Tiger Fang

Kitami reports this incident, in French, to the headquarters of the International Secret Police in Paris, using a hidden radio set much like Strangway s in Dr. No. He is ordered to investigate. When he returns to the ministry to take the offer of a job, he is surprised to discover that Kurima speaks excellent Japanese, having learned it, he says, as a collaborator with the Japanese during World War 11. In the war of liberation that followed the end of the war, he had earned the nickname Tiger Fang for his ruthlessness. 

Dr. No had emphasized racial competition, or at least comparison, as a thematic device to broaden the movie s appeal beyond Britain. Tiger Fang, by Japanese and for Japanese, has a mnch narrower focus on nationality. If they had seen Bond as the embodiment of white superiority, they certainly didn t try to make Kitami a similar embodiment of Japanese racial superiority, a recently dangerous contention. 

Kayaku no Taru ( Barrel of Gunpowder ) opened in December of 1964. The producers, after seeing a second Bond movie sell far more tickets than the first, had understood the character of the Enghsh Bond better than before. Kitami had become more devil-may-care, more sexy, and possessed of some degree of Bond s ironic detachment from the action. He may not be as perfect an imitation as the one at the SPECTRE training camp, but he is much closer than he had been in Tiger Fang. 

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