You Only Live Twice

“You Only Live Twice” is another fun, exciting James Bond 1967 mission even if it’s the first of the original five Bond flicks that doesn’t have the same spark as the others.

The film starts off with a nicely done opening scene where a U.S. space capsule is stolen, furthering the fight between the Russians and the U.S., who threaten the Cold War if their space-performing missions continue to be disturbed.

After Nancy Sinatra’s nice opening son, M assigns James Bond to Japan where MI6 believes he’ll find clues to the real threat behind the missing capsule. Partnering with his Japanese colleague, “Tiger” Tanaka, played by Tesuro Tanba, soon finds out the truth behind the stolen space capsule, but he’s in a race against time if he’s to stop the Cold War between the two countries.

While Tanaka makes a perfect addition in the Bond stories, this film’s Bond girls are a little underwhelming.

Enchantress Helga Brandt (Karin Dor) doesn’t make a major impact and sidekicks Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) and Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama) are identical.

Jeffrey Lyles stated in his review, “The voice dubbing is a bit jarring in this outing and resembles one of those Kung-Fu Theatre films for how suspect the dubbed in voice matches the actor’s performance.”

For the fifth time reprising the role of 007, Sean Connery may seem like he has gotten tired of the character and his performance doesn’t have the same shine as the previous films. Despite that, it’s Connery playing Bond so he can’t fail at the role.

This is the first time we completely see Ernst Stavro Blofeld, played by the late Donald Pleasance, the evil genius behind SPECTRE, the organization that has been chasing Bond since “Dr. No.” Pleasance is enjoyably evil and he makes the complete reveal of Blofeld worth the buildup.

Director Lewis Gilbert gets the Bond formula completely right, but has some pacing issues, mainly with the fight scenes that would have been better with tighter editing. For a film made in 1967, the effects are nice even if the technology wasn’t at the level needed to make them as perfect as he thought.

Lyles stated, “For its first half, “YOLT” rolls along as smoothly as the previous films in the series, but it stumbles in the second half thanks to a number of ill-advised and confusing plot decisions.”

The main thing is easily the difficult plan to have Bond fight with a ninja team to break into Blofeld’s lair. Lyles mentioned, “Bond + ninjas is a money combination, but screenwriter Roald Dahl mucks up that fun by having Bond “become Japanese” (getting false eyebrows and a hairpiece), undergo ninja training (in two short days) and staging a marriage to allow him entry into the fishing village near the hideout.”

Was there a reason why 007 couldn’t just get his new ninja team to help him sneakily enter the lair without all this trouble?

Despite these little nitpicks, there’s still a lot to like here. Having the film take place in Japan gives some beautiful images and gives a welcome culture shift for Bond, who for the only time in the franchise, never drives a car. Gilbert has some fun views of the action, including an engaging rooftop fight scene. Jon Barry’s amazing score is an easy highlight as are the excellent performances from Pleasance and Tanba.

“You Only Live Twice” may be a weaker Bond film to star Connery, but it’s still one of the series’ films that you should not skip. The reason why: Connery doesn’t fail in impressing his fans with his amazing memorable role of his entire career. Definitely give this one a watch because you will fall in love with it.

Check in tomorrow for an installment that isn’t really so good in “James Bond Month.”