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Film Dossier: You Only Live Twice

By David Pegram

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Title Card:

 Production:

  • Released: 1967
  • Director: Lewis Gilbert
  • Screenplay: Roald Dahl
  • Music: John Barry

Theme Song:

  • “You Only Live Twice” performed by Nancy Sinatra

Villain:

  • Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence)

Evil Plot:

From a secret hideout in Japan, Blofeld steals U.S. and Soviet spacecraft while in orbit, in an attempt to provoke the two countries into nuclear war.

Locations:

  • Hong Kong
  • Tokyo

Bond Girls:

  • Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi)
  • Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama)

Supporting Cast:

  • Tiger Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba)
  • Osato (Teru Shimada)
  • M (Bernard Lee)
  • Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell)
  • Q (Desmond Llewelyn)
  • Helga Brandt (Karin Dor)
  • Henderson (Charles Gray)

Notable Moments:

  • In the pre-title sequence, Bond is presumably killed in the bed of a female Chinese double agent. Turns out, his death is faked in order for him to continue his mission, undetected.
  • Bond’s meeting with Henderson is cut short when Henderson takes a knife in the back. Bond kills and poses as the assassin, and he is taken to the Osato headquarters. There Bond fights one of Osato’s securty guards before stealing papers from safe.
  • Bond chases Aki into the subway entrance, leading to a trap door. Bond falls down as slide that leads to the office of Tiger Tanaka.
  • Bond and Aki fight off dozens of seamen on board the Ning Po, docked in Tokyo Bay. Bond is eventually captured and taken to Helga Brandt, who attempts (and fails)  to kill Bond by leaving him tied up in an unmanned airplane.
  • Bond flies “Little Nellie” to get pictures of the mountains, in an attempt to find SPECTRE’s hidden base.
  • Under the director of Tanaka, Bond goes undercover as a ninja in training. At the training camp, Aki is accidentally killed when she ingests poison meant for Bond.
  • With the assistance of his staged “wife,” Kissy, Bond finds that SPECTRE’s lair is in a hollowed-out volcano, with a retractable roof.
  • Tanaka’s ninjas arrive to help Bond defeat Blofeld and SPECTRE. The lair explodes, causing the volcano to erupt. Bond, Kissy, and Tanaka’s men escape through a tunnel that leads to the ocean.

Clip:

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