You Only Live Twice (1967) Review

 "It can save your life, this cigarette."
-Tiger Tanaka



When an American spaceship is captured by an unknown craft, they are quick to blame the Russians.  As war becomes more and more imminent, James Bond (Sean Connery) is sent to Japan to find the missing spaceship, but will have to fake his death to get enemies off his scent first.


What Works:

The most memorable part of You Only Live Twice is Blofeld's (Donald Pleasence) volcano base.  This set is amazing and the interior is all practical.  That's a truly remarkable accomplishment and it makes for a great 3rd act action sequence.  This is a top tier Bond villain lair and is still extremely cool.

The movie has some solid action sequences.  I really like the one-on-one fight between Connery and Peter Maivia, who is The Rock's grandfather.  It's a great fight and well choreographed.  The car chase wouldn't be anything to wright home about, until we get the helicopter with a massive magnet to remove the thugs from the equation.  Not to mention the Little Nelly helicopter battle.  This sequence is awesome and a lot of fun.

Tetsurō Tamba plays the head of the Japanese Secret Service, Tiger Tanaka, and is another awesome Bond ally.  It's great to see the head of a secret service agency actually involved in a combat mission.  He's got some memorable lines and great chemistry with Bond.

Finally, Akiko Wakabayashi plays one of the Bond girls, Aki, a Japanese agent who is extremely competent.  She manages to get the drop on Bond at one point and is the driver during the car chase.  I only wish she had lived longed because Aki is awesome.


What Sucks:

Aki is killed off about 2/3rds of the way through the movie and we get a new Bond girl to take her place.  Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) ends up being the main Bond girl of the movie, but gets no development and really isn't interesting at all.  It's not Hama's fault, but a fault of the story structure.  If the filmmakers had just kept Aki in all the way to the end of the movie, she would definitely be an elite Bond girl.

The original novel of You Only Live Twice features a lot of description of Japanese culture.  They kept a lot of that in the movie...and they shouldn't have.  We get a whole Japanese marriage ceremony, which is extremely dull and part of the uncomfortable subplot of Bond being disguised as a Japanese man.  Plus some of these scenes are pretty sexist, especially during the bath scene.  Bond is a sexist character, yes, but he usually gets proven wrong right away when he makes a sexist remark.  The vast majority of the time, the Bond girl seriously puts him in his place and it's satisfying.  That doesn't happen here and it's uncomfortable.

Finally, this is the movie where we finally get to see the man behind SPECTRE, Ernst Stavro Blofeld...and it's a bit of a letdown.  Donald Pleasence is a great actor, but he isn't very intimidating.  This is Bond's arch-enemy?  Maybe if a different actor were in the role or maybe if Pleasence had more screen-time to build up his threat level, but he has only a few minutes to work with.


Verdict: 

I enjoy You Only Live Twice thanks to the solid action, awesome volcano lair, and memorable supporting characters.  Parts of it have not aged well and are uncomfortable.  Aki is underused and Blofeld ends up being being a disappointing.  It's definitely my least favorite of the first 5 Bond films.

 7/10: Good 


#1. From Russia with Love

#2. Goldfinger

#3. Dr. No

#4. Thunderball

#5. You Only Live Twice

   

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