| “ | Ready to rock and ruin. | „ |
| ~ Gupta after programming a stolen missile to strike Beijing. |
Henry Gupta is a supporting antagonist in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. He is an American cyberterrorist employed by Carver Media Group Network to help with Elliot Carver's scheme to start a war between Great Britain and China.
He was portrayed by the late Ricky Jay.
History[]
Carver sends Gupta to an arms bazaar to buy an American military GPS encoder. Using the encoder, he beacons the GPS signal sending the British frigate HMS Devonshire off-course into South China Sea. There, Carver's stealth ship (commandeered by Richard Stamper and Captain Scott) sends a sea drill (piloted by Timblin) into the Devonshire and steals one of the ship's missiles. Stamper and Captain Scott then shoot down a Chinese pilot and the British survivors using Chinese weapons, causing tension between the two nations, which each believing the other attacked them.
Satisfied, Carver thanks Gupta for a job well done before telling him to keep the stolen encoder in a safe place where nobody would find it. When looking through the sound files during Carver's satellite launch event, Gupta hears MI-6 Agent James Bond talking to Carver's wife Paris. When he shows Carver the footage, Carver orders his personal assassin, Dr. Kaufman, to kill her.
While infiltrating Carver's agency at Hamburg, Bond sneaks into Gupta's bureau and opens his safe, finding the GPS encoder inside and returning it back to the American military. He and his partner Wai Lin soon learn that Gupta has programmed the stolen missile to be launched into Beijing which will start off World War III and that Carver is planning to exploit the event to obtain China's broadcasting rights by having General Chang to take over as the new leader of China.
Sneaking aboard the ship with Lin after informing their governments about the plot, Bond takes Gupta hostage in front of Carver and his men. However, knowing that Gupta has already set the missile to strike at Beijing, Carver decides that Gupta has outlived his usefulness and shoots him to death, something which both Bond and Lin did not expect.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- In the original script, Gupta was supposed to have the skill of using playing cards as thrown weapons, a real life skill possessed by Ricky Jay, who was a professional magician. A deleted scene shows Gupta destroying several drinking glasses with thrown cards.
- According to screenwriter Bruce Feirstein, the character was named after a real life place called Gupta Bakery.
External links[]
- Henry Gupta on the James Bond Wiki
