What happens when Connery returns for the last time?
This is You Only Live Twice, the 5th Bond Film and one that was marketed as the last with its Star. Anyone with Google can tell you that this doesn't exactly happen, but I'll get there soon enough.
This time we got a break between Films, since the plan to shoot On Her Majesty's Secret Service next was cancelled due to an unseasonably warm winter, making the snowy mountains not ideal.
They just jumped ahead then and did the third Film in the Blofeld as the 2nd.
Why not?
The Plot is very loosely based on the Book, keeping the Setting and Blofeld as the Villain, but changing almost everything else.
Is this a good, definitely real send-off for Connery? To find out, read on...
In the Cold Open, Bond is enjoying the afterglow with a Chinese lady when she flips the Murphy Bed against the wall and guys pop in to shoot him.
Bond...dies in the Intro?
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| He died as he lived- in bed. |
Of course, this is just a ploy.
They need to fake his death to send him to Japan to figure out what SPECTRE is up to.
They stole an American Astronaut.
So, now that he's famously dead, let's have Bond...hang out in public and attend a sporting event?!?
He sees a man about some exposition, as Bond has never been to Japan.
Charles Gray- of
Rocky Horror fame- gives him some information and is then immediately killed.
Remember this face for later.
Bond tracks him down to a Japanese Corporate Office and a fight breaks out.
The henchman- High Chief Peter Maivia aka The Rock's Grandfather.
Epic.
Bond works with the head Japanese spy- Tiger Tanaka- and learns all about Japanese Culture...by way of 2 different Brits.
Some of this is accurate, but
Shogun this is not.
Our mandatory Q Scene is here and he's onsite yet again in this one.
He gives Bond some fake cigarettes (that fire a single bullet) and this gyrocopter...which (like the jetpack) is real.
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| Also a real guy lost a leg flying this! |
Lots of stuff happens, including Bond pretending to be a Businessman and escaping death a few times.
He has to get a new cover as *sigh* a Japanese man (with tea leaves rub on his skin and his 'hair' pressed down) as a Tourist.
He has amnesia and thinks this for real in the Book btw.
Bond eventually breaks into Blofeld's Volcano Lair and comes face to face with the man.
We finally see him...92 minutes into the Film.
His plan to trick the USSR and America into a War is foiled when Bond presses the self-destruct button on his fake Russian probe.
Why install that?
He flees as Tanaka breaks in with- no joke- some ninjas.
Bond fights Blofeld's Bodyguard and backdrops him into a pool full of piranha...that he didn't know were there.
He still has a quip ready anyways.
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| 'Oh no- he's been eliminated from the Royal Rumble!' |
Everyone- including Blofeld- escapes the exploding Volcano Lair.
Bond and his latest Girl are going to hook up in a life raft in the aftermath, but his Bosses interrupt that with a rising submarine.
The End.
A Film that feels like a unique Bond Film- in both good and bad ways.
This one doesn't have any traveling across the globe, unless you count Bond being transported to the Submarine.
A singular location- mind you, it is all of Japan- is from the Book.
That said, so much was scrapped and rewritten from said Book, it is a surprise that this too was kept.
The Film is a fun one. You get gadgets. A big villain lair. 3 Bond Girls (2 made up for the Film).
Then again, you also get some long setups like Bond 'going undercover' as Japanese and getting legit married. They show way more of the wedding than you would think too.
A big shock is how little we actually get to see of Blofeld. In the Book, he dies before the end- a fate he won't get until we changed Bond Actors 3 more times!
Twice has some fun historical notes, like The Rock's Grandfather being in it or one of the Astronauts in the Intro being played by the same guy who would be in the lead in 2001: A Space Odyssey!
Oh, and its Screenwriter is far more famous for Children's Books...
Next up, we jump ahead 2 years and to a new Bond. I hear this Lazenby fella is here for the long haul! Stay tuned...
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