The Incomplete Guide to Dr. No, Vigil, and Korean dramas
In which James Bond debuts, Suranne Jones auditions to be Bond, and we bond with friends internationally through the dramas of South Korea
DR. NO IN 2024
—Vanessa Burke
There is nothing new under the sun that can be said about James Bond. With the franchise nearing retirement age, can I try anyway?
Inspired by the Prince Charles Cinema 2024 James Bond season, I have committed to rewatching all official 007 movies before 31 December 2024, adding my incisive witty commentary. I’ll judge all films on characters’ behaviours, travel, and plot believability.
Kicking off our series is Dr. No, released in 1962, and based on the sixth instalment of Ian Fleming’s book series. It’s worth saying, that Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli inked a deal toward the end of 1961, so the turnaround time on a tiny budget of £390,022 was impressive, with so much of this production creating a visual and aural template for the entire franchise.
Dr. No means No
As a child of the 90s I was led to believe there were fewer sexual hang-ups in the 1960s. Upon researching this more, I learned the counterculture of the “Swinging Sixties” started mid-decade, rather than earlier.
James Bond encounters many women romantically or sexually interested in him. Forever first is Sylvia Trench, initially conceived to play 007’s ‘girlfriend back home’, and first recurring Bond Girl until 2021. She’s progressive, taking the initiative at the casino they meet in, but the dicknotising power of Bond has to be assumed, given that all he impressed her with was winning against her in a game of Baccarat Chermin de Fer.
Miss Taro sets up the trope of the disposable girl, a femme fatale to boot, in Bond films, though thankfully none of them die in this film. Miss Taro struggles to keep up the ruse - luring Bond to bed to get him killed - thus coming across as petulant, though she tries to think on her feet to the best of her ability. Sometimes even I don’t feel like eating Italian out, preferring Chinese at home.
Honey Ryder rounds out the group, as the ‘main’ Bond Girl. As she describes the murder of her former landlord after he sexually assaulted her with a painful spider poison, Honey’s initial naivety is dispelled. Thanks to Honey, the bikini became a sex symbol, but on the whole, Honey falls into the pre-existing archetype of Damsel in Distress, and is surprisingly chaste at that.
Bond Girl Yaaaas or no? It looks like most of these women had power over their decisions, so it looks like a win. (3/5)
Jamaican the British Government Splash Out
The entire movie takes place in Jamaica, part of the British Commonwealth. Indeed, originally the movie was pitched to Henry Morgenthall III to promote the country’s tourism industry.
We presume Bond flew in from the UK to Montego Bay, for the coastal drives near Cuba, which is noted about Crab Key, where Dr. No’s evil lair lies. He reaches Crab Key courtesy of Quarrell’s boat. The cheapest flights to Montego Bay for one person cost just under £600 from London - Bond travelled lightly, and we can buy clothes locally if we need to. Boat rentals on a comparable vessel look like $230 per hour, so that could have gotten pricey if Quarrell wasn’t on the government payroll, as they spent at least 24 hours on Crab Key.
Do you want to spend time in the Caribbean following in James Bond’s footsteps at this rate? No, fly out, get yourself to an all-inclusive resort, and leave it only for occasions like touring rum distilleries or climbing waterfalls. (1/5)
One of the residences at the Hampden Estate Rum Distillery, which my husband and I visited on our honeymoon.
Ready for take off?
The big deal in this movie is that Dr. No is messing with rocket launches by the Americans. This was based on the public perception that the United States was falling behind in the Space Race against the USSR - although SPECTRE was a convenient alternative entity to crucify (obviously the Soviet cinema market was hot on showing these films, hence the intention to avoid searing political commentary). Modern day rockets have had their share of rocky launches, and there’s plenty of involvement by non-government organisations in this area.
One of the things that fascinates me in this film is the acceptance of the myth of the dragon of Crab Key. While I’ve also never encountered a flame-throwing vehicle in person, painting its siding would hopefully not throw me off its mechanical scent. For a girl who’s read an encyclopaedia growing up, Honey needs to get out of books into the real world more..
Could a real SPECTRE put this plan in motion? They might have to fend off a more informed public, and hide better, as even hobbyist astronomers would detect radio beams, but it feels like a quick way to disrupt economies and make a buck. (4/5)
Dr. Maybe
That travel score really tanked the overall impression of relatability, though the plot worked hard to make up for it. Still, would a British spy be put up to this if it weren’t for the death of a British subject? Probably not. Dr. No had its time, but, just like the Bond franchise moved on swiftly (only a year later we already had From Russia With Love), so do I.
The Incomplete Detective Adventures of DCI Amy Silva: VIGIL (available on BBC iPlayer)
— Elliot Wengler
Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie as romantic partners, and as a detective team: that should be enough in itself for a compelling show, but Tom Edge’s drama insists on putting them into military conspiracies with international consequences. There’s a lot to enjoy in Vigil, but the second season isn’t quite as good as the first.
At its heart, it’s a love story between Amy Silva and her deputy, Kirsten Longacre. In the first series, they are apart, but have a history, and an unclear future, and clearly need each other.
Series 1 was essentially Line of Duty on a submarine. The setting was new to TV as a concept, created fantastic claustrophobia, and isolated Silva very literally - her investigation had to rely on coded messages from her colleagues back on the surface. It received some criticism for the submarine set seeming too spacious, and the Anglo-Russian conspiracy elements, but the tension was up there with some of the best episodes of Line of Duty.
