You Only Live Twice (1967)

Director:

Lewis Gilbert

Writers:

Harold Jack Bloom (additional story material)
Roald Dahl (screenplay)

Release Date:

13 June 1967 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Tagline:

Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond

Plot:

Agent 007 and the Japanese secret service ninja force must find and stop the true culprit of a series of spacejackings before nuclear war is provoked.

Plot Keywords:

Space | Rocket | James Bond | Japan | Japanese

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 1 win & 1 nomination

Cast

Sean Connery	...	James Bond
Akiko Wakabayashi	...	Aki
Mie Hama	...	Kissy Suzuki
Tetsurô Tanba	...	Tiger Tanaka (as Tetsuro Tanba)
Teru Shimada	...	Mr. Osato
Karin Dor	...	Helga Brandt
Donald Pleasence	...	Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Bernard Lee	...	M
Lois Maxwell	...	Miss Moneypenny
Desmond Llewelyn	...	Q
Charles Gray	...	Dikko Henderson
Tsai Chin	...	Ling, Chinese Girl in Hong Kong
Peter Fanene Maivia	...	Car Driver
Burt Kwouk	...	Spectre 3
Michael Chow	...	Spectre 4

Also Known As:

Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice (UK) (complete title) (USA) (complete title)

Runtime:

117 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | Japanese | Russian

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario) | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | Canada:A (Nova Scotia) | Ireland:PG | Iceland:12 | West Germany:12 (re-rating) | West Germany:16 | South Korea:15 | Brazil:14 | UK:PG (tv rating) | Australia:M (TV rating) | Australia:PG | Finland:K-16 | Netherlands:12 | Norway:16 (original rating) | Sweden:15 | UK:A (original rating) | UK:PG (video rating) (1987) | USA:Approved (original rating) | USA:GP (re-rating) (1970) | USA:PG (re-rating) (1994)

Filming Locations:

Akime Village Environs, Akime, Kagoshima, Japan

Company:

Eon Productions

Trivia:

Little Nellie is based on the real-life Wallis Autogyro. Its inventor, Wing Commander K.H. Wallis, actually flew Little Nellie in the film. The machine was incorporated into the plot after production designer Ken Adam heard Wallis in a radio interview discussing his invention. Wallis had to log 85 flights in total to film the sequence. It was all filmed outside of Japan because Japanese Law forbade the firing of rockets in the air.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Just before the SPECTRE rocket touches down at their base, the cable lowering it is visible against the smoke, and the crane's hook is visible at the top of the screen.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Astronaut - 1st American Spacecraft: Calling CapCom. CapCom, this is Jupiter 16. Do you give a go for fourth orbit.
Houston CapCom: CapCom to Jupiter 16. Can you confirm O2 pressure is within limit.
Astronaut - 1st American Spacecraft: Roger. Everything looks good in the environmental control system.
Houston CapCom: Okay. Everything looks good from here. You have a go for fourth orbit.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Welcome to Japan, Mr. Bond (1967) (TV)

Soundtrack:

You Only Live Twice

Who's Out Capturing The Great Satellites Of Space

You Only Live Twice was the fifth James Bond film with Sean Connery and the basic premise of it kind of dismays me. After four films with Bond battling SPECTRE and foiling their evil plans, you would think that the powers would consider SPECTRE's involvement in any kind of dirty business on this globe.

But that's not what happens here. SPECTRE under the leadership of Donald Pleasance as Ernest Stavro Blofeld has developed its own space technology, courtesy of Japanese industrialist Teru Shimada. They've set up shop on a small Japanese volcanic island inside the crater of a dead volcano that has a retractable dome covering like the Rogers Center in Toronto. And they're going about the business capturing US and Soviet satellites right out of orbit.

The tone of this film is set in the beginning at that conference where the sides are accusing each other of heating up the Cold War. But Her Majesty's government says cool down boys, we're sending our best man in. My problem is that I can't believe the two superpowers wouldn't think that SPECTRE's involvement isn't a possibility all on their own.

But with Sean Connery on the scene do you doubt that he will bring the truth out and the culprits to his own brand of Bondian justice?

I've seen all the Connery Bond films and You Only Live Twice is the weakest of the bunch. Not to say it doesn't have its moments. My favorite is Connery in Little Nell, the airborne equivalent of his Ashton-Martin special car where Connery dispatches some SPECTRE sent helicopters. He also has a nice fight scene with Ronald Rich who is Pleasance's bodyguard. But next to Odd Job from Goldfinger, Rich was a ham and egger.

You Only Live Twice has Connery collaborating with the Japanese Secret Service in the person of Tetsuro Tamba and a couple Oriental lovelies in Mie Hama and Akika Wakabayashi. He also gets to deal with Karin Dor, an assassin from SPECTRE all now Bond girls in good standing. Tamba has an army of Ninjas, as skilled with automatic weaponry as they are with martial arts. Had this film been done a few years later, I could have seen Bruce Lee collaborating with James Bond.

Now that would really have been a memorable film.