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:

A number of actors were asked to play Blofield before Donald Pleasence, but all has stage or TV commitments which made them unable on accept the role. Producer Harry Saltzman, who had an eccentric choice for actors to play villains, had originally hired the fabled Czech actor Jan Werich to play Blofeld. Werich was the personification of sophisticated intellectual humor in Czech theater and film, and was known as the "Wise Clown". Casting a clown as a demonic villain backfired during production: It was felt that Werich looked too much like Father Christmas to be menacing and he was released after a week's shooting.

Goofs:

Continuity: Bond stows away on a monorail cart which stops at the astronauts' quarters. After Bond gets out of the cart, a second cart passes by, even though the cart he arrived in is still on the track (out of shot). No one moved the cart before the second cart passed through.

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 Inside Q's Laboratory (2000) (V)

Soundtrack:

You Only Live Twice

Bond #5: Made in Japan

Easy to say which two things I remember best about "You Only Live Twice": the volcano base Ken Adam designed and the little helicopter Bond uses for his exploration of the volcano area. Roald Dahl's script brought better story development and less cheesy dialogs than in "Thunderball". Donald Pleasance played Blofeld extremely eccentric, almost sickening. Between Claudine Auger in the previous Bond and Diana Rigg in the next, "You Only Live Twice" does not really have just one leading lady, there are a few sweet Japanese girls around including Mie Hama and Akiko Wakabayashi, and among the baddies, Karin Dor appears as a redhead threatening to torture Bond when he is captured. The location of Japan had a lot to offer, from the modern skyscrapers to the traditional island villages, and let's not forget those sumo wrestlers ;-). With the 5th Bond, the hype had meanwhile become so huge that Connery was annoyed and said "never again" - for the first time...