FAQ

When M (Judi Dench) rescinds the 00 status of MI6 agent James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) following his release from 14 months of captivity and torture in North Korea, he vows to track down Zao (Rick Yune), assistant to Colonel Tan-Sun Moon (Will Yun Lee) in order to find out who betrayed him to the North Koreans. Aided by American NSA employee Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson (Halle Berry) and undercover MI6 agent Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), Bond is eventually led to Icarus, a space-borne mirror designed to harness and beam solar light and heat anywhere in the world, developed by British billionaire Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens) for what he calls "peaceful" purposes. But Bond suspects otherwise.

Die Another Day is based on a screenplay co-written by screenwriters Neal Purvis and Robert Wade who, along with Bruce Feirstein, also wrote the script for the previous movie, The World Is Not Enough (1999). The screenplay was subsequently novelized by American author Raymond Benson. Die Another Day is the 20th Bond film in the EON series, and the fourth and last to star Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. The screenwriters, however, admitted that they took some inspiration from Fleming's third James Bond novel "Moonraker", in the sense of the villain taking on the false identity of a philantropist, with his project actually being a plan of destruction. Miranda Frost was originally based upon the novel's Bond girl Gala Brand, but was renamed when the character became more different on rewrites.

The title song, "Die Another Day " is performed by Madonna.

In the precredits scenario, Bond is undercover on a military base on the Pukch'ong coast of North Korea negotiating a deal with Colonel Moon—diamonds in exchange for weaponry. Bond is taken prisoner when his identity is betrayed in a cellphone transmission to Moon's assistant Zao. He is subsequently tortured until he is released in a prisoner exchange 14 months later. He is confined for recuperation on a ship near Hong Kong and stripped of his 00 status because M believes that he was revealing sensitive information to North Korea during his torture. When Bond learns that M is going to have him moved to an evaluation center in the Falklands, he jumps ship in order to track down his betrayer. From a Chinese Intelligence man posing as a hotel manager, he learns that Zao has been sighted in Havana, Cuba. Once in Cuba, Bond learns that Zao is staying at a gene therapy clinic on an island in the Los Organos. There he meets U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) operative Giacinta "Jinx" Johnson (Halle Berry). Jinx kills the clinic director and Bond blows up the clinic, but Zao escapes. From a necklace that Bond grabbed from Zao's neck, he uncovers several diamonds, all chemically alike to conflict diamonds from Africa and all bearing the mark of Gustav Graves, a diamond miner from Iceland. After making the acquaintance of Graves in a rousing sword fight at the local fencing club, Bond is invited to Iceland to view the unveiling of the Icarus project. In an attempt to stop Graves from using Icarus to cut a path through the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, Bond sneaks aboard an airplane that takes him to the Pyongang Airbase in North Korea.

Conflict diamond refers to a diamond, typically mined in Africa and sold in order to finance an insurgency, an invading army's war efforts, or to support a warlord's activity. They are often mined and smuggled illegally out of war torn nations.

Icarus is an orbital mirror satellite that captures the sun's rays and focuses them at the Earth. It is hailed as a way of providing sunlight and warmth, like a second sun, to the darker parts of the Earth so that crops can be grown to end world hunger. Unfortunately, Icarus can also be used to focus the sun's energy for destructive purposes.

"Q" is the nickname given to the head of Quartermaster branch, the section of MI6 that supplies Bond with his gadgets. The previous Q, (Major Boothroyd, played by Desmond Llewelyn), retired in "The World Is Not Enough" (Llewelyn actually passed away in December 1999), so his assistant, whom Bond called "R", received a promotion and became the new Quartermaster.

Including Die Another Day, Brosnan made four movies in which he played James Bond, the other three being GoldenEye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), and The World Is Not Enough (1999).

No. To obtain a PG-13 rating, the sex scene between Bond and Jinx had to be cut slightly. The censored version was shown in cinemas and has been released at least on the first DVD. To find out whether a copy of the US version is uncut or not, check out the comparison here between the cut PG-13 version and the uncut version. It states that the scene was "too much" for American audiences. But in the UK the scene remains as the original.