You Only Live Twice

Plot synopsis:
Orbiting over the Earth is Jupiter 16, a US space capsule manned by two astronauts. As they maintain radio contact with bases in Hawaii and Houston, one of the astronauts ventures outside to make routine repairs, when radar picks up another spacecraft closing fast. Radio contact is lost and the spacecraft opens up and swallows Jupiter 16, in the process severing the other astronaut's lifeline and leaving him to die in space.In Hong Kong, James Bond is enjoying a romantic encounter with a Chinese woman. She leaves the bed a pushes a button that levers it into the wall. Two men burst into the room with machine guns and spray the bed. When the police arrive, the woman has disappeared and Bond is found dead.A contentious meeting between US and Russian diplomats follows, brokered by a member of Britain's foreign service. The US believes the pirate spacecraft is Russian in origin, having tracked the ship in orbit before it ventured into the atmosphere; the US is to launch another capsule in three weeks and will regard interference with the ship as an act of war, and will launch a military attack on Russia should the capsule come under attack itself. Great Britain, however, believes the alien ship landed in the Sea of Japan based on tracking of the ship from a station in Singapore, and that a British official in Hong Kong is following this lead.MI6's best agent, James Bond, is ordered to investigate. His assassination in Hong Kong was a ruse to trick his enemies into believing he was dead so he can continue his mission undetected. He is ordered to Japan to meet with members of Japan's SIS. One, a beautiful woman named Aki, takes him to the home of Dikko Henderson, a British intelligence official living in Japan who has discovered information about the rogue spacecraft. Henderson theorizes that a third power is using Osato Chemicals, a vast multinational corporation, to launch spacecraft from Japan to attack US and Russian spacecrafts and trigger war between the two superpowers. However, Henderson is stabbed to death before he can reveal more. James subdues Henderson's killer, then takes his place and infiltrates Osato Chemicals to find more information. He battles with a large bodyguard and defeats him before he finds a safe containing paperwork and a film negative that he takes before being pursued by security guards.James is rescued by Aki, but he is now mistrustful. When Aki stops her car near a subway entrance James chases her, only to fall into a "trap" set by "Tiger" Tanaka, the head of Japanese SIS and the most secretive official in Tokyo. After verifying Tanaka's credentials via a codeword, James works with him and they examine the paperwork found in Osato's safe. It details the smuggling of LOX - technical shorthand for liquid oxygen for rocket fuel and which is also the name for smoked salmon, and the perfect cover. The film negative is of a supertanker, the Ning Po, the picture coming from an American tourist killed by whoever works for Osato Chemicals; the picture shows not only the ship but a small boat of fishing women, indicating the area is an outer island on the way to Shanghai. James theorizes that the international criminal consortium SPECTRE has a role in the space hijackings given their history of using private organizations for the actual legwork of a conspiracy in the service of other foreign powers.James spends the night at Tanaka's house, where he is given exotic hospitality in the form of being bathed by "very sexiful" young ladies and given a relaxing massage by one. James' massage is taken over by the shapely and scantily-dressed Aki, who has fallen in love with him, a love the two consummate.The next day James is arranged to meet with Mr. Osato in the guise of businessman Jim Fisher to negotiate a bulk-purchase of important chemicals. Osato surreptitiously X-rays James, finding he is armed, and James is given a drink by Osato's secretary, Helga Brandt, who is more than just an efficient aide-de-camp. Osato orders hitmen to kill James, but he and Aki escape and Tanaka dispatches the hitmen via a transport chopper sporting a giant magnet.Tanaka radios James and orders James and Aki to Kobe, where the Ning Po is being loaded for departure. James then urges Tanaka to contact M in London to dispatch "Little Nellie" and her father - a minicopter gunship built under the supervision of Major Geoffrey "Q" Boothroyd. After arriving at Kobe, James and Aki find tanks of liquid oxygen but the two are attacked by a gang of dockworkers. James fights them off to allow Aki to escape, and it appears James himself will get away - until he is ambushed and knocked unconscious.He is bound to a chair in Helga's room on the Ning Po, where she questions him about snooping around the dock and holds a plastic surgeon's instrument dangerously close to James to pry information from him. But she is also aroused by James' masculinity and allows herself to be seduced by him; after consummating their arousal she flies James in a private plane, then bails out and locks him in, but James manages to escape, land the crippled plane, and escape before it explodes.Returning to Tiger's house, James is given photos of the Ning Po showing she stopped at an outer island and offloaded an enormous stockpile of equipment, shown by a vastly lower waterline. The threesome meet "Q" and Little Nellie is assembled by Q's crew of specialists. Sporting a variety of powerful weapons aboard Little Nellie, James overflies the area islands and is attacked by four gunships which he shoots down and which leave no doubt as to the presence of SPECTRE.A scheduled