Mai Linh is the secondary antagonist of the 2007 action film Live Free or Die Hard.
She is Thomas Gabriel's girlfriend and second-in-command, who assists Gabriel in his plans to shut down the US infrastructure in order to steal billions of dollars from the Woodlawn Facility.
She was portrayed by Maggie Q.
Biography[]
Killing the Hackers[]
Mai Linh is first seen sending algorithms to various computer hackers, which are set to cause their computers to explode. She manages to kill every one, with the exception of Matthew Farrell. She then breaches the FBI computer system.
After Rand and Del fail to assassinate John McClane and Matt, they inform her and she notifies Thomas Gabriel that Matt is still alive.
Fire Sale[]
On the morning of July 3, Linh watches over stage one and two of the fire sale shutdown. She then prepares a video package for the rest of Gabriel's team in order to strike fear into the public. Later on, Trey discovers that Farrell resurfaced and Linh orders him to find Farrell's locating and search for information of John McClane.
Linh then poses as a police dispatcher in order to lead the police escorts to Rand and Del instead of John and Matt. Matt immediately recognizes her voice and John convinces Linh to put Gabriel on the phone.
Eastern Hub Takeover[]
Gabriel sends Linh to the Eastern Power Hub disguised as an FBI agent to cut the power to the Eastern Seaboard. The two share a kiss and she boards the helicopter. She arrives at the hub and incapacitates the guards before entering the building and killing the personnel and starts working to shut down the hub.
At night, the whole system is ready for shutdown, when a henchman notices John and Matt on a security camera. The two henchmen that came with her search for John, who kills the first one before arriving at the central control room.
Confrontation with John McClane and Death[]
John aims his pistol at Linh, forcing her to move away while Matt reverses her work. Linh waits until John is momentarily distracted, disarms him, then knocks him down. John gets back up and charges at her and knocks her into a metal shelf, briefly knocking her unconscious.
Linh regains consciousness a few seconds later, she engages John a second time and pushes him out of a window, into the parking lot. She then overpowers Matt and forces him to undo his work. As Matt finishes up, she prepares to shoot him, but John suddenly drives in with an SUV, ramming her through several walls and eventually into an elevator shaft.
The SUV begins to fall, barely suspended by the elevator wires as Linh grabs on the very edge. As she climbs up the SUV, the wires break lose, causing it to fall further down the shaft, only held up by the elevator beam. She climbs in and kicks John out, who then climbs back up and strangles her with the few remaining elevator wires, before punching her unconscious.
As John slowly climbs up the unstable SUV, the second henchman notices the cop, but is knocked onto the SUV with a pipe by Matt, his pistol landing right next to Linh. John continues his climb, when Linh regains consciousness. She aims the pistol at John, but the SUV breaks loose from the elevator beam, causing it to fall and explode upon impact.
Trivia[]
- Maggie Q's first villainous role was in Disney's Around the World in 80 Days as a female agent.
- Maggie Q later appeared in 2018's The Con is On as villainess Irina.
- She is the second female villain in the Die Hard franchise after Katya and before Irina Komarov.
- Mai Linh seems to have a high pain tolerance. This is shown when she recovers almost immediately when John knocks her into a metal shelf, does not show any signs of injury when John rams her with an SUV, and regains consciousness almost immediately after John knocks her out by strangling her with the elevator wires and punching her unconscious.
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