On ne vit que deux fois

This one is a triumph for Ken Adam's sets. The volcano base is the most memorable feature of the film. Oh, the story is fun and the gadgets are cool, but those sets really sell the film. They would inspire countless imitations and variations throughout the years.

Finally, we get to see Bloefeld, and it's a bit of a letdown. Donald Pleasance is a fine actor, but he's not quite supervillain material; more of the serial killer variety, in the mold of Peter Lorre. Still, he is by far the superior on-screen version.

The Japanese cast are all outstanding. Special mention should be made of Peter Maivia, grandfather of Dwayne Johson, aka The Rock. He and the stuntmen create a brutal fight scene, second only to the train fight in FRWL, although this is perhaps more inventive.

As for gadgets, outside of the jetpack from Thundrball and Goldfinger's Aston Martin, Little Nellie is the coolest ride. The aerial scenes are spectacular and are one of the highpoints of the whole series.

This film really marks the end of the ultra-cool Bond films. After this, they tend to go down in quality, taken as a whole. Some have better stories and villains, some have better stunts, but they are never the complete package that the earlier films were. Still, this one (along with Goldfinger and Thunderball) would inspire every spy work that would follow; from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. to Our Man Flint, Marvel Comics' Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.e.L.D., to the X-Men. Everyone stole an idea from here.

An American spacecraft in outer space has been swallowed up by an unidentified flying object. The Americans blame the Soviets. The Soviets deny the allegation. In the meantime, "James Bond" (Sean Connery) is set up by an attractive Chinese woman named "Ling" (Tsai Chin) and is murdered. Or at least that's what MI5 wants the world to think. From the information they have been able to gather the unidentified flying object has touched down somewhere near Japan and that is where James Bond is sent to investigate. But he only has a short time because the Americans are planning on launching another rocket and have warned the Soviets that they will declare war if anything happens to this one. At any rate, rather than go into great detail on what happens next and risk spoiling the film for those who haven't seen it, I will just say that this film probably doesn't receive as much attention as some of the others in the James Bond series. Personally, I enjoyed the location, the music and the way Mie Hama ("Kissy") looked in her white swimsuit. Be that as it may, while it may not be the best James Bond film ever produced, it manages to entertain fairly well and I have rated it accordingly.

You Only Live Twice is directed by Lewis Gilbert and written by Roald Dahl. It stars Sean Connery, Tetsuro Tamba, Teru Shimada, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Karin Dor and Donald Pleasence. Music is scored by John Barry and cinematography by Freddie Young.

Bond 5 and Connery once again tackles the role of 007. With American and Soviet space craft mysteriously vanishing from space, both nations are laying the blame at the other's door. Sensing a nuclear war could break out, M assigns Bond to Japan to investigate if there might be a third party stirring the hornets nest. Teaming up with the Japanese secret service, Bond uncovers evidence that SPECTRE is behind the plot to pitch the East and the West against each other.

This organisation does not tolerate failure.

Thunderball had broke box office records for Bond, gadgetry, outlandish stunts and a quip on the tongue had proved most profitable. It was planned originally that On Her Majesty's Secret Service would be number 5 in the series, but a change of tack to go for You Only Live Twice as the story gave producers Broccoli & Saltzman the scope for a giganticus enormous production. However, it may be set in Japan and feature a Bond/Blofeld conflict, but Roald Dahl's script bares little resemblance to Ian Fleming's source novel. Although a massive financial success with a Worldwide gross of over $111 million, Bond 5 took $30 million less than Thunderball. Strange since this is a better film. Can we attribute the drop to it being a space age saga? Maybe, the rebirth of sci-fi was a few years away, and of course Bond had lost some fans who had grown tired, like Connery, of 007 relying on gadgets instead of brains and brawn to complete his missions. There was also the rival Casino Royale production, as bad as it was, to contend with, while the spy boom created by Bond had been overkilled elsewhere and was on the wane.

Extortion is my business. Go away and think it over, gentlemen. I'm busy.

True enough that You Only Live Twice has flaws, though they are far from being film killers if you like the gadgets and hi-techery side of the franchise? Connery announced once production was over that he was leaving the role of Bond behind. He had been close to breaking point after Thunderball, but finally the media circus, typecasting, the fanaticism and the character merely being a cypher for outrageous sequences, led Connery to finally call it a day. His displeasure shows in performance, oh it's professional, very much so, but the swagger and machismo from the earlier films has gone. Although Dahl's script tones down the "cheese" dialogue and unfolds as a plot of considerable World peril worth, characterisations are thinly drawn, making this reliant on production value and action sequences. Thankfully both are top dollar. And the ace up its sleeve is the long awaited face to face meeting of Bond and Blofeld.

The firing power inside my crater is enough to annihilate a small army. You can watch it all on TV. 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. The action is excellently constructed by Gilbert (helming the first of three Bond movies on his CV), with the final battle at Blofeld's volcano crater base full of explosions, flying stunt men, expert choreography and meaty fights. Along the way we have been treated to Ninjas, Piranhas, poison, aeroplane peril and the awesome Little Nellie versus the big boy copter smack down! Then there's that Bond/Blofeld confrontation. Well worth the wait, with Pleasence visually scary with bald head (setting the marker for bald villainy to follow in TV and cinema it seems) and scar across his eye. Pleasence is also very low key with his menace, which is perfect, we don't want pantomime and the scenes with Bond work wonderfully well.

It made less than the film before it and it has fierce critics in Bond and Fleming circles. But it's a Bond film that pays rich rewards on revisits, where the artistry on show really shines through in this HD/Upscale age. 8/10

This particular 007 entry (which was intended to be Sean Connery's last before he would agreed to return one more time for his sixth shot as 006 in 'Diamonds are Forever (1971)' and lets not the forget the unofficial 'Never Say Never Again' in 1983) was the first Bond film I encountered and from that it has always remained a total favourite. "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. It's a devilishly meaty Donald Pleasence who just seemed the part of Blofeld. Now who didn't love the hidden lair that was in an inactive volcano, and of course Blofeld's pool of pet piranhas. The inventive gadget novelty was really making a mark, just look the deadly mini-copter named 'Nelly' and the dangerous effects of smoking around others. Strangely enough the (witty) script seemed to spit out a few self-knowing quips involving cigarettes, which became rather odd. Director Lewis Gilbert (who would go on to control the very similar in story-structure "The Spy Who Loved Me" and then following that the plain goofy "Moonraker") does a tersely capable job with a fast moving pace that shifted from one well organized set-piece to another (like the chase on-top of a rooftop in a fishing docks that's masterfully captured by cinematographer Freddie Young) to finally finish on a barnstorming climax (with none other than ninjas) and then a familiarly fitting final frame. 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). The bond girls shape up nicely in the form of Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama and the stunning German redhead Karin Dor. Tetsurô Tanba was good as Bond's Japanese counterpart. Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn treat us to their iconic roles. John Barry's classy music score has a smoothly oriental touch, which can get actively copious when called for and theme song "You Only Live Twice" is enticingly sung by Nancy Sinatra.

This was the fifth in the Bond series, released in 1967. Producer Albert `Cubby' Broccoli had quite a challenge on his hands outdoing the runaway success of `Thunderball'. He undertook to surpass it by increasing the budget, trying more elaborate gadgets and stunts (an ultralight heavily armed one man helicopter being chased by 4 other helicopters), gargantuan sets (a launch pad inside a volcano) and exotic locations (Japan). At almost $10 million (that's about $50 million in today's dollars), this was one of the highest budgeted films at that time. The launch pad set alone cost over $1 million to build. Despite great box office results, ($110 Million worldwide in 1967 dollars) it fell short of Cubby's ambitions to exceed `Thunderball' financially ($140 Million worldwide) and it proved to be lackluster among the early Bond films.

Although having established himself as a pop icon in his 007 roles, Sean Connery was tired of being James Bond. Before the release of this film, he announced his intention to retire from the role. His lack of enthusiasm was evident throughout the film and his onscreen demeanor lacked verve. He didn't even show much interest in the love scenes, looking more bored than passionate. The critics declared that this would be the end of his career and the end of James Bond films, probably the worst twin predictions in the history of film. As it turns out, Connery returned to the role twice more in 1971 (Diamonds Are Forever) and 1983 (Never Say Never Again).

I have a great deal of respect for Sean Connery, indeed he is one of my favorite actors. His Bond films set a standard that was never equaled by any of the actors that followed. However, his performance in this film displayed so much ennui that it bordered on unprofessional.

This film had all the elements necessary to make it one of the better Bond films. It finally gave a face to Blofeld, and though the choice of Donald Pleasence was roundly criticized, I liked him in the role. The story was intriguing. Astronauts and their spacecraft were being abducted by a rogue predator ship that was gobbling them up whole. Bond was dispatched to find out who was behind the plot. The screenplay written by Roald Dahl was full of clever double entendres like Aki's (Akiko Wakabayashi) great line just as Bond swept her into his arms, `I think I will enjoy very much serving under you.' It had majestic locations and great photography. However, the elements didn't gel, mostly because of Connery's Bond fatigue.

Overall, this was a good Bond film, although it could have been much better but for Connery's malaise. Still, the story was stronger than contemporary Bond films, which have resorted to nonstop action and visual effects with flimsy scripts. I rated it a 7/10. If you want to see Connery at his best, see `Goldfinger' or `From Russia With Love'.