Russian space shot, meanwhile, goes off, and is grabbed by the enemy rocket, which is tracked by the US Air Force before disappearing, seeming to confirm to the US that the Russians are behind the space hijackings and will now use the excuse of losing their own spacecraft to shoot down the next Jupiter launch.Both Osato and Helga Brandt meet with their leader in his headquarters after the rogue craft returns to it's base. The man's face is not shown however he holds a white cat and finishes a meeting with two scientists who designed the radar jamming system that has cloaked the location of the villain's base. Both men demand more money but acquiesce after his bodyguard, Hans, shows them his leader's pool of piranha. The two scientists leave and the mysterious villain flashes the x-ray showing Bond's Walther PPK and expresses his disappointment in both Osato and Brandt for failing to kill him. Both accuse each other of failure. The villain orders Brandt to leave and drops her into the piranha pool as she walks across its bridge; she is eaten alive. He then sharply orders Osato to kill Bond immediately.Bond is ordered to report to Tiger's palatial estate which also doubles as a ninja training camp. Tiger's plan is to use his army of men to infiltrate a fishing village on the island where the Ning Po last made port. Bond himself will be disguised as a Japanese man and will train with the rest of Tiger's ninja army; the army will later hide in the island's largest village as local fishermen. Bond will also take a wife; to his dismay, Aki will not be the woman because she is not from the village. After the procedure which disguises him, Bond and Aki spend the night together. While they sleep, an assassin sneaks into the rafters above their bed and lowers a needle on the end of a thread. He trickles a powerful poison down the thread, his target being Bond. Bond, however, shifts in his sleep. Aki also shifts at the same moment and the poison drips onto her mouth. As she struggles and dies, Bond wakes up and shoots the assassin dead. Tiger comes in and Bond tells him what happened. Bond seems more urgent than ever to investigate the plot but Tiger tells him he needs a few more days of training. The next day during a staff match, Bond is attacked again by another assassin who tries to stab him with a knife hidden in his weapon. Bond kills the man and Tiger identifies him, saying he's not one of his men. The next day Bond is wed to a lovely young woman from the fishing village, Kissy. The settle into a small house in the village and Kissy rejects Bond's advances to consummate their marriage. The two also notice a small funeral being held for a young girl who'd been exploring a nearby cave along the shoreline. When the girl's boat floated out of the cave, she was mysteriously dead. At early morning, Tiger warns Bond that the Americans are launching their next spacecraft today with a last warning to the Soviets! Bond becomes interested in the cave; the next morning, he and Kissy drift away from the fishing fleet and explore the cave. When they enter it, Bond immediately notices that a poison gas has been released in the cave and they jump over the side of their boat and swim inside. The come ashore and hike up to the volcano's caldera. They see a helicopter fly down into the basin but it disappears. A closer investigation reveals that the surface of the crater's lake is actually a gigantic metal cover that hides a secret base where the rogue rocket has been hiding after swallowing the USA and Russian spacecraft. Bond sends Kissy back to find Tiger and his men, while Bond himself sneaks into the crater.Inside the volcano, Bond locates the missing astro- and cosmonauts being held prisoner. They subdue a few guards and imprison the astronauts that are next to fly into space and capture the next spacecraft launched by the USA. Bond takes the place of one of them, in the hopes that can sabotage the next capture, however, as he prepares to enter the rogue rocket, he's stopped at the last moment and taken to the volcano's command center. There he meets the mysterious villain; Ernst Stavro Blofeld, leader of SPECTRE, a vast criminal organization. Bond's personal effects are confiscated and Blofeld reveals his plan; the capture of both American and Russian spacecraft will trigger a nuclear war between the two, eliminating them from the world stage. Presumably China would move in and seize control of the world from the two superpowers. As Blofeld's craft moves into position, Bond asks for a cigarette, one of the weaponized ones given to him by Tiger. He kills one of Blofeld's men with the miniature rocket inside and escapes from the control room as Tiger's ninja army arrives at the crater. A fierce battle erupts. Bond and Tiger's men eventually gain the upper hand in battle. Bond finds a way into the control room through Blofeld's private quarters. There Bond battles briefly with Hans until the henchman is thrown into his boss' pool of piranha. Bond reaches the control room and struggles briefly with the detonator for Blofeld's spacecraft until he is able to destroy the craft. Relieved, the POTUS calls off the nuclear run. Blofeld himself escapes after killing Osato and triggers a self-destruct device that cause the volcano to erupt. Tiger, Bond, Kissy and the ninja army escape into the sea.Bond and Kissy find a life raft waiting nearby and board it. Bond asks Kissy if it's OK to take their "honeymoon" now and she agrees. As they kiss, a British sub surfaces underneath them and the raft is caught on the fore section of the sub. Inside, M orders Moneypenny to tell Bond to report.

