Year Released: 1967
Movie Rating: ** (2 stars of four)
Movie Notes -
You Only Live Twice begins with the hijacking of a U.S. space capsule in space. Then the scene cuts to James Bond and some Chinese girl in a Hong Kong hotel. The girl gets up and goes to the wall and pushes a button that flings the bed James is lying on back into the wall. She opens up the door and two men wielding machine guns spray the bed with a barrage of gunfire. The authorities come and find Bond in a pool of blood. "...we're too late. At least he died on the job. He'd have wanted it this way." Then we see the opening credit sequence. I thought that this pre-title thriller was excellent because it leaves the audience hanging and thinking, "what is going on here?" As it turns out, Bond's death was faked to coerce his enemies into thinking he's dead and going ahead with business as usual. The title track by Nancy Sinatra is a catchy tune but not worthy of a top ten spot.
"M" informs 007 that a U.S. capsule was hijacked and that it could lead to a World War. Britain believes that the hijackers are landing back to earth somewhere in Japan; not Russia as thought by the United States. Bond goes to Japan to meet a connection named Henderson (Diamonds are Forever's Charles Gray). He gets there and while they are talking about the situation, Henderson is killed from a stab wound inflicted through the wall by an assassin. Bond crashes through the window , chases the man, and kills him. He sees a getaway car waiting and decides to pose as the assassin to find out where the syndicate is headquartered. It leads to Osato Chemicals where Bond and a huge sumo-type Japanese man engage in a rough battle in Osato's office. Bond gets the better of him and takes a sip of Siamese vodka (which he dosen't enjoy too much). This is actually one of the high points in the film. I love this scene with Henderson and the fight in Osato's office. This is classic Bond at its best. Some of the moves during the battle are amazing!
James cracks Osato's safe and finds a chemical formula for rocket fuel which gets him suspicious that they may be the one's responsible for the hijackings. He escapes the building through a hail of gunfire and is rescued by Aki in the Toyota. The Toyota 2000GT is such a cool car. It is one of the better automobiles in the Bond film series. Next Bond meets Tiger Tanaka, the head of the Japanese secret service. Right here, is where the movie starts to drag a bit. Bond undergoes a Japanese transformation to appear incognito. Some action moments are injected into this procession like the ninja attack on 007 as he is training; the killing of Aki by a mysterious poison; and the poison gas in the cave Kissy and James are in. Nonetheless, it is still very watchable, but it is just not great material.
After years of missions, James Bond finally meets Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasance). Blofeld's plan was to have Russia and the United States believe that one another was capturing their space crafts and start a war. However, Bond prevents this by destroying the hijacking space capsule seconds before it captures another U.S. craft. The hijackers explode in space and WWIII is barely averted. One of my favorite lines here at the climax comes when Blofeld sits in one of his electric railroad carts and proclaims, "Goodbye, Mr. Bond!" 007 is saved when Tiger chucks a chinese star into Blofeld's wrist and forcing him to drop his pistol. I think this line sounds very sinister and very cold. It is a great piece of work by Pleasance. Blofeld escapes minutes before the volcano hideout is destroyed and Bond climbs aboard a life raft with Kissy.
You Only Live Twice is difficult to rate for me becuase it is a film that you need to be in the mood to watch it. Sometimes I am, and sometimes I am not. When I am, it is a much funner film. At the current time, I rate it in the lower region because of various reasons. The movie moves too slowly during some parts; I didn't like the fact that James had to become Japanese, the scene with "Little Nellie" was not exciting, and some scenes looked far too artificial (i.e., volcano, space capsules, etc.). It is a good effort by EON productions but for a film that was supposedly Connery's last, Broccoli and Saltzman should have found a better way to take him out.
Overall Rating: C+
