Jane Bond 008: Operation Karachi (1971)
Cast: Raza Fazli, Rukhshanda, Tarana, Saqi, Niggo
Director: Raza Fazli
Synopsis: Statuesque Beauty plays the lethal Spy Agent 008 on a deadly mission to Karachi.
Reviewed by: Omar Khan

In the ‘60s and ‘70s, Pakistan and its neighbour Iran joined hands to produce a handful of films. Though most had a social angle to them, this one was a swinging James Bond clone complete with thrilling car chases, stunts, mysterious women, high-tech gadgets, some very nasty villains, and even heavier henchmen.

Any film with a fabulous title like Jane Bond 008, Operation Karachi has the additional burden in that it has such a fantastic title to do justice to. The action rolls with an M prototype giving Jane Bond 008 instructions for her next urgent assignment in Karachi.

An evil gang has been operating in the city and has recently kidnapped a highly respected professor. The police fear the criminals will force the scientist into constructing weapons of mass destruction, which will have the entire world kneeling in front of the Crime Syndicate, begging for mercy.

Shots of Karachi reveal a swinging city of bustling nightlife and one club where the clientele enjoys Miss Zouzou’s intoxicating go-go dancing talents. Agent 002 is at the club cutting a dashing, mysterious figure, and the evil henchmen associated with the kidnapping gang are sniffing blood. The handsome and dapper Agent 002 senses danger as Miss Zouzou’s dance climaxes. He sets his briefcase on fire, exploding it spectacularly in mid-air before escaping, way before Don employed similar tactics in the classic 1978 Bollywood masterpiece.

The henchmen follow, and after a nerve-shattering chase scene, they end up in the vast underground complex of the villain’s lair, where the Crime Kingpin has all the latest security gadgets to keep unwanted pests out of his compound. The villain’s oscillators start making bizarre, alarming sounds as they detect Agent 002 making his intrusion. The agent takes out some henchmen before he is subdued, and unknown to Jane Bond 008, he will now be lying in a shallow grave rather than assisting her on the challenging and sensitive assignment to save Karachi and the world.

Fortunately, another most unlikely character will soon be entering her life. Things are about to get a lot more confusing before they make any sense, at least to Jane Bond 008, expecting to meet Agent 002 at the airport.

The hotel where Jane Bond 008 is due summons one of their drivers to collect her from the Airport. It appears the man is on hallucinatory drugs as he gets excited, believing the arriving passenger to be the woman somehow chosen for him, even if he is just a lowly driver. She is a memsahib from an exotic, faraway land. He works himself up into a frenzy of excitement, bursting into song and dance while simultaneously driving to the airport.

Jane Bond arrives soon enough, and the driver is stunned at his good fortune as she cuts a stylish, fashionable silhouette with her massive ‘60s-style goggles and fine tresses. She hops into the car, thinking the driver is 002, her contact and fellow agent and proceeds to ask him the coded questions.

Maybe it was the jet lag, but for some bizarre reason, she decides he is Mr. McDonald, Agent 002 and proceeds with her plan with her aide beside her. Soon enough, things go awry as various henchmen are always tailing her, and within a few moments, she is snagged. Our chauffeur is left in the dust without his host. His car is stolen by the

Jane Bond 008: Operation Karachi henchmen who triumphantly deliver Jane Bond 008 to the supercriminal mastermind with the sophisticated oscillator devices that double for security and a range of other utilities.

The film changes gear and is dominated by sequences where our dashing chauffeur and his seriously annoying sidekick are rescuing Jane Bond, their damsel in distress, and then somehow managing to lose her to the henchmen. These events recur a few times before; finally, Jane Bond comes to the rather embarrassing discovery that her charming and dashing chauffeur is not Mr McDonald but a mere simpleton with whom she has swiftly grown besotted.

More car chases, fights and slapstick comic sequences follow, and a magic show is featured and is rather tedious. The action reaches a stirring climax with Jane Bond operating a small aircraft while her Chauffeur boyfriend Mohsin battles the forces of evil on the land. They make a good team, and despite the odds stacked against them, they face their adversaries with admirable pluck and spirit.

Rakshanda Khattak, one of the nation’s first “supermodels” of Burmese and Pashtun origin, is indeed a worthy Jane Bond. Her physical presence is alluring and imposing in equal measure, as is her slightly Zeenat Aman-like dialogue delivery. She packs a mean Karate chop and kicks, but the bottom line is if it were not for her dashing chauffeur, she would have ended up the same way as Agent 002, in an early shallow grave.

The film, directed by our cavalier chauffeur, is choppy and incoherent for the most part. There are too many chase and action scenes, and the second half repeats the action as in the movie’s first half. The film does not build upon its premise; things meander instead of creating tension or an effective climax. Nothing is unexpected, and the film winds to a highly predictable and unexciting conclusion.

Raza Fazli is exuberant and fitter than the local Pakistani heroes of the era and is confident in directing himself. Yet perhaps the film would have benefitted by having a director who was not the movie’s main star because the narrative is weak. The storytelling is confused and messy, and the film lacks tension. However, it is mildly entertaining, and there are two rather splendid dances, interludes by Tarana and another by the starlet playing Miss Zouzou. The movie’s best sequence is, in fact, Miss Zouzou’s sizzling dance while in the background, Agent 002 attempts to make his getaway from the posse of shady henchmen keeping watch at the local sleazy dance club.

Another exciting aspect of the film is the outdoor scenery of Karachi as it was back in the late ‘60s, sparse and sketchy rather than the mass of disorder that is on view in contemporary times.

The film unsurprisingly failed to set the Box Office on fire and died a tame death within a few short weeks despite the popularity of Ahmed Rushdie’s hit song Ek Udan Khatola Ayega. It did not have the ingredients required to register with the locals, and there was a distinct lack of emotional involvement with the characters, along with a lightweight plot that was too slight to sustain the film. It is also a relatively low-budget movie, meaning the villain’s lair is only marginally impressive but could have been so much more.

Jane Bond 008: Operation Karachi is a film that should have been a cult classic for Karachi and feminism for all time to come, yet it falls short of expectations, ending up as an unremarkable, uninteresting, lightweight piffle. Only the movie’s title and poster retain any cult value, not the film itself.