Oddjob

Lore & Background

In the 1959 novel, Oddjob's real name is unknown. He is a Korean, extremely powerful, described as a "small, squat man" with "arms like thighs", black teeth, and a "sickly zoo-smell". He is not over six feet tall. He earns a black belt in judo in Japan. He hates being mistaken for Japanese. His signature weapon is a razor-edged bowler hat. He is also a skilled archer. Due to a cleft palate, his speech is unintelligible to everyone except Goldfinger. In the film, Oddjob is completely mute and does not speak at all. He uses his hat as a lethal throwing weapon, crushes a golf ball, and is electrocuted when Bond throws him into an electrical junction box.

Reader's Guide

Oddjob appears in the 1991 animated series James Bond Jr. with a miniature top hat, sunglasses, and hip-hop style clothes. He appears in the 1998 video game James Bond 007 as a henchman for General Golgov. He appears in the 2004 video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent as a henchman of Goldfinger. He is a playable multiplayer character in GoldenEye 007 (1997), James Bond 007: Nightfire (2002), the 2010 remake GoldenEye 007, and 007 Legends (2012). In Dynamite Entertainment's comic book James Bond 007, a new iteration of Oddjob is a South Korean secret agent named John Lee.

Did You Know?

• Oddjob's hat was made by British hat makers Lock & Co. and adapted by inserting a chakram into the brim.
• The hat was auctioned at Christie's in 1998 and again in 2006.
• MythBusters tested Oddjob's hat and labeled it 'Busted' for its inability to decapitate a stone statue.
• Oddjob's lethal hat was ranked tenth in a 2008 20th Century Fox poll for most popular movie weapon.
• A parody version called Random Task appears in the 1997 film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery.