You Only Live Twice [DVD] [1967]

From the opening bars of the title song (surely the best Bond song ever) I'm back queuing outside the Carlton in Essex Road at a very tender age waiting to see the latest big thing. There's no other film that quite manages it (well maybe Zulu).

Connery is, and always will be, James Bond - I know a couple of the others have been quite good, Daniel Craig amongst them, but Connery is the best, even if he was too common for Ian Fleming. Let's face it if it wasn't for the films the books would have been long forgotten.

Anyway Bond's in Japan; someone's trying to start World War III by kidnapping spaceships; there's lot's of sinister Orientals (and some good ones); the baddies have lots of opportunities to just kill him but never quite get around to it; Donald Pleasence strokes his cat and there's a damn good punch up in a hollowed-out volcano. The music's fabulous (good old John Barry), the script is witty (good old Roald Dahl) and well, it's just splendid.

One star deducted for whoever's idea it was to disguise Connery as a Japanese fisherman - I mean, I know it's James Bond, but come on!

You Only Live Twice is directed by Lewis Gilbert and written by Roald Dahl. It stars Sean Connery, Tetsuro Tamba, Teru Shimada, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Karin Dor and Donald Pleasence. Music is scored by John Barry and cinematography by Freddie Young.

Bond 5 and Connery once again tackles the role of 007. With American and Soviet space craft mysteriously vanishing from space, both nations are laying the blame at the other's door. Sensing a nuclear war could break out, M assigns Bond to Japan to investigate if there might be a third party stirring the hornets nest. Teaming up with the Japanese secret service, Bond uncovers evidence that SPECTRE is behind the plot to pitch the East and the West against each other.

This organisation does not tolerate failure.

Thunderball had broke box office records for Bond, gadgetry, outlandish stunts and a quip on the tongue had proved most profitable. It was planned originally that On Her Majesty's Secret Service would be number 5 in the series, but a change of tack to go for You Only Live Twice as the story gave producers Broccoli & Saltzman the scope for a giganticus enormous production. However, it may be set in Japan and feature a Bond/Blofeld conflict, but Roald Dahl's script bares little resemblance to Ian Fleming's source novel. Although a massive financial success with a Worldwide gross of over $111 million, Bond 5 took $30 million less than Thunderball. Strange since this is a better film. Can we attribute the drop to it being a space age saga? Maybe, the rebirth of sci-fi was a few years away, and of course Bond had lost some fans who had grown tired, like Connery, of 007 relying on gadgets instead of brains and brawn to complete his missions. There was also the rival Casino Royale production, as bad as it was, to contend with, while the spy boom created by Bond had been overkilled elsewhere and was on the wane.

Extortion is my business. Go away and think it over, gentlemen. I'm busy.

True enough that You Only Live Twice has flaws, though they are far from being film killers if you like the gadgets and hi-techery side of the franchise? Connery announced once production was over that he was leaving the role of Bond behind. He had been close to breaking point after Thunderball, but finally the media circus, typecasting, the fanaticism and the character merely being a cypher for outrageous sequences, led Connery to finally call it a day. His displeasure shows in performance, oh it's professional, very much so, but the swagger and machismo from the earlier films has gone. Although Dahl's script tones down the "cheese" dialogue and unfolds as a plot of considerable World peril worth, characterisations are thinly drawn, making this reliant on production value and action sequences. Thankfully both are top dollar. And the ace up its sleeve is the long awaited face to face meeting of Bond and Blofeld.

The firing power inside my crater is enough to annihilate a small army. You can watch it all on TV. It's the last program you're likely to see.

Ken Adam's set design is fit to grace any epic in film history, as is Freddie Young's photography around the Japanese locales, Barry lays a beautiful Bond/Oriental score all over proceedings and Nancy Sinatra's title song is appealingly catchy. The action is excellently constructed by Gilbert (helming the first of three Bond movies on his CV), with the final battle at Blofeld's volcano crater base full of explosions, flying stunt men, expert choreography and meaty fights. Along the way we have been treated to Ninjas, Piranhas, poison, aeroplane peril and the awesome Little Nellie versus the big boy copter smack down! Then there's that Bond/Blofeld confrontation. Well worth the wait, with Pleasence visually scary with bald head (setting the marker for bald villainy to follow in TV and cinema it seems) and scar across his eye. Pleasence is also very low key with his menace, which is perfect, we don't want pantomime and the scenes with Bond work wonderfully well.

It made less than the film before it and it has fierce critics in Bond and Fleming circles. But it's a Bond film that pays rich rewards on revisits, where the artistry on show really shines through in this HD/Upscale age. 8/10

I dedicate this review to a very beautiful.polish woman.called basia kulesza.she is far more beautiful than any james bond.woman.and me I'd be great has a james bond.baddie.anyway.if you want a history of 1960s ..watch this film.its got a great gorgeous film score I love.the story and its writing is great.I hate films that have guns blazing.instead of the pure energy of great writing.by the way I also love thunder ball.the japanese women are like china dolls.beautiful and flawless.of course they are no were has beautiful has basia kulesza.iv got to say that because.she will read this and I will end up dead like all the baddies in james bond films.there can be only one man.who is james bond and that is sean connery.he looks the part of james bond.and will be remembered forever has james bond.and there can only be one james bond composer.and that's john barry.I love john barrys music.the sean connery james bond films go back to a time wene people could indulge them selves in the comfort of a beautiful cosy plush cinema .and of course the music and scenery in you only live twice is gorgeous. And to sean connery has james bond. You will live forever and I might add this is my favourite james bond film.in the sixies people loved the tv serials.the man from uncle.mission impossible.and also children had their toy spy kits.this film is beautifully filmed.and the music is so hauntingly beautiful. So bye from kubus stephen paul neave.basia kulesza her mother and brother.