You Only Live Twice (1967) | Welcome to Japan

After the success and "excitement" of Thunderball, Sean Connery was finally starting to get fatigued with the role, or maybe the filmmakers were getting fatigued with him... Regardless, You Only Live Twice was going to be Sean Connery's final film as the legendary spy at the time. Considering how massive the series had gotten by this point, it seemed only appropriate to make the movie bigger and better than ever before. At least, that was the intention. The sets are more extravagant. The villain is more over the top. The plot is more convoluted. And the budget is bigger than it has ever been. In fact, just the volcano set of You Only Live Twice cost the entirety of Dr No's budget. Despite the intentions to make this a dramatic sendoff for Connery, You Only Live Twice is perhaps one of the lesser-remembered 007 films to feature the actor.

That isn't to say that You Only Live Twice is bad. On the contrary, I think it has some strong positives going for it. It has some slightly ridiculous scenarios that make it fun. It's not bogged down by underwater action scenes, like Thunderball. The action is the best it's been so far. And it's got a good theme song, to name a few.

Pros

Good action scenes and car chase sequences
Fighting is better choreographed than in previous films; there's still flailing, but it doesn't look as bad
Cheesy chemistry between Bond and Blofeld
Cheesy setpieces of the evil lair serve as the inspiration for many evil lairs in movies and TV to spoof or copy
The theme song is pleasant and its orchestral rendition that plays frequently in the background is catchy
Better hairpiece than last time

Cons

Villainous plot is needlessly complicated
A fair amount of rough dubbing
One of the worst offenders when it comes to the villains capturing Bond and not killing him when they had the chance
Makeup to turn Bond "Japanese" looks like trash

Plot & Thoughts

Up until now, the intentions and plans of the villains in the James Bond movies have been pretty straightforward. Dr. No was about causing disruption in the space race with nuclear power and raising tensions with the superpowers. From Russia With Love was about tricking the agents of Britain to play against the Soviet Union, while also stealing a Russian decoder machine in the process. Goldfinger was just about "stealing" gold. Thunderball was about stealing nuclear weapons and holding the world hostage. You Only Live Twice can be summed up simply by saying it's about raising tensions between the USA and the USSR, but the methods in which they go about doing so seem ridiculously complicated.

Rather than simply using subterfuge and inserting double agents into their nations to cause chaos and sew enough dissent to make the superpowers even more suspicious of each other, the evil organization, S.P.E.C.T.R.E., has opted for something far more extravagant and expensive. It launches rockets into space capable of capturing the space capsules carrying astronauts of their respective countries, effectively abducting them under the guise of the opposing country. All this is done simply to raise tensions between the nations to the point of war. Sorry, but I think there are probably easier and less expensive methods of starting a war. It's a dumb, dumb premise that makes S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and its leader look stupid, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

The opening scene of You Only Live Twice has James Bond (Sean Connery) doing what he often does and lying in bed with a woman. Suddenly, the bed folds into the wall and some men bust in with machine guns and unload their ammo into it. The bed folds down and Bond is dead! Or is he? As the name of the movie suggests, he gets to live again because it was actually a means of faking his own death. Bond had become too recognizable to be able to perform missions as a double-o—it might have something to do with the fact that he would always introduce himself as James Bond, but no one mentions that. So, they fake his death and the opening credits start. This is probably my favorite credits sequence of the Connery films because it’s very colorful and has a pretty catchy theme song.

With Bond “dead” he resumes his hunt for S.P.E.C.T.R.E. and its leader after M gives him the details about the missing astronauts. They only have some basic intelligence suggesting that S.P.E.C.T.R.E. might be operating out of somewhere in Japan. Bond heads out and investigates the area, meets up with an informant, chases an assassin, infiltrates a corporate building, escapes death multiple times, and gets to see a fair amount of Tokyo's streets at night in the process. The first half of the movie has some decent sections involving Bond doing some spy work, while the latter portion gets more bombastic with the action. While I do really enjoy the espionage side of this movie, things really pick up when Bond finally comes face to face with the villain.

Speaking of which, this is the first Bond movie to give a face to the arch-nemesis running S.P.E.C.T.R.E.: Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Blofeld had remained unnamed and had only appeared as a looming evil in the previous films thus far. He's had a different actor and different hairstyle in every movie in which his silhouette appeared. Though Donald Pleasence provides some comically over-the-top menace and flair to the character with his dictatorial outfit, gnarly scar, and his unblinking, monotone delivery of lines—making him the clear inspiration for Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers films—Blofeld will continue to change actors and hairstyles in each film in which he appears until Christoph Waltz takes the role. Nonetheless, there is something classic and fun about Pleasence's Blofeld in You Only Live Twice. He's an intimidating menace with the least efficient villainous plot. He has multiple opportunities to just kill Bond and be done with him but chooses a much dumber option. There's even a point where he has a gun, points it at Bond, and then chooses to kill a henchman next to him, then waits until running out into the open where Bond's allies are to finally turn and point the gun at Bond, which of course gives him the opportunity to escape death once again. It's all a bit unbelievable, but it's fun. Goldfinger may have started a majority of the traditions of the Bond franchise, but You Only Live Twice pretty much cements them in place for decades to come.

For the most part. You Only Live Twice is fun and moves at a relatively brisk pace, which makes it easier to look past the more glaring flaws. The scenes in which Bond has to fight off an opponent are much better shot and choreographed than before, making the fights more tense and less ridiculous. The car chase sequence is a lot better than any that have come before it with much more time spent watching the cars maneuver the hazards of the road instead of watching the actors pantomime in front of a blue screen. It's still not anywhere near the best car chase of the franchise, but it's a step in the right direction, as the films that follow only get better at these sequences. Even the scenes in which Bond is trying to discover the lair of the villain and training for the impending assault with some ninjas are anything but dull, with a cool sequence involving a small helicopter chase and some martial arts choreography. When it all comes together for the climactic sequence in the volcano lair, it's a delightful spectacle of ninjas slaughtering henchmen and exploding model replicas.

TL;DR (Conclusion)

You Only Live Twice is not the best James Bond film of the 1960s, but it's far from the worst. It's got some flaws that are fun and some flaws that aren't. It's still a product of its era. It's not a spy movie you can really take seriously if you want to enjoy it. However, its pace is a vast improvement from its predecessor and makes for a fun little romp through Japan with 007.

Hair of the Dog Bonus Drinking Game Rule

In case you weren't aware, the majority of this film takes place in Japan. Like the other Bond films determined to showcase how exotic the location is, you will be reminded of this fact again and again. Perhaps the easiest and most common method used to demonstrate this fact is by having an actor in a kimono and obi.

Take a sip of your drink whenever a person enters the scene in a kimono. Note, you may want to hold off on using this rule during the wedding sequence.