Bond Rewatch #5 :: You Only Live Twice
You Only Live Twice — Lewis Gilbert, director; with Sean Connery as James Bond
It’s always awkward when I start writing these because so far all of the Bond write-ups start with, “So-and-so returns to direct another action-packed James Bond epic…” or something as equally lackluster. I’m only at the fifth film now and already I’m running out of gas. Not a good sign. Another bad sign is that it’s been about a month since the last Bond write-up. Boo-urns. But nevertheless I’ll push on through and see if I can make it out the other side alive.
You Only Live Twice is the fifth entry in the Bond canon and we still find Sean Connery in the driver’s seat as Bond. I think it’s here that Connery’s age starts to show just a bit. Nothing incredibly noticeable, but the James Bond we came to love in Dr. No is long gone as Bond shambles on screen in this one.
The film starts out with two major events. The first being the apparent murder of James Bond. The lengths that the British Secret Service go to make Bond’s death believable is pretty awesome. They go so far as to give him an official naval funeral and Bond is tossed–casket and all–off the side of a ship. This is the first of two awesome funerals Connery has had in his career–the other being his viking funeral given to him at the end of First Knight. That’s right. Anyway, I sincerely hope no one watching the film in 1967 actually fell for the whole death gag. To actually think Bond would be killed in the first ten minutes of a Bond movie is just plain stupid. The casket is intercepted by divers and carried up to a submarine. Once inside, it’s opened up and Bond pops out in his uniform looking dapper as ever.
The second event is the almost simultaneous interception of U.S. and Soviet space crafts. Each craft is literally swallowed up by a mysterious, larger craft that makes an escape before anyone knows what’s happened. Of course the U.S. thinks the Soviets took theirs and vice versa. These accusations escalate and the world is suddenly on the brink of nuclear war (more so than they already were.)
The team behind the thefts is none other than our good friends in SPECTRE and this time it is their leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, who is behind the big scheme. Blofeld this time around is played by the hilariously hammy Donald Pleasence (a hero of mine from his work in such classics as Halloween and Escape from New York). This incarnation of Blofeld (the first time we see the actor’s face) is the Nehru-suit wearing version that Mike Meyers based his Dr. Evil character off of. Pleasence dons the corny jumpsuit, the facial scar and the big white cat; all of these are borrowed for Doc Evil in the Austin Powers films.
Bond heads to Japan where he meets up with the Japanese super-agent, Tiger Tanaka. What makes Tiger so super? Well only that he spends his free time training a gigantic army of fucking NINJAS! That’s right, ninjas. And Bond even trains with them for a while, learning the ways of the Japanese. Which brings me to the casual sixties racism that just gushes out of this movie. Not only are all the Japanese men in the movie super ninjas, but the women are all mousy, subservient, Geisha-esque individuals. But perhaps the biggest (and I’ll admit, kind of entertaining) example of sixties racism is when, in order to completely fit in, Bond is forced to ‘become Japanese’.
It’s exactly what it sounds like.
Bond is given very crude facial alterations in order to pass as a Japanese fisherman. They mainly do this so he’ll go undetected by Blofeld’s men, but also because they insist to make everything legit Bond will have to marry Tiger’s assistant, Kissy and the last thing the Japanese want is a filthy Englishman marrying one of their own. Take that interracial relationships! So Connery is outfitted with a hilarious, black wig and fake eyebrows. They also make his forehead bigger or something like that. Either way, let’s just say that Dom Deluise looked more Japanese than Connery does in the scenes to come. It’s really offensive, but also just campy silliness.
Bond’s undercover work leads him to a volcano where Blofeld has secretly built his hidden fortress and covered it with a false volcano bottom. This way the base is hidden and the Japanese continue to think it’s an inactive volcano.
When the shit really starts to hit the fan is when Bond’s cover inside the base (posing as an astronaut about to launch) is blown and he’s forced to call in Tiger Tanaka’s reinforcements. What follows is a full-on all-out battle: henchmen vs. ninjas. And it kicks ass. There are hundreds of extras running around on this gigantic set, people propelling from the ceiling, guns going off, explosions and even some good ole fashioned murder.
When the dust settles, Blofeld escapes through a secret passage and Bond is able to prove to both sides of the Cold War that neither enemy stole the other’s spaceship. Thanks to James Bond, the world is safe once again. But not before Blofeld sets up the volcano lair to self-destruct!!!
Bond and Kissy escape unharmed as does Tiger and the surviving ninja army (whose number has dwindled significantly in the battle). They are picked up by air-dropped lifeboats and all’s well that ends well.
All things considered, this is fairly decent Bond flick. Awkward casual racism aside, the action is actually pretty good. The final battle is really what stands out among everything else. But it’s nice to see Bond fairly out of his element by training with ninjas and even going to see a sumo match. If you can look past the whole making Bond look Japanese thing, it’s quite an enjoyable time and Donald Pleasence stands out as a truly crazy sonofabitch; even if he is really hamming it up.
You Only Live Twice is available on DVD from MGM.
The Great Bond Rewatch of 2009 will return with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