Tags: cult, psychedelic, murder, violence

Review:
"You Live Only Twice" we see Bond travel to the land of the rising sun (Japan) in what is quite an expansive concept (dazzling set-designs with spectacular non-stop action) and very well-budgeted effort that lingers on a extremely comic-book-like tone (thanks largely to Roald Dahl's industriously well-guided screenplay that plays its cards close to the chest) with its characters, atmospherics and set-pieces that for me would make it one of the most creative and exciting inclusions to the series.Bond heads to Japan racing to uncover the true mastermind behind the space-jacking that could see another world war, as British sources believe that the mysterious rocket ship which has seized American and Russian space shuttles originates from there, but those countries believe otherwise than each other for the acts.Couple of things which made it more the memorable would be that it's the first chance we get to see arch villain SPECTRE Agent #1 Ernst Blofeld's face, than just the hand stroking the cat although the first hour we get enough of that.
Sean Connery might look a little tired (a bit funny trying to make himself look like Japanese under make-up), but remains just as charismatic and fittingly lean when it came to getting down and dirty (Bond and his tussle with Blofeld's massive henchman Hans comes to mind).
It's the last program you're likely to see.Ken Adam's set design is fit to grace any epic in film history, as is Freddie Young's photography around the Japanese locales, Barry lays a beautiful Bond/Oriental score all over proceedings and Nancy Sinatra's title song is appealingly catchy.
Twice is a beautiful looking and sounding addition to the Bond movies, and one is glad Sean Connery didn't really resign from the role of Bond and did indeed Live Twice.By jettisoning most of Ian Flemmings original story You Only Live Twice, in wich an amnesiac Bond Hunts down Blofeld in Japanese castles, Broccoli and Saltzman have ridden themselves of the same problem evident in Thunderball : Slow Movement, Uninterested Audiences.
The utterly cool sequences of space capsules being swallowed – literally – by bigger and monstrous rockets, the fantastic villainous headquarters hidden inside an inactive volcano, the exciting scenes at the ninja training camp, the cool aerial battle between 007 in his silly little yellow toy-airplane versus various heavily armed black helicopters, the pet piranhas, and – most of all – the portrayal of the ultimate evil mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld by the inimitable Donald Pleasance.
Now, 25 years and yet another 8 new Bond installments later, I can still shamelessly admit that "You Only Live Twice" still stands as my personal favorite Bond movie and – even though Sir Sean Connery will probably disagree with me – it's undeniably the most entertaining one of the entire series.
The plot of "You Only Live Twice" is easily summarized Criminal organization S.P.E.C.T.R.E, led by the scar-faced and cat-loving psychopath Blofeld, is well on track to evoke a third World War by alternately abducting a US and then a Soviet space capsule from within a secret base camp on a Japanese volcanic island, and then counting on the fact that these two stubborn world powers will blame each other.
"You only live Twice" is another fast- paced and spectacular Bond-adventure with beautiful exotic filming locations, lots of pleasant hi-tech gadgetry (cigarette gunfire, anyone?) and plenty of action.
