When interviewed by the CBS, Ian Fleming pointed out that “spying is a dirty trade” –a notion also shared by Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and CIA director Allen Dulles– even though the public regarded it as a “very romantic one-man job”. In his novels, Fleming enhanced the romantic “action man” characteristics attributed to the spy genre, although their darkness was considerably toned down in the EON-produced film series. The espionage introduced in Fleming’s novels have been often ruled out as unrealistic in contrast to the books of John Le Carré or Len Deighton where a brainier world of espionage is evidenced: cryptographs, men with glasses, women with their cleavages well covered and no casinos or references to the high-life treats enjoyed by 007. Fleming’s comments serve as a precedent for what we see in the James Bond of Die Another Day. For at least the first half of the movie, the secret agent is playing on a much more realistic, cruel and unromanticised world of espionage. For years, nobody dared to envision a worst-case scenario where Bond is captured or even killed. (...) Die Another Day, however, brings the unuttered questions to the table: what would happen if he’s captured? What would happen if he, unwittingly, ends up betraying Her Majesty’s Secret Service while succumbing to torture? What if he, as in this film, survives the ordeal and returns to MI6? We know soldiers coming back from war are usually received as heroes. But the case of a spy, essentially an invisible man living somewhere off the grid, is pretty much different: dying could even be considered as salvation when compared to coming back alive after failing.