James Bond - You Only Live Twice (Ultimate Edition 2 Disc Set) [DVD]

For his fifth cinema outing superspy James Bond is sent off to Japan in another fight against SPECTRE. This time the criminal organisation is trying to start world war three using captured Russian and American space vehicles.

There are big thrills aplenty as Sean Connery's Bond stumbles around in Japan, trying to uncover the threads of the scheme. Bond gets into scrape after scrape leading to ever more impressive escapes and stunts, all of which builds up to the thrilling final showdown which is suitably action packed and full of big bangs.

Introducing Bond's nemesis Blofeld for the first time, here played by a very creepy and evil looking Donald Pleasance, and the idea of a supervillain hiding out in a disused volcano lair, this is a thrilling ride from start to finish. Characterisation takes a bit of a back seat to the stunts, but it is an exciting ride none the less.

This ultimate edition really is the best version of the film I have owned. The picture has been lovingly restored and cleaned up, and looks amazing. Really, I am not just saying that. It looks superb. The sound has been similarly treated and there is an option to listen to it in 5.1 DTS surround, which is truly exceptional.

As well as the superb presentation of the film, there is also a host of extras, original trailers, informative audio commentaries and the such. These are exhaustive and some of them quite interesting. But these really a garnish for the main course, which is the film itself.

This is an excellent release, and does this classic film justice. This series of `Ultimate editions' really sets the standard for film releases. It really does not get any better.

You Only Live Twice has all the classic Bond ingredients that you would come to expect from a 007 movie: exotic locations, a deranged madman with a monorail (and a big cat here), gadgets, great music and a plot that involves averting World War 3.

The action is fast-paced and the bodycount is high. Interesting aspects include Bond turning Japanese, getting married (or at least pretending to), Little Nellie (the famous, lethal flying machine that Q packed into two suitcases) and help from the SIS (the Japanese equivalent of the CIA).

On the downside, the spaceship scenes now look so primitive that they're almost akin to Thunderbirds material, but hey, this was 1967 and I'm sure the producers did their best with the technology that was available at the time.

You Only Live Twice is classic Bond and the extra features make this a great package for the price. The feature on Maurice Binder, who created the famous gun barrel sequence and the credit sequences to a large number of Bond pics was particularly interesting.

Faced with box-office rivalry from the spoof Casino Royale the same year, EON put aside their plans to follow Thunderball with OHMSS and pulled out all the stops to promise the biggest and best-paced Bond to date. While they failed to match the phenomenal success of Thunderball - still the biggest ticket seller in the series' history by a huge margin - this certainly is the best of the special effects show Bonds, and for many it's scarred, bald, Persian-cat stroking super-villain ensconced in his hollowed-out volcano lair plotting to start a world war is the quintessential Bond movie villain. Departing from Ian Fleming's novel in all but name and boasting a plot the producers were so taken with that they've used it at least twice since The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker, both also directed by Lewis Gilbert), but by 1967 the series was already beginning to feed off itself - the pre-title sequence where Bond is killed is more or less borrowed from From Russia With Love.

After years as an offscreen presence voiced by Eric Pohlman and Joseph Wiseman, S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s Ernst Stavro Blofeld finally makes his first on-screen appearance in the form of Donald Pleasance (causing that awkward continuity problem in the subsequent OHMSS where he fails to recognise Bond), with Charles Gray preceding his turn in the role on the side of the angels as our man in Japan, getting his vodka from the doorman at the Russian embassy ("among OTHER things"). This time the villains work for a large Japanese industrial company to cash-in on the Connery films' popularity in the Japanese market while offering some colorful locations, but action, not scenery, is the order of the day here. The action scenes themselves are terrific and often imaginatively shot (as with the long overhead helicopter shot in the fight at Kobe Docks) and the production values are still the best of the entire series. Visually it is certainly the best looking of the series thanks to Freddie Young's incredible photography, while Ken Adams production design is superb and the lush score marked a real turning point for John Barry.

Roald Dahl's screenplay strangely discards Blofeld's garden of death (too downbeat said the producers) and omits Bond's Japanese counterpart Tanaka's background as an ex-Kamikaze pilot (too sensitive) but has just the right internal logic to justify its outrageous elements, as well as some neat humorous touches (such as Bond being constantly castigated for his smoking). Although many fans were critical of his approach - Dahl made little secret of his opinion that Bond was a 'resourceful but rather insensitive fellow' - he is more astute about the character than many writers in the series, bringing Bond's smug superiority to the fore in lines like "You forget I took a First in Oriental languages at Cambridge."

It's particularly disappointing that the 2-disc set only includes five minutes of the very entertaining and surprisingly comprehensive hour-long Whicker's World special on the making of the film, which revealed Connery's fondness for Custard Creams. We do get the glossier and less interesting 48-minute Welcome to Japan, Mr Bond (which makes an injoke of the fact that OHMSS had originally been scheduled to be made that year by having an unseen actress complain that she was supposed to be Mrs Bond) and Ken Adams' home movie footage, but there's not enough new to justify the `Ultimate Edition' tag here.