Sean Connery is widely regarded as the best actor to portray James Bond on the big screen. The first five films in the series, starring him, are often considered the best, or at least the most authentic to the original vision of the character’s creator Ian Fleming. The worst of those five films is the fifth one, You Only Live Twice, 1967 adaptation of Fleming’s eponymous novel.
While previous four films didn’t stray much from what someone could have expected in real world, this one begins with a scene that looks like it belongs to science fiction. US spacecraft in Earth’s orbit is snatched by mysterious space vessel. Since the Cold War is ongoing, US government instead of aliens finds the Soviets as the most likely culprit and threatens that next such incident would lead to World War Three. British government, on the other hand, found that the mysterious vessel landed somewhere in Sea of Japan so James Bond, just after spectacularly faking his own death, is sent to Japan to investigate. There he meets his contact, beautiful Japanese woman named Aki (played by Akiko Wakabayashi) who works for “Tiger” Tanaka (played by Tetsuro Tamba), head of Japanese secret service who agrees to help Bond in his investigation. The trail leads to Osato Chemicals, high-tech company owned by powerful industrialist Osato (played by Teru Shimada). Further investigation discovers that Osato purchased liquid oxygen, which is used as rocket fuel. In order to deceive Osato’s assassins, Bond is made up to look like Japanese and marries Kissy Suzuki (played by Mie Hama) in order to take the identity of an inhabitant of a fishing village that might be near the secret launching site.
In 1967 Bond film series was becoming a victim of its success. Enormous popularity of previous films led Hollywood and other cinema industries to produce multitude of spy thrillers that, in one way or another, tried to use the Bond formula. This forced Bond producers to deliver even more spectacle on the screen and try to maintain audience’s attention by offering something slightly different. They originally wanted to adapt On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but in the end, probably because of more exotic setting offered by Japan, opted for You Only Live Twice, despite it being the direct sequel to the previous novel and its plot not making much sense to those unfamiliar with the entirety of Bond canon. On the other hand, this was seen as an opportunity for more creative freedom and the script by famous writer Roald Dahl was the first in the series to significantly stray from the literary source, abandoning many characters and most of the original plot. Dahl added Space Race as the main element of the plot and it served this well in the opening scene, which featured some very good special effects for its age. The most of the spectacle, however, is seen in the scenes that take place in huge underground base, and which were shot at the gigantic set at Pinewood Studios. You Only Live Twice is also the first film in which head of SPECTRE and Bond’s archvillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld appears in person, played by Donald Pleasance. Although he is seen only shortly before the end of the film, its presence is such that it would later serve as a clear inspiration for Dr. Evil character is Austin Powers films.
Huge budget for this film, however, also meant that many scenes in this film serve no other purpose but to display it. And some of those scenes haven’t aged that well, mostly due to special effects that look to primitive and not that convincing. An example could be found in the scenes featuring “Little Nellie”, a cool gyrocopter designed by Ken Wall. While the scenes in which that aircraft appears alone feature impressive aerial cinematography, illusion is shattered when the “Nellie” is engaged by long aerial combat with four enemy helicopters that look too much like models. Another factor that doesn’t work that well in this film are the Bond Girls; villainous Helga Brandt, Osato’s associate and SPECTRE agent, looks little too much like the unisnpired copy of iconic Fiona Volpe from Thunderball; Aki, most interesting of all female characters, disappears relatively early and gets replaced by Kissy Suzuki who doesn’t offer anything other than good looks and swimming ability. In the end, Sean Connery, while still effective as Bond, appears a little bit tired and his decision not to play that character any more, looks quite understandable.
That doesn’t mean that You Only Live Twice lacks memorable moments and characters. Tetsuro Tamba is very effective in his role and the production puts Japanese locations to good use. The film, like some of the later films in the series, functions like some sort of travelogue, offering glimpse into the fascinating country which was still very exotic to many viewers in the world, especially West. You Only Live Twice features some interesting details about Japanese culture, like sumo wrestling, marriage ceremonies and, finally, martial arts that would become all the rage in the West in next few years. The film also displays Japan in the middle of its famous post-WW2 economic boom, a very modern and technologically advanced country which is about to beat West in its own game. Director Lewis Gilbert is very good at his work and delivers some very interesting scenes, especially in the beginning while depicting Bond’s fake assassination and mock funeral. Another great element of the film is an excellent musical score by John Barry, as well as the title song performed by Nancy Sinatra, one of the most memorable in the entire history of the franchise. After this film Bond series began to change dramatically. Whether you consider those changes for the better or for the worse, You Only Live Twice still represents one of the better ways to end an era.
RATING: 7/10 (++)
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