Recently, Netflix added the James Bond collection to its film reservoir. As a result, all 25 James Bond movies, from “Dr. No” to “No Time to Die,” which cover almost sixty years from 1962 to 2021, are now available on Netflix. Since 1962, seven actors have portrayed James Bond, including Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig. As is well known, James Bond is a British MI6 agent who is licensed to kill with his code name 007. Bond saves the world from various villains who threaten to destroy humanity.

In Korea, the second 007 movie, 1963’s “From Russia with Love,” was imported before the first one, “Dr. No.” When “From Russia with Love” was released in Korea, it was sensational. There was a long line in front of the box office. In fact, the 007 movies have fascinated the whole world because they have brilliantly depicted the Cold War atmosphere, featuring espionage and counterintelligence.

In the 007 movies, James Bond fights his adversaries because they threaten world peace. During the Cold War period, the most outstanding threats to the Free World were communist countries. However, Ian Fleming was discreet and diplomatic enough not to directly criticize or overtly blame communist countries.

Instead, he created a sinister, villainous organization, SPECTRE, led by Bond’s archenemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Another shadowy organization in the 007 movies is SMERSH, a secret Soviet counterintelligence agency. In his novels, Fleming also portrayed wicked villains as rogue agents, renegade military generals, or independent criminals, so they did not particularly represent communist countries. Bond’s first villain, Dr. No, who is a Chinese German scientist, also works for SPECTRE.

Still, Fleming and the films based on his books cleverly portray the complexities of Cold War politics through Bond’s relationships. Thus, Bond not only kills Soviet agents, but he also falls in love with charming Russian spies in “From Russia with Love” and “The Spy Who Loved Me.” In the later 007 movies, James Bond is also seen working with a humorous, rather friendly KGB general named Alexis Gogol, deliberately showing the Anglo-Soviet cooperation.

The villains in the James Bond movies represent various threats to world peace during or after the Cold War era. For example, in “Goldfinger,” Auric Goldfinger, a British villain, attempts to irradiate the Fort Knox gold reserve in Kentucky to ruin the world economy, while Hugo Drax in “Moonraker” and Karl Stromberg in “The Spy Who Loved Me” plot to destroy humanity and create a new civilization on Earth and underwater, respectively.

Max Zorin in “A View to a Kill” is a German-born former KGB agent who is now head of Zorin Industries. He wants to rule the world by monopolizing microchips. For that purpose, Zorin attempts to destroy Silicon Valley by artificial flooding. “A View to a Kill” thus exhibits the danger of microchip wars.

Alec Trevelyan in “GoldenEye” is an MI6 agent whose code name is 006. When he finds out that the UK and MI6 are responsible for his parents’ deaths, he seeks revenge, using a hijacked secret weapon system called “GoldenEye.” Trevelyan shows us the danger of an enemy within and the threat of a satellite weapon that can destroy electronic circuits on Earth by emitting a nuclear electromagnetic pulse called an EMP.

Raoul Silva in “Skyfall” is also a former MI6 operative. When a mission goes wrong, he is left for dead by M, the head of MI6. Seeking revenge, Silva hacks MI6, creating data leaks. Silva embodies the danger of cyberattacks.

Franz Sanchez in “License to Kill” is the leader of a drug cartel in South America that can be a serious threat to the world. In “The Man with the Golden Gun,” Bond must stop Francisco Scaramanga, who uses a stolen solar energy device to become rich during the 1970s energy crisis. Le Chiffre in “Casino Royale” is a banker and gambler financing terrorists.

Eliot Carver in “Tomorrow Never Dies” is a tyrannical British media mogul who tries to trigger a war between the UK and China to gain a scoop for his media empire. Lyutsifer Safin in “No Time to Die” tries to destroy the world by using dangerous nanobot technology.

Rumor has it that the 26th James Bond movie will be about the threat of artificial intelligence. It was already the main theme of “Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning” and “Mission Impossible — The Final Reckoning” in the “Mission Impossible” series. In the latter two movies, AI known as “The Entity” goes rogue and threatens the world by controlling global nuclear systems. They say that it would also be appropriate if the grand finale of the 007 movie series were decorated by James Bond’s victory over malevolent AI.

The 007 movies serve as a good reminder that various potential dangers have threatened world peace since the Cold War era. Watching the series, we come to realize that we are living precariously under constant threats from our adversaries.

Kim Seong-kon

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and a visiting scholar at Dartmouth College. The views expressed here are the writer's own. -- Ed


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