Although 2019’s The Gentlemen landed itself in hot water with a “Chinese James Bond” joke, the Guy Ritchie crime thriller did accurately predict actor Henry Golding’s potential to play 007 in Bond 26. Ever since Daniel Craig’s James Bond swan song No Time To Die finally arrived in theatres, many names have been thrown around for the role of the sharp-dressed secret agent with a license to kill. Playing the suave super-spy is a huge career coup for any actor, but a few less famous faces have managed to muscle their way into the running alongside established superstars such as Tom Hardy, Idris Elba, and Henry Cavill.
Among these lesser-known newcomers are Bridgerton’s Rege-Jean Page and rising star Henry Golding, who has impressed audiences in numerous roles over the last few years. Bizarrely, one controversial joke in director Guy Ritchie’s 2019 hit The Gentlemen appeared to predict Golding’s potential in the iconic role of James Bond. The gag came early in the movie and caused a stir upon release, although the line now seems oddly prescient in retrospect.
Early in the 2019 Guy Ritchie action-comedy, Hugh Grant’s character Fletcher introduces Henry Golding’s Dry Eye as “a Chinese James Bond." While Dry Eye’s ruthlessness makes him closer to the best Bond villains than the spy himself, the line still succeeds in establishing the character as a slick operator who sees himself as smarter than his peers—which ultimately comes back to bite him. Although the proceeding scene caused controversy upon release, Golding is now among the frontrunners for the role of Bond alongside Hardy, Cavill, Elba, and Page, proving the movie’s prediction to be bizarrely accurate in real life.
The scene in question also sees Grant’s character adopt a cringe-worthy caricature of a Chinese accent to mock Dry Eye, a joke that rubbed some viewers the wrong way. However, Golding was quick to defend Ritchie’s movie against accusations of racism after its release. Like Daniel Craig’s pre-Casino Royale hit, the gritty Layer Cake, Golding argued that Ritchie’s movies take place in a much more morally ambiguous setting than many more family-friendly blockbusters. In a 2020 interview, the actor was asked about the joke and replied that it made sense in context, arguing that Fletcher is intended to be an odious figure and “if you think gangsters aren’t going to be racist and go down to the lowest derogatory terminologies, I don’t know what kind of world you live in.”
In the years since The Gentlemen’s release, Golding’s star power steadily increased with numerous roles in big-budget hits. Unfortunately, 2021 saw the release of the GI Joe spinoff Snake Eyes, a flop that set back Golding’s Bond chances badly when the movie bombed at the box office. That said, although the Bond franchise’s producers have vetoed a TV show starring the character, Golding could still transition to the lower-budget world of television and win back audiences with a role like Page’s Bridgerton part or Cavill’s work on The Witcher. Only time will tell which of the contenders for 007 ends up winning out and playing the role in Bond 26, but for now, The Gentlemen’s controversial “Chinese James Bond” line may still prove shockingly prescient.