007: Sólo se vive dos veces

You Only Live Twice is pure Comic Book entertaiment. James Bond is very much the superhero character he was in Goldfinger, and every scene is like a panel in a Comic Book and filled with entertaining excitement. In truth, it is though the feel and style that was vibrant throughout Goldfinger [1964] leapfrogged the dull Thunderball [1965] and found it's way to Japan. Twice is a beautiful looking and sounding addition to the Bond movies, and one is glad Sean Connery didn't really resign from the role of Bond and did indeed Live Twice.

By jettisoning most of Ian Flemmings original story You Only Live Twice, in wich an amnesiac Bond Hunts down Blofeld in Japanese castles, Broccoli and Saltzman have ridden themselves of the same problem evident in Thunderball : Slow Movement, Uninterested Audiences. Thunderball may have been a success, but this was probably due to the Bondmania wich raged through the mid sixties like a giant inferno. Luckily for the fans of the eye popping spectacles the Bond series is famous for, You Only Live Twice contains no such problems of dreary moments of boardom. In its place we have a Space Age actioneer written by childrens author Roald Dahl, and an entertaining and swift director in Lewis Gilbert, who seems more suited to Bond than any director yet.

It has been said before, but the real star of the show is Ken Adams sets. His wondefull Volcano set wich Blofeld uses is one of the most memorable in Cinema history. Add to this the Japanese sets, the Submarines [M's Offices], Tanaka's Lair, and the real sense of Japanese authenticy. Adam deserves an Oscar for this movie alone. For his total contributions to Bond and other movies, there is no Award yet created.

Donald Pleasence makes a very creepy Blofeld. He is perhaps the ultimate Blofeld. His scenes with the other cast members show the complete acting skills of a fine actor. Twice also contains one of Desmonde Lywellyn's funniest performances as Q,and one of Q's finest creations, the Little Nellie Helicopter. Little Nellie is every Bond fans dreams, personally i think it would be lovely to soar above rural England in Nellie, let alone Japan! Some guys have all the luck! Twice also has one of John Barry's most beautiful themes,and songs sung by Nancie Sinatra.

The only real let down this time is Sean Connery. He makes any Bond film look good, but this time doesn't look as though he is enjoying himself all that much. This is a petty bacause Twice itself is a very impressive and enjoyable Bond movie, with some of the best sets, Action sequences and Acting in the entire series.

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE is, without a doubt, my favorite 007 film with Sean Connery in the lead role. I know that alone is enough for some to immediately disregard my views on the franchise, but I can't help it. Maybe it's because I was younger when I first saw it and the goofier elements appealed to me, but this movie is a guilty pleasure that I proudly embrace. The movie was produced at a time when Sean Connery was growing tired of the role and the world was still in the midst of a massive 007 frenzy. The four previous movies had become box office gold, and this gave the filmmakers and studio the confidence to throw even more insanity into the mix. There's a good deal of WTF in the fifth Bond movie but it's still a fun adventure with my favorite secret agent. In YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, the entire world is on edge when an American space capsule goes missing while in orbit. The Americans immediately assume the Russians were responsible. Soon, a Russian space capsule disappears and the Americans are blamed. The British, the only rational minded nation in the movie, decide to actually investigate the events and place their most effective man on the mission: James Bond. The search for answers begins in Japan where Bond finds a connection between the missing space capsules and a Japanese chemical corporation. After faking his death to get his enemies off his trail, Bond explodes onto a mission that will bring him face- to-face with the man behind the space capsule thefts and, in fact, the mastermind behind most of his previous missions.

The fifth 007 movie is where the series started to go off the rails. With each adventure, the James Bond franchise was put in a position of out-doing themselves with each successive film. Or, at least, that's what they appear to have believed. In YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, the action is amped up to all new levels when Bond joins forces with the Japanese secret service and, since this is a 007 adventure in Japan at a time when cultural stereotypes were still a fad, ninjas! YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE has Bond immersing himself in Japanese culture to fade into the background as he quietly moves from one clue to the next in locating the missing space capsules and their astronauts. This involves a bit of ninja training in a ninja school and an operation to help Bond appear more Japanese which involves shaving his chest hair, pinning his eyes back, and giving him a wig. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure the whole thing comes across as a tad racist but it's absurd in its execution. The ninjas join 007 in a massive final battle in the most iconic of super-villain lairs: a hollowed-out volcano. The production design on the villain lair here is some of the best. You can tell the Bond movies where raking in some nice box office totals because the producers went all out for the finale. The volcano lair looks great and serves as a perfect setting for dozens ninjas to repel down from the ceiling for battle while the villain's color-coded henchmen rain gunfire down on them. There's one thing you definitely can't deny about this movie: it's ambitious.

