Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
d. Roger Spottiswoode

Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond)

In a very minor role and with just a few brief appearances, secretary Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) - in her most memorable scene - called James Bond (Brosnan) and summoned him from his erotic foreign-language lessons at Oxford University (with a lovely blonde Danish Professor, Inga Bergstrom) - see below.

She ended the call with a sexy double-entendre one-liner: "You always were a cunning linguist, James."

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Professor Inga Bergstrom (Cecilie Thomsen)

At Oxford University in England, agent 007 (Brosnan) was "studying a new tongue" with his gorgeous blonde Danish professor, Inga Bergstrom (Cecilie Thomsen), who complimented him on his "natural ability."

Bond and Bergstrom were making love ("practice makes perfect") when they were interrupted by a phone call from Miss Moneypenny (Samantha Bond).

He explained he was at Oxford "brushing up on a little Danish." She said he would have to "kiss off" his lesson due to an international emergency - the British fleet was being deployed to China.

Moneypenny ended the call: "You always were a cunning linguist, James."

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Colonel Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh)

Wai Lin (Hong Kong action heroine Michelle Yeoh with martial arts skills) was first introduced when she gate-crashed a celebratory launch party held at the Hamburg, Germany headquarters of CMGN (Carver Media Group Network), led by crazed worldwide media baron Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce). She claimed she was a reporter for the New China News Agency, meeting both Carver and Bond (Brosnan) who was impersonating a banker. The media mogul suggested that the forthright and self-assured woman should work in his Beijing bureau.

Bond met her a second time during a raid of Carver's top-floor secret laboratory in his massive complex in Hamburg, Germany, when she set off an alarm, and separately escaped with a harpoon wall-climbing device.

Their next encounter was when she startled him during an underwater reconnaissance of the sunken HMS Devonshire near the coast of Vietnam, with a large drill-hole in its hull, and a missing nuclear cruise missile. After barely escaping with their lives as the unstable ship slid into a deep abyss, they surfaced, where they found her Chinese support boat had been over-taken by Carver's main henchman Stamper (Gotz Otto) and his men. The two were taken prisoner, handcuffed together and helicoptered to Carver's Saigon (Vietnam) CMGN headquarters.

Inside the facility in the hallway, Wai Lin covered up her alarm when she recognized corrupt Chinese military leader General Chang (Philip Kwok) accompanied by Chinese soldiers in civilian clothing. In front of Carver, they learned each other's true identities: he was an agent of the British Secret Service, while she was associated with the Chinese People's External Security Force.

They escaped after Carver left them in the hands of his sadistic henchman Stamper and his "toys" (chakra torture devices). After abseiling down from the building's rooftop on a huge banner, still handcuffed together, and crashing into a lower-story office, they escaped on a BMW R1200 motorcycle through the streets of Saigon - each steering one handlebar while being hotly pursued by Range Rover vehicles and a chopper, both carrying armed killers.

In the spectacular chase sequence through the streets of Saigon, they fled through alleyways, across bridges, into houses, open-air markets, and along rooftops and collapsing terraces. They threw obstacles in the way of the pursuit vehicles, including barrels and a truck filled with exploding firecrackers. At one point, they performed a stunning and daring high-speed roof-top motorcycle jump with the bulky 1600cc BMW bike across the hovering helicopter. When they were trapped by the copter's rotating blades in a dead end, they skidded under the chopper, and then Bond threw a clothes-washing cable-line into the rotors, causing the machine to lose control and crash.

Afterwards, they took a sexy, outdoors clothed "shower" together, although she was reluctant to get close to him when he suggested that they team up to go after Chang: "Don't get any ideas, Mr. Bond." After she picked her own single handcuff and attached it to the shower pipe, she stomped off after telling Bond: "Thanks for washing my hair. I work alone."

Although she was wary, they were forced to work together after he saved her life from thugs sent by General Chang to kill her. As a member of a renegade force, she became his confident ally when they discovered Carver's plan to incite international warfare between China and the UK, by firing a missile from his Stealth Ship (positioned near the British fleet) at China, making it look like the UK's doing. (Carver had collaborated with Chang in the first place to build his Stealth Ship to attack the Devonshire and steal its missile.)

