Mission Summary

The disappearanceof a U.S. spaceship in mid-flight has the Americans and Soviets accusingeach other of foul play. The British, acting as intermediaries, decided toinvestigate and put James Bond (Sean Connery) on the case. His only leadtakes him to Japan, where the head of the Japanese secret service TigerTanaka (Tetsuro Tamba) assists in the investigation. Both men believe thatneither the Americans nor the Soviets are responsible, and it turns out thatSPECTRE is once again trying to start a war between the superpowers.

Analysis

Rank: 12

"You Only Live Twice" was the last film in Connery's contract, so it was designed by the producers to be the lastinstallment of the Bond series. In fact, there are several hints of thisthroughout the film: Bond faking his death for the "big" mission, Bond goesundercover and gets married in Japan, and, most importantly, Bond andBlofeld meet face-to-face for the first time (more on that later). It seemsto me that the producers tried to make what they believed to be the finalfilm the best This was the first of many subsequent Bond films todeal with a space conflict, but thankfully Bond doesn't enter outer spacethis time. The plot idea of the Americans and Soviets trying to rule spacebecomes a tired one by the time Roger Moore takes over, but it is aninteresting concept the first time around. I will say that the writers do agood job of disguising that SPECTRE is behind the hijackings until very latein the film.

Since this was the first film to be set in Asia, youwould assume there would be numerous martial arts fights, but that reallywasn't the case. Aside from the climatic scene inside Blofeld's volcano,there weren't too many extended action sequences, which was disappointing.The one memorable sequence from this film is obviously "Little Nellie," a little helicopter "Q" outfitted with "the usual refinements." There is one otherscene that is cool, where a helicopter with an attached magnet picks up acar pursuing Bond and drops it into the ocean. A random sidenote on cars:Bond never drives himself throughout the entire movie.

Tanaka is Bond's main ally in the film and deliverssome interesting tidbits about life in Japan that usually have unintentionalhumor. Despite sharing most of the screen time with Bond, he doesn'tactually get involved his mission. Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) is Takanka'sagent who proves to be a capable ally for Bond, as she has several wittyretorts to Bond's one-liners. Tanaka's other agent "with the face of a pig"(Mie Hama) is never mentioned by name in the film, but she is obviouslyKissy Suzuki from the novel. She only appears briefly at the end of the filmand isn't very memorable for being Bond's pretend wife.

Now we come to the defining character of early films,Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence), the head of SPECTRE who wereresponsible for all the previous evil plots. I always thought it was oddthat you never saw Blofeld in the previous films, aside from him petting hiscat. It has been suggested that entire plot of the film is leading up toBond and Blofeld meeting for the first time (which I tend to agree with),since these two men know each other so well without ever meeting. I thoughtthat Pleasence did a great job playing the incarnation of evil in Bond'slife, delivering the lines with simultaneous intensity and patience.

The producers could have easily ended the series atthis point, since it seemed that the first five films peaked with"Goldfinger" and were beginning to decline. While the Little Nellie sequenceand seeing Blofeld are memorable moments, everything else in this film ismostly forgettable.