Tomb

The assassin creeps silently through a tiny crawl space before coming to a small panel or grate. On the other side is the victim, sleeping soundly on his bed several metres below. A thin, black thread is lowered towards the victim's unsuspecting face, coming to a halt just above his open mouth. The victim snores on, as a droplet of lethal poison slowly dribbles down the length of the thread. It's an agonizingly suspenseful moment. Finally, the intended victim stirs in his sleep and rolls his head gently to one side, just as the poison reaches the terminus of the thread, and the droplet misses the mouth and lands instead on the cheek, startling the victim awake. The jig is up, and the victim instantly realizes the danger he was in. A chase, or perhaps a fight, ensues.

Thrilling, yes? Whenever this scene appears in film or television, it's hard not to hold your breath in wide-eyed anticipation. It just seems like such a sneaky, ingenious way of murdering someone, and the stakes are teeth-grindingly high. If it works, the death will surely appear to be from natural causes, and the killer will get away scot-free. On the other hand, if the sleeper awakens, the killer’s intentions are apparent at a glance. No wonder it's been filmed more than once.

• You Only Live Twice (1967): James Bond (as portrayed by the one and only Sean Connery) is one of the first and most notable characters to survive the “poison-string” technique. It happens while he’s in Japan, trying to impersonate a Japanese fisherman. (Naturally, the attempt to make Connery look and sound Japanese is completely laughable.) The thread is lowered while Bond is in bed with Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), his latest sexual conquest. In a rare instance of collateral damage caused by the poison string, the venom misses Bond's mouth and lands instead on Aki's lips. Her dying gasps waken Bond, who shoots the killer dead. Sadly, many of Bond's sexual partners don't survive for long. This is, as comedian Lenny Henry once pointed out, “an extreme form of contraception.”

• Duel to the Death (1982): This crazy wuxia film from Chinese Ghost Story director Ching Siu-Tung has plenty of crazy ninja attacks and action scenes, at the expense of coherence, narrative drive or any kind of consistent pace. Cool fight scenes occur seemingly at random, and sometimes even end without resolution. The poison-string scene is a case in point. It differs from the classic version of the scene in several ways: The target is not sleeping, but having dinner with friends; the poison is aimed at the target's drink, rather than directly into his mouth; and the poisoner is never seen, just the thread descending from a sliding ceiling tile.

After the string is noticed, the only person who takes significant action is the sole woman at the table, who leaps 10 metres straight up to the ceiling in order to capture the assassin. Everyone else just sits there. We never even find out what happens next; the scene just ends.

• Grosse Pointe Blank (1997): In this extremely dark (yet satisfying) comedy, John Cusack plays professional hitman Martin Blank, who at one point uses the poison-string method. His equipment is a bit fancier than the simple spool-and-vial given to 007's would-be assassin, though — Blank's thread seems to be a thin length of plastic, topped with a syringe-plunger assembly for ease of use. Martin's even studied his target's typical sleep patterns to calculate the perfect time to attack. It's all for nothing, since the victim always wakes up in these scenarios, and Martin is forced to run downstairs and finish the poor guy off with his handgun. The client who ordered the hit is unimpressed with this lack of finesse.

“It was supposed to look like a heart attack! He was supposed to die in his sleep!”

“Well... he moved.”

• Green Wing (2004): The poison string yields more comedy in this insane, largely improvised British TV series set in a busy hospital. The staff at this particular hospital tends to be a bit weird, and none are weirder than the staff liaison officer Sue White, played by Michelle Gomez. When handsome surgeon Mac (Julian Rhind-Tutt) shows romantic interest in newly arrived doctor Caroline Todd (Tamsin Greig), White becomes jealous and attempts to murder the new girl. Her first attempt is by crossbow, while wearing a comically unconvincing false beard. Next, she booby-traps a stairwell. Finally, she employs the poison-string technique, to no avail; all of her assassination attempts go completely unnoticed.

• The Venture Bros. (2003): This twisted updating of Jonny Quest, The Hardy Boys and other such “Boy Adventurer” tales is something of an acquired taste, but is much beloved by the fans who stick with it. In the pilot episode, “The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay,” a frustrated ninja assassin watches helplessly as his poison string is blown out the window by a gentle breeze. He then bonks his head while trying to retreat into the heating duct. Twice.