavy use of computer-generated imagery, which they found unconvincing and a distraction from the film's plot. Nevertheless, Die Another Day was the highest-grossing James Bond film up to that time unadjusted for inflation.