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Photo Gallery: Best Bond girls (1962 -
2002)
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Daniel Craig as James Bond in "Casino
Royale," due in November.(File photo)
Photo Gallery
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BEIJING, Nov. 14 (Xinhuanet) -- There's no Q to quibble
with about what handgun to carry, there's no flirtatious Miss Moneypenny -- but
if you have any doubts that "Casino Royale" reveals a new James Bond they are
dashed when the world's most famous spy orders a martini, the bartender asks
"Shaken or stirred," and Bond replies: "Do I look like I give a damn?"
"Casino Royale" was the first of Ian Fleming's
British Secret Service novels and the 21st movie reflects a back to basics
approach. Daniel Craig, as the newest Bond is not suave, comes with rough edges
intact, is blue-eyed but with a deadly glint, and so distinctly human he even
falls in love with an accountant.
Oh, and by the way, Craig's got a lot more muscle
(after signing to play 007 he kicked the cigarette habit and started pumping
iron) packed on his 5'11" frame than any other Bond. The added heft made it
tough on Turnbull and Asser, the tailors who dress Prince Charles and who have
dressed all 21 Bonds. They had to courier fresh new supplies of shirts to the
Bahamas for Craig because "we'd measured him up before he started working out!"
A year ago when it was announced the search for Bond
had ended with Craig, 007 aficianados were shocked and outraged. Too short, too
blond, two blue eyes.
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Queen Elizabeth at the London premiere
Tuesday.(Xinhua/Reuters photo)
Photo Gallery
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But James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli had checked
Craig out in "The Road to Perdition," "Sylvia," "Layer Cake," and "The Jacket."
She liked what she saw and made Craig an offer.
"I'd said no, because I was doing Munich, and I had
things going on," Craig said. "But Barbara's very smart, she waited.
"I wanted to hate the script, well, I loved it! "I
asked Steven Spielberg (Munich) what he thought, should I do Bond, he said: 'Of
course you have to.'"
Craig gets a helping hand in creating a new Bond from
a first-rate cast. Jeffrey Wright is CIA agent Felix Leiter, Giancarlo Giannini
is MI6 contact Mathis, and Dame Judi Dench is back as M, Bond's boss.
Dame Judi put her power on hold in the lightweight
Brosnan films, but with Craig she comes out blazing, knowing she's found an
actor who can give as good as he gets.
Of course, there are Bond girls. Caterina Murino is
the tempting Solange, who makes the usual hotel room frolic sizzle. But it's Eva
Green as Vesper Lynd, a British treasury operative sent to stake Bond at the
poker tables, who lifts her role to class-act status.
Then there's the villain. Mads Mikkelsen, a star in
his native Denmark, is Le Chiffree, a banker who launders money for terrorists
in this updated plot of "Casino Royale." He's the one who tortures Bond with a
testicle squeeze while leering at his naked body. But their most exciting
confrontation is when they are face to face on opposite sides of a poker table
at Montenegro's Casino Royale in a test of character, not brute strength.
"Casino Royale" takes Bond and his fans on a riveting
journey from Praque to London to Miami to the Bahamas leaving a trail of
explosions, stunts and special effects before its climax in the canals of
Venice. Go see it.
(Agencies)
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