James Bond - 007 which attracted audience with guns, gadgets and girls is celebrating its 50th anniversary on screen with a new film due next month named 'Skyfall'.
Bond is the longest running movie franchise in history and one of the most profitable films ever made.
While Daniel Craig is the sixth actor to play Bond with Sean Connery, Roger Moore, George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan who were the other Men of James Bond, Sandalwood did have its own Bond in Rajkumar.
In 1968, Kannada director, Dorai Bhagawan introduced the trend through Rajkumar who was the first actor to enact a role which resembled James Bond — Jadena Bale. Later he acted in Bond-like movies which included Operation Jackpotnalli CID 999, Goadalli CID 999 and Operation Diamond Rocket where he played roles of Prakash aka Agent CID 999.
"I never grew up watching James Bond films like my father did. He was so crazy about Bond movies. He enjoyed every film from Sean Connery to the present Daniel Craig.
He had gone to Chennai when he watched a Bond movie with director Dorai Bhagawan, who said, `if you are so crazy, why we don’t do it in our style’. That is how the series CID 999 started. The Bond style probably suited my father's personality." says Puneeth Rajkumar, who equally loves Bond films done till date." My all time favourite will be The Spy Who Loved Me and I thoroughly enjoyed Daniel Craig's portrayal in Casino Royale."
Actor Chetan says, "After the 1978 Rajkumar-starrer Operation Diamond Rocket and the popular C Udayashankar-written song 'If you come today', the Bond phenomenon never caught on with the same fervour here." On why it has mellowed down in Indian languages and for that matter in Kannada, Puneeth says, "The technology has improved so much over the years and Bond films cannot be shown in the same way showed in the very early films. Even the recent Bond films have more of action. The objective of a brand is different.".