Zao
(Rick Yune)
Character
Rick Yune plays
Zao, a North Korean baddy. The character is not the film's main villain - he is
Colonel Moon's right-hand man - but this guy is more than a match for Bond and
he may just be trying to help Moon trigger off a World War.
Zao first appears
in the pre-credits teaser sequence, where after a death defying hovercraft chase
sequence, he captures Bond and returns him to Colonel Moon.
| 
Above:
Yune with a shaved head at the Spanish press conference | |
Yune has said about his role that he "leads a a double personality and
you never know who is the character, depends the side you look." Zao
is hit by the explosion that 007 creates when activating the bomb hidden in the
case of diamonds the pretitles sequence. The Korean actor has to be covered
in white body make-up with dazzling blue contact lenses. The 30-year-old has veins
painted on his face and diamonds stuck to his head and body. He said: "I'm
meant to look as if I have been in an explosion. It's a brilliant role and I love
playing a Bond villain. The only problem is I'm topless in a lot of scenes in
Spain and it's been raining. I've had to have a hot-water bottle on standby." |
Biography
Born: 22nd August 1971, Washington
D.C. USA
Rick Yune, 31, was on his year off from Wharton Business School
and working as a Wall Street trader when he was "discovered" in an elevator
by an agent. Within a year he became the first Asian guy to model for Versace
and Polo. Then he landed a lead in "Snow Falling on Cedars", but things
have not always come so easily for the actor.
As the only Asian kid growing
up in a black neighbourhood near D.C., Yune got into a lot of fights. His parents
sent him to military school and then to a Roman Catholic school. He got a black
belt and the fights continued, along with his feeling that he'd always be an outsider.
"In the media, Asians were either nerds or gangsters," he says. "I
want to change that. I've never been afraid before, but now I'm afraid of failing."
We bet he'll keep on rising, even without an elevator.
Yune's recent credits
include The Fast and the Furious and The Fence.
