The game’s up, Bond

Dear Leader has not yet signalled his sentiments, but chances are he concurs with North Korea’s Secretariat of the Committee for the Pe...

Dear Leader has not yet signalled his sentiments, but chances are he concurs with North Korea’s Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland. That august body, surely not in the habit of taking note of big screen shenanigans, has duly warned the lone superpower.

“The US should stop at once this dirty burlesque,” goes its statement on the latest James Bond caper, Die Another Day. Umm, while Agent 007 may have become less British as the years roll by and the endorsements pour in, the production is still a significant bulwark against Hollywood on the rampage. But never mind, small difference, some would say, at a time when Tony Blair is the most qualified to take over the leadership of Bill Clinton’s old party.

In any case the point is well noted: the North Koreans are furious that they have been vilified in this mega-hit, that it’s months in a North Korean prison that reduced 007 to unkempt hair and stubble, that the villain of the piece is a genetically modified North Korean colonel.

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Seoul is silent, but given President-elect Roh Moo Hyun’s sunshine ideals, anything that enrages proponents of ‘peaceful reunification’ up north is bound to trouble him too. Cinema is still not quite diplomacy by other means — forget stray standoffs between Hollywood and Beijing — but it certainly faces a growing challenge. Where does it locate villains to justify 120 minutes of thrills and spills as macho men and bikinied babes race to save the world?

The James Bond empire is certainly struggling. First, the Cold War abruptly ended in the late eighties, immediately drying up a thus far guaranteed pool of transnational evil ones to spur the latest Bonds to ever greater heroics. Then, the financial dynamics of entertainment changed, with globalisation rendering every part of the globe a potential market. ‘Axis-of-evil’ regimes like Baghdad’s and Pyongyang’s — especially with their uncannily timed disclosures about nuclear duplicity — inspire villainy almost at par with the good old Soviet threat. But those comrades of yore weren’t coughing up precious savings to stream into theatres, were they? Like Saddam and Kim Jong Il’s sympathisers in West and East Asia, and beyond.

So who could be a villain no one will object to? Harry Potter’s teachers or white business execs. John Le Carre, with his pharma conspiracy theory, got it right after all.