Oddjob

Verified Timeline

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 practices taekwondo and hapkido in Korea and earns a black belt in karate in Japan. He hates being mistaken for Japanese. He eats dogs, a taste acquired during a famine. 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. He is killed when Bond throws a knife into his back on the plane. 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.

In Their Own Story

At the beginning of the 1964 film Goldfinger, Oddjob is seen only as a silhouette against a wall as he knocks James Bond unconscious at the Fontainebleau Hotel, after which he or Goldfinger kills Bond girl Jill Masterson through 'skin suffocation' by painting her entire body with gold paint. When Bond meets Auric Goldfinger for a round of golf, Oddjob is seen in full for the first time. Goldfinger describes him as 'an admirable manservant but mute'. He speaks only four times in the film. Oddjob acts as Goldfinger's personal chauffeur, bodyguard, and golf caddy. He wears a bowler hat with a sharpened steel rim, using it as a lethal throwing weapon. It is powerful and capable of cutting through steel and decapitating a stone statue. He uses it to kill Tilly Masterson by breaking her neck. Physically, Oddjob is extremely strong and resilient: he crushes a golf ball with one hand, and during the climactic fight scene with Bond, he is struck in the chest by a thrown gold bar and in the head with a wooden object used as a club. He barely flinches after both these attacks. After being locked in the vault with Goldfinger's henchman Kisch, Oddjob kills Kisch to prevent him from disarming the bomb before engaging Bond. Oddjob is electrocuted and dies.

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.