As a production designer he made the right backdrops for the story and made several elements of the movie work out surprising well, such as mainly all of the sequences in the hollowed-out volcano.Also the musical score by John Barry and the cinematography by Freddie Young are worth mentioning.Sean Connery is good and fun as always as James Bond and he still showed good form in this movie.
He plays the best Blofeld out of the long series of Bond movies, along with Telly Savalas who played the villainous character in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".This is a fantastic fast paced, action filled movie, that has some spectacular and unforgettable sequences in it, especially toward the ending.
Solid entry in the James Bond saga – Sean Connery's fifth appearance as the secret agent in a row (his last, in fact, until DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER [1971] and, eventually, the non-series entry NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN [1983]) – featuring a lovely title tune by John Barry and Leslie Bricusse sung by Nancy Sinatra.The relocation to Japan for the main action (resulting in impeccable photography courtesy of the renowned Freddie Young, who also contributes an inspired aerial shot of our hero at the center of a rooftop chase/struggle) adds much-needed novelty in the exotic department – though characters tend to be less well developed as a consequence.
Similar expansiveness was shown in Ken Adam's elaborate design of Ernst Stavro Blofeld's headquarters, hidden within the crater of a Japanese volcano; other attention-grabbing devices include Bond being 'killed' in the prologue (thus explaining the title), while he's later given an Oriental 'countenance' and even made to 'marry' a Japanese girl (an irrelevant undercover attempt, as it happens – since there is very little interaction between Bond, his local allies and the enemy before the final confrontation in the volcano interior)!Its plot involving the abduction of space shuttles belonging to the U.S. and Russia, in the hope of provoking a war between the major powers, again plays on the fears of nuclear annihilation palpable during the Cold War era.
(Credit IMDb) 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.This is the first of the movies that involve Blofeld as the main villain, and probably my favorite.
You only Live Twice contains exacly what Bond Fans expect: A Fast-Paced Plot, Great Action Sequences, Beautiful Girls, and some Nice Locations.
I loved the gadgets and sets in this which in the story make it great to look at also.Sean Connery maybe falls slightly from his first four roles and this is far from his or the series best, but Connery still manages to churn out an entertaining Bond and with all the kind of crazy things in the plot he deals with it well.
I said before about the sets because in this film you see them more than any other film and Ken Adam does a fine job especially with the Volcano scene(you will see what I mean), he just masterfully makes these little sets without having to use special effects used in modern cinema.The main problem with this film is that it is very dull and very little happens in the middle and towards the end, with Bond doing his spy stuff right it is fair to say, although he also never engages the audience and watching him mull around with his Japanese friends affects the plot intensely.
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, follow-up to the most successful 007 film of the franchise, THUNDERBALL, was the end result of Eon Productions' decision to take advantage of Japan's nearly fanatical love of 'James Bond', and desire to bring him to their country for the next 007 adventure.
Although ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE, to be shot primarily in Switzerland, had been planned, the Japanese offer was too good to pass up, so Sean Connery, instead of appearing in the most ambitious and dramatic Bond story ever made, would make his first 'farewell' appearance in the weakest, most far-fetched 007 story, yet.Ian Fleming's novel, written as his health was failing (only one more Bond novel would appear, THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN, published posthumously), was more introspective than his previous works, with Bond facing a mental breakdown, his apparent death, and fatherhood for the first time, and would have been nearly impossible to film.
Dahl's 'take', while providing lovely views of Japanese culture and folklore, science fiction elements, and a huge climactic battle, revealed an embarrassingly obvious lack of knowledge of 007 lore (at one point, the Japanese Secret Service, supposedly fluent of all of Bond's habits, brings him a martini "stirred, not shaken"), and one sequence, in which the hirsute, 6'2" Connery is 'disguised' to pass as Japanese, so outrageous that it appears nearly campy.As the film's villain, Ernst Stavro Blofeld would make his first fully visible appearance (his hands, caressing a Persian cat, had appeared in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE and THUNDERBALL), and 62-year old Czech actor Jan Werich was cast in the role; when illness forced him to bow out, veteran character actor Donald Pleasence was called in, but even shaving his head couldn't make Pleasence look 'formidable', so a long scar was added, creating a "broken egg" look...and the short actor, dressed in a Nehru jacket, still looked silly (a fact not lost on Mike Myers, when creating 'Dr. Evil' for AUSTIN POWERS).
