You Only Live Twice Review

You Only Live Twice

Release Date: 14th December 1967 - Australia

Production Companies

EON Productions

Danjaq (Uncredited)

Genre: Action

Rating: PG

Runtime: 106 minutes


Budget: $10,300.000 

Box Office Gross: $111,600,000 (Worldwide - figure subject to change)


Plot Summary
Agent 007 and the Japanese 
secret service ninja force 
must find and stop the true 
culprit of a series of space-
jackings before nuclear war 
is provoked. (Source - IMDb)

Cast

Sean Connery - James Bond

Donald Pleasence - Ernst 
Stavro Blofeld

Karin Dor - Helga Brandt
Akiko Wakabayashi - Aki

Mie Hama - Kissy Susuki

Tetsuro Tamba - Tiger Tanaka
Bernard Lee - M
Lois Maxwell - Miss Moneypenny
Desmond Llewelyn - Q
Teru Shimada - Mr. Osato
Charles Gray - Henderson
Tsai Chin - Ling
Burt Kwouk - Spectre #3
Michael Chow - Spectre #4
Ronald Rich - Hans

Crew

Director - Lewis Gilbert

Based on Novel "You Only 
Live Twice" and Characters 
"James Bond" - Ian Fleming

Screenplay - Roald Dahl

Additional Screenplay 
Material - Harold Jack Bloom

Associate Producer - Stanley Sopel (Uncredited)

Producers - Albert R. 
Broccoli and Harry Saltzman

Technical Advisor - Kikumaru Okuda

Production Designer - Ken Adam

Cinematography - Freddie Young
Aerial Unit Cameraman - Johnny Jordan

Second Unit Director/
Supervising Editor - Peter R. Hunt
Location Manager - Robert Watts

Assistant Director - William P. Cartlidge

Action Sequences - Bob Simmons

Special Effects - John Stears
Film Editor - Thelma Connell (Uncredited) 
Dubbing Editors - Harry Miller and 
Norman Wanstall

Main Title Designer - Maurice Binder 

Composer: James Bond Theme - Monty Norman

Music - John Barry

Lyrics: You Only Live Twice - Leslie Bricusse

Singer: You Only Live Twice - Nancy Sinatra

Review

Here we are, after the Bond set taking a two year break, finally, I decided to treat fans to the long-awaited sequel. This one is supposedly the end to Sean Connery's tenure as the famed sophisticated spy 007 until 71. Nothing is more simpler in 'YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE', with a three course serving of action for entre' dinner and desert. This movie sets a good pace that keeps the viewers entertained from start to finish with a good balance of action unlike 'Thunderball' which is overdone. The tight story was done by Roald Dahl when he was not working on his books for younger children. I'm quite surprised the film's plot never got cheesy or trashy, perhaps Dahl didn't use any of his known usual themes to make the storyline utterly incomprehensible. I loathe Ernst Stravo Blofeld as he's always the villain that survives from Bond, the other known actor of the film Donald Pleasence plays fittingly well as the duplicitous head of SPECTRE. 

Twice as it goes with all that sense and twice how it supplies the danger and presented audiences with sheer excitement. The fifth Bond film nonetheless proves evidently as a great essential addition to the film catalogue, I wasn't expecting it would be on the same ranking level as the other Connery features. 

I'll continue to review the series as I do it in fruition for 'On Her Majesty’s Secret Service' which I plan to review next.  

Star rating: (8/10) Very Good Movie

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