You Only Live Twice (1967)

You Only Live Twice, Sean Connery’s fifth outing as James Bond, falls under the category of “I love you, but you’re strange.”  Embracing the franchise’s potential for high-octane camp, You Only Live Twice is extremely implausible but entirely entertaining.

After faking his own death (yes, another pre-credits teaser with a presumed-dead 007), Bond hops over to Japan to investigate the mysterious disappearance of an American spaceship.  With the clock ticking amid brewing tensions between the Americans and the Soviets, Bond joins Tiger Tanaka’s secret ninja police in order to infiltrate the secret volcano base where SPECTRE chief Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasance) is hatching a plot for – you guessed it – world domination.

Let’s get the obligatory stuff out of the way – Connery is still the ultimate Bond here, having more fun than he’s ever had in the shoes of the world’s top superspy.  His bemused detachment from the oddity of the plot helps his own credulity as the star, and the droll rapidity with which he fires off those one-liners is captivating.  His opposite number, finally revealed on-screen after five years of teases, is the quintessential iconic Bond villain; Donald Pleasance is a perfect fit for Blofeld, the shadowy supercriminal who’s revealed to be diminutive, weak-voiced, and scarred over his right eye.  In fact, watching You Only Live Twice really gives you a sense of this film’s significance, if only because you recognize all the pieces that have been imitated and parodied:  the volcano base, the hulking blond henchman, and the bald supervillain with a Mao suit, a scar, and a pet cat (see also, Dr. Evil, Dr. Claw).

This movie also has some really great action sequences, including Bond’s some-assembly-required helicopter and the ninja raid on the volcano base.  Even in a smaller piece, when Bond wrestles with a security guard, there’s a callback to Oddjob in Goldfinger that gives the devout fan a comforting sense of familiarity; smaller still, Bond’s pursuit of a mysterious Japanese woman through the side streets of Tokyo is made exciting by the capable direction of Lewis Gilbert.

Before we get to the elephant in the room – the downright ludic weirdness of this movie – there are a few things that don’t work.  For one, the two female leads (Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki and Mie Hama as Kissy) are virtually indistinguishable in that there’s really very little reason to switch characters halfway through the film; indeed, the complex Aki is much more interesting than Kissy, and it’s a loss for the film when she’s replaced by the vapid Kissy.  Worse, the film flirts with “yellowface” when, in a strange and ultimately unnecessary plot point, Bond is obligated to “become” Japanese, change his appearance, and take a Japanese wife.  The Japanese makeup on Connery is entirely unconvincing, rendering him a sort of sunburned Burt Reynolds.

Accentuating the strangeness of You Only Live Twice, the script is written by Roald Dahl – yes, that Roald Dahl, famed for his dark children’s stories like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Dahl dispenses with much of Ian Fleming’s original (itself more a revenge story than anything else) and opts for what he called a “formula” approach to Bond.  The idea that the series can be reduced to a series of key points and essential beats ought to be discouraging, but the result is something quite smashing – and unexpected from the pen of the man who brought you Matilda.

In fact, that’s a good way to think of You Only Live Twice – full of things that don’t really make much sense but end up working when they’re put together.  It’s not a great Bond film by any stretch, but it’s a successful one in that it never fails to be engaging.  Whether successfully created or absurdly awkward, either way you won’t want to look away from what’s going on.  While some might say this turn toward the irreverent heralds the beginning of the end (remember, the worst excesses of the Roger Moore era are before us), I say enjoy it while it lasts because... well, you know.  “You Only Live Twice, Mr. Bond.”

You Only Live Twice is rated PG.  Bond is involved in some bloodless shootouts with fantastic explosions as well as mild snogging (with bare shoulders and backs visible).  A disconcerting poisoning scene ends with abrupt suffocation, which may trouble some viewers, as may the presence of a tank of man-eating piranhas.

James Bond and The Cinema King will return in a review of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969) on June 7, 2013!