They traveled together to Ha Long Bay in a Zodiac where the Stealth boat was located, as he complimented her for working with him, using her own words, "You found the right decadent, corrupt Western agent as a partner." Together, they eventually were able to defeat and kill Carver and Stamper, and she provided crucial back-up support, although she was captured twice, and Bond had to save her from a chained, watery grave. He shared air with Wai Lin underwater by kissing her as the booby-trapped missile was detonated onboard the Stealth above them, exploded and obliterated the ship.

After their mission was accomplished, the independent and fearless female finally succumbed to Bond's charms. As the British Navy's HMS Bedford searched for Commander Bond and Wai Lin, floating on pieces of wreckage from the Stealth ship, they ignored its "Are you there?" requests.

Bond proposed that for the meantime: "Let's stay under cover" - and they kissed.

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)

Mrs. Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher)

M (Judi Dench) assigned Bond (Brosnan) to travel to Hamburg, Germany, to attend a party at the media center of billionaire media mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce) celebrating the launch of a new worldwide communications satellite network ("He has the ability to reach every human being on the Earth - except the Chinese, who have refused broadcast rights"). M knew that he once had a relationship with Carver's wife, Paris (Teri Hatcher).

His job was to investigate suspicious circumstances surrounding the sinking of a British frigate, the HMS Devonshire. Although M disapproved of Bond's womanizing, she made an exception, encouraging him to rekindle his old relationship to get inside information: "Use your relationship with Mrs. Carver if necessary... Remind her, then pump her for information." Moneypenny (Samantha Bond) then joked: "You'll just have to decide how much pumping is needed, James." He responded: "If only that were true of you and I, Moneypenny."

At the launch party, when Bond slipped away to discreetly speak to Carver's high-class trophy wife Paris - she abruptly slapped him for his past treatment of her - and his final words to her: "I'll be right back." He had claimed: "Something came up." She ordered a "vodka martini, shaken not stirred" for him, and champagne for herself - toasting: "To the gun." She had asked if he still slept with a gun under his pillow.

Mrs. Carver cautioned Bond about going after her husband, who was possibly "in trouble." She was immediately on to his tactics about using her through a one-night stand: "And you figured you could charm the dirt out of me...If it comes to a choice between you and Elliot, I've made my bed. You don't sleep in it anymore." When Carver joined them and asked how they knew each other, Bond claimed they were "old friends." To not displease her husband, she lied - she said they were only "casual acquaintances" - he had dated her roommate in Zurich.

Later that evening, after Bond had disrupted Carver's TV broadcast launching his worldwide satellite communications network and showed unusual 'concern' regarding Carver's business, the enraged mogul sent Paris to Bond's hotel suite, where she warned: "He's on to you." When Bond suggested that she return home - and told her he didn't want her involved, she responded: "It's too late for that." It was obvious that their relationship hadn't cooled much -- she asked: "What was it, James?...Did I get too close for comfort?"

Their eyes locked and they passionately kissed in the erotic scene. He undressed her by slipping her dress from her bare shoulders, and unzipping the back of her dress - it fell to the floor, revealing her black panties and netted stockings. She whispered: "I missed you."

When Carver realized that there was more to their "acquaintance" than he had originally suspected, he ordered the cold-blooded murder of his ill-fated wife: "I think we should set an appointment for my wife with the doctor."

The next morning as Paris dressed, Bond suggested that he could get her away from Carver and out of the country in four hours, but she refused: "I have no choice. No one can protect me from him, not even you." Before leaving, she told Bond about Carver's secret top-floor laboratory (with an emergency hatch on the roof, "the easiest way to get in") in his CMGN complex. She also mentioned how Bond's job was "murder on relationships."

For giving Bond assistance and suspected of betrayal, she was subsequently killed by Carver - Bond found her strangled in his hotel suite, where he became overcome with despairing grief and anger.

She had been murdered by hired killer Dr. Kaufman (Vincent Schiavelli), who was planning to make the killing look like a murder-suicide.

Bond tricked Kaufman into being shocked, grabbed the gun, and ruthlessly and vengefully shot him in the head.

He kissed Paris' cheek before fleeing from police.