But THUNDERBALL had a jetpack! How do you beat a jetpack? With a militarized gyrocopter, of course. Little Nellie is probably the most memorable aspect of the movie for me. Looking back on YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, it's the first thing that comes to mind. The 007 theme kicking in as Bond engages in battle over a volcano with four full-sized helicopters from the tiny cockpit of Little Nellie, and schooling them with his over-zealous array of weapons, ranging from flamethrowers to heat-seeking missiles. Did I mention this movie was sort of over-the-top? It's just so much fun though, and that's what I love about it. Sure, the first two movies were bona fide spy films and GOLDFINGER was iconic…but this remains my favorite Connery/Bond film for just how out-there it gets. As an added bonus, this movie features what I believe to be the greatest on-screen depiction of 007's original nemesis: Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Blofeld, seen for the first time without obstruction, is portrayed by Donald Pleasence and it's the most recognizable version of the character in the series. Blofeld would go on to be played by other actors in later films (including Charles Gray, who plays MI6 operative/007 contact Henderson in this film) but it's Pleasence's calm demeanor, scarred visage, and pet cat that would be forever remembered and eventually parodied in the form of Mike Myers' Dr. Evil.

My love for YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE probably isn't the popular opinion, but for anyone who dares claim it was the worst of the Connery films, I have three words for you: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. Regardless, I love it. The Japanese culture (and the ninjas), the epic volcano battle, the humor, and Sean Connery pretending to fly a tiny gyrocopter against a projected screen… it all comes together for the most fun of all Connery's adventures as secret agent 007.

My Take: Another fun Bond entry. Great Bond, fun villains, neat gadgets, and enjoyable action.

"You Only Live Twice" is business as usual for Bond. Not much new, and Connery seemed bored playing his role (explaining his disappearance in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"). There is a lot to like in this film. Connery in "You Only Live Twice" is easily comparable to FROM Russia WITH LOVE and GOLDFINGER, but as Bond, he already has established that he is the best in the business and YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE does give him much to do.

This film does carry the original tradition of Bond. This time around, Bond is sent to Japan to investigate the disappearances of American space shuttles. While the United States suspect it's Russian interference and threaten to retaliate, the Brits faked 007's assassination, in order to clear the way for Bond to investigate what really is going on.

Some areas of YOLT are pretty campy (some of the patterns for the AUSTIN POWERS parodies are pretty evident), but the camp is part of the fun. It's a throwback to the good ol' not-to-be-taken-seriously adventure espionage fun. This is formula Bond, but loaded with great action, neat gadgetry ("Little Nellie" is one of the most beloved Q gadgets) and the glorious sets by the one-and-only Bond veteran Ken Adam make it another high-flying, if not exactly groundbreaking, Bond adventure and one of he series' more fun entries.

Rating: **** out of 5.

Solid entry in the James Bond saga – Sean Connery's fifth appearance as the secret agent in a row (his last, in fact, until DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER [1971] and, eventually, the non-series entry NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN [1983]) – featuring a lovely title tune by John Barry and Leslie Bricusse sung by Nancy Sinatra.

The relocation to Japan for the main action (resulting in impeccable photography courtesy of the renowned Freddie Young, who also contributes an inspired aerial shot of our hero at the center of a rooftop chase/struggle) adds much-needed novelty in the exotic department – though characters tend to be less well developed as a consequence. Tetsuro Tamba is imposing enough as his 'sidekick', but the all-important Bond girls have no distinguishing features – save for Karin Dor, a typical femme-fatale-ish villainess who manages to trap Bond in an unpiloted plane. Similar expansiveness was shown in Ken Adam's elaborate design of Ernst Stavro Blofeld's headquarters, hidden within the crater of a Japanese volcano; other attention-grabbing devices include Bond being 'killed' in the prologue (thus explaining the title), while he's later given an Oriental 'countenance' and even made to 'marry' a Japanese girl (an irrelevant undercover attempt, as it happens – since there is very little interaction between Bond, his local allies and the enemy before the final confrontation in the volcano interior)!

