Die Another Day


Die Another Day is a 2002 action spy film and the twentieth film in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions. It was directed by Lee Tamahori, produced by Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, and written by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade. The fourth and final film starring Pierce Brosnan as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond, it was also the only film to feature John Cleese as Q, and the last with Samantha Bond as Miss Moneypenny. It is also the first film since Live and Let Die not to feature Desmond Llewelyn as Q as he died three years earlier. Halle Berry co-stars as Bond girl and NSA agent Jinx. In the film, Bond attempts to locate a traitor in British intelligence who betrayed him and a British billionaire who is later revealed to be connected to a North Korean operative who Bond seemingly killed. It is an original story, although it takes influence from Bond creator Ian Fleming's novels Moonraker and The Man with the Golden Gun, as well as Kingsley Amis's novel, Colonel Sun. The title song was performed by Madonna.
Die Another Day was released on 20 November 2002 internationally by 20th Century Fox and 22 November 2002 in the United States by MGM Distribution Co. under the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer label. It marked the James Bond franchise's 40th anniversary. The film includes references to each of the preceding films. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised Tamahori's direction, but criticised the reliance on CGI, product placement, the story and the villain. Nevertheless, the film was a box-office success with it grossing $432 million worldwide, becoming the sixth-highest-grossing film of 2002.
The next film in the series, Casino Royale, was released in November 2006, which also served as a reboot of the franchise with Daniel Craig replacing Brosnan as Bond.

Plot

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 and a Griffon 2000TD hovercraft chase ensues, ending with Moon's craft tumbling over a waterfall. Bond 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 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, where he learns from Chang, a Chinese agent and old colleague, that Zao is in Cuba.
In Havana, Bond meets 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 clinic, 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 learns that Graves appeared only a year prior, apparently discovering a vein of diamonds in Iceland leading to his current wealth and celebrity. 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, but warns him that the British Intelligence has other priorities and Q issues him an Aston Martin V12 Vanquish with active camouflage.
At his ice palace in Iceland, 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. Frost seduces Bond and Jinx infiltrates Graves's 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's 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 shooting an ice chandelier which falls onto him and revives a nearly drowned Jinx in a hot pool.
Bond and Jinx pursue Graves and Frost to the Korean peninsula and stow away on Graves's 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 Demilitarised Zone with concentrated sunlight, allowing North Korean troops to invade South Korea and unite the peninsula. Horrified, realizing this could provoke the U.S. and U.N. to respond, restart the Korean War, and possibly escalate it into World War III, General Moon rejects the plan, but Graves kills him. Bond attempts to shoot Graves, but is blocked by a soldier. During their struggle, a gunshot pierces the fuselage, causing the plane to decompress and descend rapidly. Bond and Graves engage in a fistfight while 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, but Bond opens Graves's parachute, pulling him 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's stash of diamonds. Later, they spend a romantic evening at a Buddhist temple.

Cast

Other actors in the film include Simón Andreu as Dr. Álvarez, the director of the Cuban gene therapy facility; Vincent Wong as General Li, one of Graves/Moon's co-conspirators; Joaquin Martinez as the elderly cigar factory worker, Mark Dymond as Van Bierk, a diamond smuggler whose identity Bond steals at the beginning of the film; and Oliver Skeete as the concierge at the fencing club.
Cameo appearances in the film include Madonna as Verity, Graves's and Frost's fencing instructor; producer Michael G. Wilson as General Chandler, the senior commander of American forces in South Korea; and Deborah Moore as a British Airways hostess.

Production

After the success of The World Is Not Enough, producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson asked the director Michael Apted to return to direct. Although Apted accepted, they rescinded the offer in order to ask Tony Scott and John Woo, who both declined. Scott claims to have suggested Quentin Tarantino as director, although Wilson denies that any formal negotiations were held with him. Pierce Brosnan suggested John McTiernan, Ang Lee and Martin Scorsese as potential choices, and informally discussed the idea of directing a Bond film with Scorsese on a flight. Brett Ratner, Stephen Hopkins and Stuart Baird were later in negotiations to direct, before Lee Tamahori was hired.
Tamahori confirmed to Total Film in 2002, having pitched a scene where Brosnan's 007 meets an older, former 007 in Scotland played by Sean Connery but was advised it was "too dangerous" to have two 007s in one movie.

Filming

of Die Another Day began on 11 January 2002 at Pinewood Studios. The film was shot primarily in the United Kingdom, Iceland and Cádiz, Spain. Other locations included Pinewood Studios' 007 Stage and Maui, Hawaii, in December 2001.
Laird Hamilton, Dave Kalama and Darrick Doerner performed the pre-title surfing scene at the surf break known as "Jaws" in Peahi, Maui, while the shore shots were taken near Cádiz and Newquay, Cornwall. Scenes inside Graves's diamond mine were also filmed in Cornwall, at the Eden Project. The scenes involving the Cuban locations of Havana and the fictional Isla de Los Organos were filmed at La Caleta, Spain.
The scenes featuring Berry in a bikini were shot in Cádiz. The location was cold and windy, and footage has been released of Berry wrapped in thick towels between takes to avoid catching a chill. Berry was injured during filming when debris from a smoke grenade flew into her eye. The debris was removed in a 30-minute operation. Brosnan also sustained a knee injury during the shooting of an action scene in Cornwall.
The film includes references to each of the preceding films. Gadgets and other props from every previous Bond film and stored in Eon Productions' archives appear in Q's warehouse in the London Underground. Examples include the jetpack in Thunderball and Rosa Klebb's poison-tipped shoe in From Russia with Love. Q mentions that the watch he issues Bond is "your 20th, I believe", a reference to Die Another Day being the 20th Eon-produced Bond film. In London, the Reform Club was used to shoot several places in the film, including the lobby and gallery at the Blades Club, MI6 Headquarters, Buckingham Palace, Green Park and Westminster. Jökulsárlón, Iceland was used for the car chase on the ice. Four Aston Martins and four Jaguars, all converted to four-wheel drive, were used filming the sequence. A temporary dam was constructed at the mouth of the narrow inlet to keep the salty ocean water out and allow the lagoon to freeze. Additional chase footage was filmed at Svalbard, Norway, Jostedalsbreen National Park, Norway, and RAF Little Rissington, Gloucestershire. Manston Airport in Kent was used for the scenes involving the Antonov cargo plane scenes. The scene in which Bond surfs the wave created by Icarus when Graves was attempting to kill Bond was shot on the blue screen. The waves, along with all the glaciers in the scene, are computer-generated.
The hangar interior of the US Air Base in South Korea, shown crowded with Chinook helicopters, was filmed at RAF Odiham in Hampshire, UK, as were the helicopter interior shots during the Switchblade sequence. These latter scenes, though portrayed in the air, were actually filmed entirely on the ground with the sky background being added in post-production using blue screen techniques. Although the base is portrayed in the film as a US base, all the aircraft and personnel in the scene are British in real life. In the film, Switchblades are flown by Bond and Jinx to stealthily enter North Korea. The Switchblade was based on a workable model called "PHASST". Kinetic Aerospace Inc.'s lead designer, Jack McCornack was impressed by director Lee Tamahori's way of conducting the Switchblade scene and commented: "It's brief, but realistic. The good guys get in unobserved, thanks to a fast cruise, good glide performance, and minimal radar signature. It's a wonderful promotion for the PHASST."
The satellite attack at the end of the film was at first written to take place in Manhattan, but after the September 11 attacks, it was moved to the Korean Demilitarized Zone.