Oddjob

Oddjob
James Bond character
Harold Sakata as Oddjob in Goldfinger (1964).
First appearance	Goldfinger (novel, 1959)
Created by	Ian Fleming
Portrayed by	Harold Sakata
Information
Gender	Male
Affiliation	Auric Goldfinger
Classification	Henchman

Oddjob (often written as "Odd Job") is a henchman to the villain Auric Goldfinger in the 1959 James Bond novel Goldfinger and its 1964 film adaptation. In the film, he was played by the Japanese-American actor and professional wrestler Harold Sakata. Oddjob, who also appears in the James Bond animated series and in several video games, is one of the most popular characters in the Bond series.

Oddjob's real name is unknown. He is named by Goldfinger to describe his duties to his employer. A Korean, like all of Goldfinger's staff, he is extremely strong, as shown in one sequence where he breaks the 'massive' oak railing of a staircase with karate chops of his hand and a mantel with his foot.

Oddjob is described as being a squat man with arms like thighs and black teeth. In the contrast with the film where he is depicted as a man of short stature, the novel hints his height in the scene where he breaks the mantelpiece described as being 7 feet off the ground and 6 inches higher than the top of his bowler hat. This would place his height at 6 ft 6 inches (198 cm). He is also described as having black belt at karate, although, since he was Korean, this may well have been taekwondo, often inaccurately referred to as 'Korean karate' at the time that the novel was published (1959). This was later corrected by stating that he had received novice training in taekwondo and hapkido in his native Korea but had spent time in Japan where he learned karate and thus earned the black belt. The earlier novel tells of his hatred of being mistaken for Japanese, largely due to Korean anger at the Japanese occupation during the Second World War. The revised novel keeps that facet; Oddjob's karate schooling in Japan apparently having done nothing to assuage his prejudice.

Oddjob is also an expert with a bow and arrow and can throw his razor-edged bowler hat with deadly accuracy. He has a cleft palate that renders his speech unintelligible to everyone except Goldfinger. In addition to killing people who might cause trouble for Goldfinger, Oddjob functions as his personal guard, chauffeur, and manservant (though not his golf caddy, as depicted in the film). He has a taste for cats as food, apparently acquired in Korea when food was in short supply. Bond frames Goldfinger's yellow cat for destruction of surveillance film, and as punishment, the cat is given to Oddjob for dinner.