When he shouts, "Kill...Bond!", you nearly expect a henchman to shout back, "Kill him yourself, shorty!"  There ARE beautiful elements in the film; Ken Adams' Volcano set, the biggest standing set ever constructed, to that point, is astounding, and the climactic Japanese assault on it ranks as one of the greatest action scenes, ever; Charles Gray (later to play Blofeld, in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER), has a nice role as a doomed Bond ally; the dock chase, as Bond is pursued by ever-growing numbers of Japanese thugs, is remarkable; and John Barry's haunting score, with Nancy Sinatra's rendition of the theme song, ranks as one of his best.
But campiness is all too evident, as well, in 'Little Nellie', the toy-like mini-helicopter that takes on Blofeld's private air force; in the patently artificial-looking space scenes; and in a bizarre sequence, as a carload of bad guys are lifted off a highway by a giant magnet, and dumped into the bay (guess an interrogation wasn't planned).For Sean Connery, who looked tired and out of shape, the filming was a most unpleasant experience, hounded 24 hours a day by the Japanese press, and referred to as 'James Bond' rather than his own name at official functions.
Although there was a threat of WWIII, there was no real sense of danger or excitement, or urgency, in the story.Indeed, the screenstory has only a ghost of the plot of Ian Fleming's novel intact, (the Japanese setting, some of the characters, the oubliette, the Nightingale floors) and the film, after a good first half, devolves into a kiddie movie, riddled with continuity and simple logic errors, amazing coincidences, and more gadgets than a toy store.Ken Adams' much lauded set design looks, to me, like little more than a pre-fab warehouse.Connery does well, despite clearly being bored with the more juvenile screenstory than previous dealt with in a Bond film.
When sent to Japan to investigate a mysterious spacecraft hijacking, Bond involves in an exciting adventure going after an ambitious Japanese industrialist, who's ultimately linked to SPECTRE.Many argue Roald Dahl's screenplay places too much emphasis on fantasy, turning Bond movies traditional tone into a series of endless action sequences and incredible gadgets (the following films have been very prone to such diversions).
However there are some scenes which remain quite faithful to the original (Bond's incursion into Osato Chemical headquarters, including a breath-taking fight with a Yakuza hit man).So let's not complain about the (terrific) volcano set, Little Nellie chase, the piranha pond or Donald Pleasance's outstanding performance as the deliciously evil, unforgettable Bond villain Ernst Stavro Bloefeld (I will always associate his image with the white Persian cat to Bond movies) Add to this a luscious Karin Dor("why a nice girl like you works here?") as N11 and Aki, and what do you get?
I guess now that I think about it, I can't say that I liked this film better than "Goldfinger" or "Thunderball", but I probably liked it the same.Sean Connery of course plays the perfect James Bond, always good to see him in the role.
You Only Live twice was Sean Connery's fifth Bond movie and is one of my favourites.In this one, James Bond is sent to Japan to investigate the disappearances of American and Russian spacecraft.
The usual ending where Bond and his lover are snogging.The best parts of the movie are Bond's mini helicopter Little Nellie, the impressive volcano base and Blofeld himself.Joining Sean Connery in the cast are Akiko Wakabayashi as his lover, an excellent performance from Donald Pleasence as Blofeld (in my opinion, the best actor to play this role), future Blofeld Charles Gray and Bond regulars Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn and Lois Maxwell.This movie is a must see for Bond fans like myself.
Decent special effects and a solid plot make this the second best Sean Connery James Bond movie, lagging only behind From Russia, with Love.
No wonder the franchise got goofy in the 70s -- it was the only logical place to go.Disregarding the "Yeah, right" spy shenanigans, "You Only Live Twice" has everything you'd want in a Bond picture -- the action, intrigue, gadgets, beautiful women, spectacular locations and larger-than-life villains.
That and the Space Race stuff makes this one of the least timeless "Bond" films.One of the other highlights of "You Only Live Twice" is the reveal of No. 1 himself, Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasance).