Its plot involving the abduction of space shuttles belonging to the U.S. and Russia, in the hope of provoking a war between the major powers, again plays on the fears of nuclear annihilation palpable during the Cold War era. Incidentally, this is the first time Blofeld himself steps in as chief villain (played with appropriate menace by Donald Pleasence – with a handy piranha-filled stream underneath a sliding bridge to replace the pool-sharks from the previous installment, THUNDERBALL [1965]). By the way, Charles Gray (Blofeld in DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER) appears in a bit here as Bond's ill-fated contact in Japan! The most prominent gadget invented by Q (the ubiquitous Desmond Llewellyn) in this case is an artillery-equipped mini-chopper – employed in a sequence whose filming unfortunately cost an aerial photographer his leg!; there's also a memorably violent brawl which has Bond and his opponent lashing at each other with heavy living-room couches!

The show, then, is climaxed by one of the most spectacular action bouts in the entire saga – for which Bond recruits Tamba's ninjas to fight the minions of SPECTRE; Blofeld, of course, is allowed to go free this time around…since he'd be involved in at least three subsequent direct matches with 007. Given that director Gilbert lived up to the challenge of ably following in the footsteps of Terence Young and Guy Hamilton, it was only natural he'd be asked to helm further Bond adventures – though, by the time THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977) and MOONRAKER (1979) came along, Roger Moore had firmly established himself in the role.

This particular 007 entry (which was intended to be Sean Connery's last before he would agreed to return one more time for his sixth shot as 006 in 'Diamonds are Forever (1971)' and lets not the forget the unofficial 'Never Say Never Again' in 1983) was the first Bond film I encountered and from that it has always remained a total favourite. "You Live Only Twice" we see Bond travel to the land of the rising sun (Japan) in what is quite an expansive concept (dazzling set-designs with spectacular non-stop action) and very well-budgeted effort that lingers on a extremely comic-book-like tone (thanks largely to Roald Dahl's industriously well-guided screenplay that plays its cards close to the chest) with its characters, atmospherics and set-pieces that for me would make it one of the most creative and exciting inclusions to the series.

Bond heads to Japan racing to uncover the true mastermind behind the space-jacking that could see another world war, as British sources believe that the mysterious rocket ship which has seized American and Russian space shuttles originates from there, but those countries believe otherwise than each other for the acts.

Couple of things which made it more the memorable would be that it's the first chance we get to see arch villain SPECTRE Agent #1 Ernst Blofeld's face, than just the hand stroking the cat… although the first hour we get enough of that. It's a devilishly meaty Donald Pleasence who just seemed the part of Blofeld. Now who didn't love the hidden lair that was in an inactive volcano, and of course Blofeld's pool of pet piranhas. The inventive gadget novelty was really making a mark, just look the deadly mini-copter named 'Nelly' and the dangerous effects of smoking around others. Strangely enough the (witty) script seemed to spit out a few self-knowing quips involving cigarettes, which became rather odd. Director Lewis Gilbert (who would go on to control the very similar in story-structure "The Spy Who Loved Me" and then following that the plain goofy "Moonraker") does a tersely capable job with a fast moving pace that shifted from one well organized set-piece to another (like the chase on-top of a rooftop in a fishing docks that's masterfully captured by cinematographer Freddie Young) to finally finish on a barnstorming climax (with none other than ninjas) and then a familiarly fitting final frame. Sean Connery might look a little tired (a bit funny trying to make himself look like Japanese under make-up), but remains just as charismatic and fittingly lean when it came to getting down and dirty (Bond and his tussle with Blofeld's massive henchman Hans comes to mind). The bond girls shape up nicely in the form of Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama and the stunning German redhead Karin Dor. Tetsurô Tanba was good as Bond's Japanese counterpart. Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewelyn treat us to their iconic roles. John Barry's classy music score has a smoothly oriental touch, which can get actively copious when called for and theme song "You Only Live Twice" is enticingly sung by Nancy Sinatra.