End of minute 20

In minute 21 of Casino Royale we see a poker game between Le Chiffre, an unnamed poker player and Madame Wu, and The Croatian General. We are onboard the Sunseeker Predator (spoken about in minute 20) although this was filmed on a soundstage in Prague. Not confirmed but probably, Mads Mikkelsen’s first day of shooting.

The Croatian General is Vladimír Kulhavý who has done a lot of TV work and is an extra in a lot of films you would have heard of. From Hell, A Knights Tale, etc. Perhaps should have been listed as drooling man.

Madame Wu is played by Tsai Chin who makes the very best duck for Bond in You Only Live Twice. In 1988, her autobiography, Daughter of Shanghai, was published in England and became a worldwide best-seller.

She has a career on stage, film, TV that spans six decades. She is a singer also and outside of Bond people might know her as Auntie Lindo from The Joy Luck Club.

On IMDB she has a quote,

[2020] I have lived on my own since 1963. It doesn’t mean I haven’t had a sex life.

About that Poker Hand

Some interesting comments on YouTube.

Such bad play by pricing out your opponents by so much, bet a little bit less and get the fish to call with bad odds, and knowing what he has exploit him on the river!

Even if it wasn’t a bluff, it wouldn’t have been a bad play. It‘s called poker protection. Currently he‘s holding the best hand, that is at risk by straight/flush draws. In order to minimize the probability to lose against a better hand through giving opponents a free card, you raise.

The dude literally cried blood when he saw the hot lady. (Most liked).

Writers Quotes

We have some quotes also from the screen writers for Casino Royale on the Blu Ray Commentary.

The weeping blood that seemed like a Fleming thing for us. That was derangement. there was a Patrick McGoohan film called Scanners. (That line is in minute 23 of the film). And we liked the way they used the word derangement when they talked about the derangement of the synapsis.

I think Bond villains are key to every Bond film we weren’t sure we cracked it it was difficult we were downscaling the villainy he wasn’t trying to take over the world which helped with the realism and we only gave him on quirk and all he is worried about is money. The actor played it very real and gave it some realism. – Purvis and Wade

Credits

A discussion thread on Commander Bond, about whether Le Chiffre intended to kill his guests and dump them overboard.

Listen to the podcast

Becca from Do You Expect Us To Talk and I break down Minute 21. Check out the individual minutes, thoughts and discussion points here. Listen on iTunes or Spotify, or the player below.

All images and screen grabs taken from Casino Royale, owned by MGM and EON Productions. I own none of these images and am just using them here to offer context to my thoughts and commentary. So don’t sue me yeah? Cheers.

Song of the week

Bleeding EYE

See that hot chick come out of the water
What I’d give to swim with that
Say hot chick can I towel you dry
Cos I think your boyfriend is a bit of a douche

Bleeding eye, is that even a thing?
Bleeding eye, its creeping me out
I’ve googled it and its not coming up,
Mister sinister what the fuck is up with your eye

I’ll never know if you were bluffing about having two pair
And I’ll never know, how you managed to pull that hot chick over there, where did she go btw
I know your boat is nice,
With flat screen tv & top speeds of 43 knots.
Oh sweet lord he’s gunna throw me over board
It’s the last time I’m playing cards with someone on their yacht,

When they have a bleeding eye