You Only Live Twice

Actor: Sean Connery
US Release Date: 13 June 1967
US gross, $ [adjusted]:43,084,787 [208,139,067]
Worldwide gross, $ [adjusted]: 111,600,000 [539,130,434]
World Premier - 9th December 1965 at Hibiya Cinema, Tokyo, Japan
Locations: Hong Kong, Japan.

Source for above info: The " mother " of all James Bond books - James Bond: The Legacy.

Happenstance
   

You Only Live Twice


You Only Live Twice
Buy This Poster At AllPosters.com

The teaser starts with a shot of a NASA spacecraft being gobbled up by a UFO. That's what happens when you go when no man has gone before. Immediately, a world summit with the Mega Powers is called with accusations traded about. Just when you think that this is another mission for our suave secret agent, we see Bond lolling about with an Oriental Babe.
Bond: Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?
Chinese girl: You think we better, ha??
Bond: No, just different. The way Peking duck is different from Russian caviar, but I love them both!!
His lolling about is abruptly cut short when he is shot at indiscriminately and later his mortal remains are laid to rest at a sea burial. Japanese umbrellas burst out of 007's spilt blood, and Nancy Sinatra sings the Bond song over shots of geishas and volcanoes.

Info taken from " MR. KISS KISS BANG BANG! ", the Granddaddy of all James Bond websites.

Coincidence
      

But for the worried audience (read: people who have not seen the earlier four Bond films and don't know that Bond is indestructible) it is revealed that the entire killing was a fake to throw SPECTRE off the track. Bond reaches M's office (this time located on a submarine) to report about his death.
Bond: Hello Penny!
Moneypenny: You'd better go right in. You're late as usual, even from your own funeral.
Bond: Well, we corpses have absolutely no sense of time!!

And we come face to face (literally as in the earlier films we saw his hands and the pussy) with the criminal mastermind of the millennium, Ernst Stavro Blofeld,played exceptionally well by Donald Pleasence. The Blofeld character was parodied to the hilt in the Austin Powers series as Dr. Evil. The world's only hope is James Bond, who races to Japan to stop the space-jackings and to stop Blofeld. In Japan, our secret agent is lured into the Japanese secret service headquarters (located in a train) by a Japanese beauty Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi). Later Aki and Bond driving a Toyota 2000GT convertible are chased by (yes, you guessed right) SPECTRE Japanese Branch goons. From a radio in their Toyota, Aki and James call in the electro-magnet-equipped, tandem rotor helicopter to do away with the tailgating bad guys. The Boeing KV-107II has no trouble lifting the villains' black sedan hundreds of feet into the air before dunking it in the Sea of Japan. Now it is time for Bond to know Ms. Aki a little better.
Tanaka: I suppose you know what it is about you that fascinates them.... it's the hair on your chest. Japanese men have only beautiful bare skin.
Bond: Japanese proverb say: "bird never make nest in bare tree.....".
Later the SPECTRE Japanese Branch goons abduct Bond after a long terrifically choreographed chase on the docks. Bond meets Japanese tycoon(and SPECTRE agent) Osato's comely secretary Helga, the second beautiful female chopper pilot in the series (after Pussy Galore) and she also meets with the same fate as Ms. Galore ,in the arms of the super spy. But like Ms. Galore she does not have a strong lifeline and hence she turns into fish food for Blofeld's pet piranhas.

Enemy Action
         

Bond returns back to safety and meets Q who has brought for him the the most famous helicopter in the entire Bond series, "Little Nellie". Q's refinements make Little Nellie a formidable adversary.
Q: "Right. Now pay attention; twin forward-facing machine guns, rocket launchers, rear-firing flame throwers, aerial mines, and heat-seeking missiles."
With these refinements, Blofeld's four black Kawasaki/Bell 47G-3's sent to shoot her down don't stand a chance. Here we are also introduced to the Mother of all Gizmos, Blofeld's massive headquarters nestled in an inactive volcano. A similar gizmo was used in Goldeneye , with Alec's headquarters deep under a lake. After dispatching off the helicopters Bond returns for some Ninja training at Tiger Tanaka's training school. Here unfortunately, Aki meets an untimely end when a ninja assassin misses Bond and kills Aki instead.

Training and grieving over, Bond takes on a disguise as a Japanese fisherman (worse than his hairjob on Never say never again ) and lands on Blofeld's island to search for SPECTRE's hidden rocket launching base. As a cover he has to marry Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama), a Japanese girl who makes her living diving for shells, and working for the secret service.
Bond: We're supposed to be on honeymoon..
Kissy: Think again, please. This is business.
Later, Bond climbs into the volcano and is just about to board the rocket used for abducting spacecrafts when Blofeld apprehends him.
Blofeld: James Bond. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ernst Stavro Blofeld. They told me you were assassinated in Hong Kong.
Bond: Yes, this is my second life.
Blofeld: You only live twice, Mr. Bond.
Finally, Tiger and his Ninjas lead an assault on the hidden headquarters and Bond succeeds in destroying the base (with the help of some missile launching cigarettes), not before Blofeld escapes and the volcano erupts. And finally as a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, Bond tries out the latest Japanese model on a lifeboat after escaping the volcano.

The movie, though not a mega success like Thunderball was still a huge hit, propagating the Bond mania further. For once, Sean Connery decided not to return as James Bond and hence the producers fixed on George Lazenby to play James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service , a movie whose fortunes brought the Scottish actor back for movie number seven as Bond.

Back to top Back to top

yolt_01.jpg yolt_03.jpg yolt_f.jpg

Best viewed (rather, JavaScript effects ONLY viewed) with MS Internet Explorer, versions 4 and up.
Mandar Salunkhe is not associated with EON Productions, Danjaq LLC, MGM/UA or any of the creators of the James Bond films. 
James Bond copyrights held by respective owners.
Before calling up your lawyers, for suing me for Copyright infringement, please check out  why  I build this site.