It is entertaining and certainly a good Bond movie.Besides Connery, it also features Akiko Wakabayashi, one of the first Asian Bond girls, and Mie Hama, the first Asian to appear in Playboy.The action primarily takes place all around Japan and in Spain.
I don't blame Sean Connery with growing weary of the James Bond series, by the time "You Only Live Twice" was released they had done five movies in five years!
While a great many of the situations of this film are highly unlikely  particularly those that deal with Blofeld's lair as well as his seemingly infinite power  You Only Live Twice is still one of the more interesting Bond films and, of course, it does star Sean Connery, who is by far the best Bond.
Fifth film in the series has Sean Connery returning once more as James Bond "007", this time investigating the mysterious disappearance of an American spacecraft that was apparently swallowed up by a bigger Russian craft, which threatens to bring World War III if this situation isn't rectified.
Bond goes to Tokyo and allies with the head of Japanese Secret Service, Tiger Tanaka, in an attempt to find abducted space capsules, before cold war turns into a heated one.While the previous Bond films had tried to keep things still believable to certain point, this is the movie that finally asks its audience to not think too logically.
With the help of Tiger Tanaka (head of Japanese Special Forces), his army of modern ninjas, and the beautiful Aki, Bond is set to take down this sinister plot.Of course this time SPECTRE isn't holding any punches, for their faceless leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, is in Japan personally overseeing this operation (a great performance by Donald Pleasance).
It seems as though this film has been neglected over the years--in lieu of earlier films like "Thunderball" and "Goldfinger." "You Only Live Twice" is much better, in my opinion, than "From Russia With Love" which drags for a fairly significant period.First off, the opening song is absolutely one of the best Bond songs ever--right up there with "Goldfinger," "Diamonds Are Forever," and "Nobody Does it Better." Second, the opening scene is awesome, as we are lead into thinking that 007 is dead.Thirdly, this film has the distinction of--at least facially---introducing Ernst Stavlo Blofeld.
Being one of the most recognizable fictional characters in cinema history, Agent 007 holds a special place in my heart, for I parodied him in a college skit; fun times, and it was voted the best skit in the class.Here, Bond (Sean Connery) teams up with the Japanese Secret Service and their ninja force to find and stop the culprit behind a series of space-jackings before nuclear war is provoked.
After the first three truly excellent Bond films (Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Goldfinger) the series slipped a notch with Thunderball and a major notch with You only Live Twice.Space capsules are mysteriously gobbled up, giving the series something to steal in the mostly silly The Spy Who Loved me a decade or so later.The movie's attempts to pay homage to plot points in the book turn out silly ...
The Bond films were never realistic,and You Only Live Twice is the culmination of the way the series was developing.The plot is extremely silly,and fails to explain things such as how the villains managed to hollow out a volcano with nobody noticing.But this is exactly what makes it almost the perfect Bond story.
Sean Connery shows one of his hottest 007 performances, and the rest of the cast like Donald Pleasence's Blofeld, Tetsuro Tamba as Tiger Tanaka and Germany's Karin Dor as dominatrix Helga Brandt is also outstanding.The plot itself drifts a bit too much towards b-movie science fiction - a development which increased in the following movies until the Star Wars' influenced space age adventure "Moonraker" in 1979, before the whole series switched back to more serious cold war and political/economical thriller plots with "For Your Eyes Only" in 1981.All in all, "You Only Live Twice" is a classic James Bond adventure with a great scene where Kissy Suziki climbs up a volcano just dressed in slip and bra.
The movie has some really entertaining scenes as Bond goes through Japan to solve the case which leads him to an island and a volcano base and Blofeld the mysterious leader of SPECTRE played superbly here by Donald Pleasence.
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE is the one in Japan with the sumo wrestling, the ninjas, the rocket base hidden in a volcano, the burial at sea, the "Little Nellie" whirlybird, the piranha tank, and the proper introduction of Bond's arch-nemesis, S.P.E.C.T.R.E. head Ernst Stavro Blofeld.The film is the last in Sean Connery's original run as 007 (although he'd come back once more after skipping the next movie) and is the fifth film in the series.