Now please forgive me, but I will digress, and I promise I will explain why later. If you don’t know, Ace Attorney is a wonderful video game franchise in which you, a poor lawyer, have just two or three days and one or two court sessions to prove that your client is innocent, usually of murder. The plots are wacky, but the characters are loveable, with the leading players revealing surprising amounts of depth. There’s a bunch of spin-offs, but broadly speaking, you can now play the six main entries in two trilogy packs on all modern consoles!
I need to emphasise to you how wacky it is. You are often required to prove that a murder didn’t happen because a room was accessible because the building in which the murder happened can actually move on its axis depending on the military’s desires. There’s a murder at a circus, and you need to interrogate a ventriloquist’s puppet to establish your client’s innocence.
You throw all sorts of accusations out to keep your case alive, requiring crazy explanations to overwrite the prosecution’s narrative (case one from game two, for example, allows you to disprove that a murder happened because the witness did not see a large yellow baseball glove, but actually saw a bunch of bananas).
This all came to my mind whilst watching Vigil series 2. As with so many great shows, it would have been a great one-off, but it was a big success so series 2 was broadcast (in a baffling release schedule just before Christmas). Series 2 sees Silva and Longacre brought in to investigate a drone test-turned-terrorist attack and eventually separated when Silva has to travel to the fictional Kingdom of Wudyan, as the attack is traced to someone at a special forces base in this Dubai/Iraq/Saudi Arabia mash-up country.
It reminded me a bit of The West Wing’s made-up analogues of states in the region like Qumar. It’s a bit mad that there are no qualms about implying a Russian conspiracy, but clearly, someone was worried about naming a specific Middle Eastern nation. It’s all good and well to make some points about the UK’s complicated and shocking relationship with the Middle East, (the opening titles as much as have B-roll of Thatcher meeting with Saudi Arabian leaders that I couldn’t figure out the identity of), but the points are unclear. Why have a charged political setting if you’re not willing to commit to a political view?
I enjoyed series 2 very much, and once beyond its first act, the tension ramps up and never really stops. Suranne Jones and Rose Leslie are immensely watchable and social media promotional posts have seized on their sizzling chemistry. Still, the plot requires them to be separated, relegating them to sell their romance over desperate phone calls. Both are particularly good in the action sequences and chases; this might as well be Suranne Jones’ audition to be Bond at points.
The reason I explained my enjoyment of the Ace Attorney games is that Amy Silva keeps her investigation alive in this series by connecting the most random and tricky-to-track pieces of evidence, and in some sequences, might as well be shouting ‘Objection!’ every time she somehow keeps herself in the game.
I fell out of love with Game of Thrones due to the sheer number of characters, and Vigil has a much smaller cast but is somehow just as baffling to track (besides being another Rose Leslie show). It’s all good and very worthy, but it should be better. Series 1 was so compact, literally, and this second run is vast but doesn’t feel bigger. I still will look forward to series 3, which, at this rate, will have to be set on a plane featuring an RAF conspiracy, in a made-up African country that the UK has complicated ties to. Hello, inevitable hamfisted Rwanda commentary.
PS: The Incomplete List of … Korean Dramas To Catch Up
— Vanessa Burke
From Academy-Award victory with Parasite to global superstars being made through K-Pop, and not to mention Netflix’s Squid Game, South Korea’s choice to invest in the arts and culture continues to reap rewards. As recently as 2022, President Yoon Suk-Yeol announced an additional $3.7billion fund for Film, TV, art and other cultural projects. Public money does prop up entertainment and creative industries in other countries, but in recent years, this has predominantly been done with competitive tax breaks rather than direct investment. Korean culture has become mainstream around the world over the last few years, and deservedly so.
To change tack from the action madness of Bond, I am here to share my love of K-dramas. When the pandemic hit, I first learned of Hallyu, the Korean wave. After it washed over me, the thing that remained was my insatiable thirst for new TV and streaming shows. I’ll share my faves, and hopefully you’ll have some recommendations for me too.
1. Hot Stove League (2019, available on Netflix)
The stellar Park Eun-bin crossed my radar several times before I got to this gem. I’m not much of a sports person, but the Moneyball-esque approach all characters brought to the table to save their beloved baseball team was incredibly rewarding to watch. I liked how clearly this series benefitted from being a limited series, like most K-dramas are.
2. Under the Queen’s Umbrella (2022, available on Netflix)
This was my first sageuk (historical drama), and led to a significant binge of the genre. Kim Hye-soo shines as a compassionate and strong woman, whose choice of husband means she has a preordained role in life to carry out, under challenging circumstances, of course. I was so fascinated by the manoeuvring of the Royal Consorts too.
3. Moving (2023, available on Disney+)
South Korea can do spy stories as well, though this has added a welcome dash of Heroes, a show that had a lot of unrealised potential. Lee Jung-ha is sympathetic and a literal force of nature, who learned all the right lessons from his co-stars in prior fantastic productions like Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung and Run On.
4. Business Proposal (2022, available on Netflix)
A tightly told story, this series doesn’t waste time on filler episodes. It features lots of tropes common to k-dramas and romances, like chaebols, enemies-to-lovers, and relationship contracts; and Kim Se-jeong balances slapstick with believable chemistry flawlessly. I particularly love the mirror of the TV drama running in the background.
5. Hometown Cha-Cha-Cha (2021, available on Netflix)
This show is emblematic of the comfort watch that k-dramas can be. Set in a quaint picturesque village, outsider Shin Min-a butts heads with village representative Kim Seon-ho, updating the Doc Hollywood story romantically. While the end tails off in strength, I believe any love story that Shin Min-a tries to sell me.