Russia answers James Bond with Agent 90-60-90 rival franchise

Russia has come up with its own answer to James Bond in the shape of a glamorous all-action female spy - reports The Scotsman.

The blockbuster film Beautiful is due to be released this autumn - at the same time as Daniel Craig makes his debut as 007 in Casino Royale - and is being seen as part of an attempt to lift the nation's confidence and improve the battered reputation of its security services.

The Russian media have already styled the film and the action heroine as their post-communist equivalent to Bond. In a play on his 007 code name, the actress has been dubbed "Agent 90-60-90", a reference to her "vital statistics" in centimetres.

The film stars the popular Russian actress Anastacia Zavorotnyuk, who travels across the globe in order to save the motherland and the world from international terrorism.



She had to undergo a gruelling two-month military training course to enable her to handle many of the weapons used in the film, including Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenade launchers, and even heavy artillery. The Russian-language film also features her piloting a MiG jet fighter and has scenes set in Russia, Ukraine, France, Italy, Norway, Cuba and Malaysia. One scene in Kuala Lumpur involves her character jumping from the top of an 83-storey building and, while hurtling to the ground, disposing of 40 terrorists.

The enemy in the film is the spectre of "international terrorism" and its threat to the motherland. The producers have so far refused to say exactly whether this takes the form of Islamic terrorism or is modelled on the more oddball modern Bond villains who usually are not aligned with any particular country.

Recent Russian action shows on television have not been squeamish about using Islamic radicals, including Chechens, as the villains.

The West, meanwhile, is completely ignored by the plot of the film, despite the traditional tension between the Russian security services and their Western counterparts such MI6 and the CIA. This time, the West are not regarded as villains, new-found friends, or even as bemused bystanders, as the film's plot portrays a battle between Russia standing alone against the forces of world evil.

One producer, who did not want to be named because full details of the film are being kept under wraps, said

: "It is similar to your James Bond films. It will be a spy film with a lot of action and many surprises.

"The West and Western intelligence services are not in it at all, they have no part to play in the film and the plot."

The film is part of a move, with the tacit support of President Vladimir Putin, to make films and shows boosting the image of the nation's military, police, and security services. They are shown as noble and selfless defenders of the motherland despite the reality which sees them plagued by corruption and incompetence.

Simon Windor, whose book The Man Who Saved Britain argues that the James Bond series was important for the post-war UK's self-image, said: "I think a Russian James Bond would work brilliantly and I think you have many parallels between Britain and Russia which will make a Russian Bond work. Both countries lost an empire and have had to cope with not being anything like as important as they once thought they were. Both countries have a spying and military heritage, and both feel they have a mission to civilise the world."

He added: "Whether a female Bond would work is another question. It's an interesting idea. It partially depends on whether you think the Halle Berry character in Die Another Day worked - I'm not sure. But the idea that such huge threats to the world would be tackled by sending one British bloke in is no more absurd that having a Russian girl save the world."

The new film is the first post-Soviet attempt to create a Russian equivalent to Bond. During the early 1970s, the USSR created Stirlitz, a TV spy series set in the Second World War which featured a super-intelligent Soviet agent who infiltrated the Nazi SS. Among other adventures, Stirlitz foiled a US plan to collaborate with top Nazis and have wartime Germany surrender only to the West in order to become an anti-Soviet state.

Although the Stirlitz shows were popular at the time, they are considered dull and old-fashioned compared with the all-action Bond. The plot in Stirlitz shows revolves around long conversations in gloomy rooms and the agent preferred coffee to women.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Bond films have become such a hit in Russia that many 007 phrases have become catchphrases and are better known than expressions from Stirlitz.

Thanks to `Jack Wade` for the alert.

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