Review of You Only Live Twice (1967) by Filipeneto — 18 Feb 2018

Directed by Lewis Gilbert, produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli and with a screenplay by Roald Dahl, this is the fifth 007 franchise film, who reached, after "Thunderball", a huge peak of popularity. As in previous films, this movie adapts the characters created by Ian Fleming to an issue or problem of the current time, in this case the space conquest, held by US and Soviet Union, and the danger of Cold War, skillfully exploited in the film.

In this film, the English agent is in charge of investigating the disappearance of an American spacecraft, apparently abducted by another vessel that re-entered the Earth's atmosphere over the Sea of ​​Japan. In the country of the rising sun, it will collaborate with local intelligence to investigate a chemical industry, concluding that is linked to SPECTRE, an association that he already knows very well. However, disappears another spacecraft, this time belonging to the Soviets, which increases the tension between the two countries. In order to investigate under-covered, Bond will need to take on a second life and identity, infiltrating among the people to discover the enemy base and fulfill his mission.

The film has the usual Bond recipe: exotic locations, beautiful women, lots of action and strange and expensive machines. One of the most famous is Little Nelly, a small collapsible helicopter, armed with several gadget's whose Bond uses against his enemies. One of the most popular and iconic scenes is the apparent death and maritime funeral of Bond, an act of MI6 to give more freedom of action to their agent, whose body is quickly rescued by a submarine. Other notable scene are the abduction of each space vessel (US and Russia), swallowed by the larger SPECTRE's ship. In this film, for the first time, we see the face behind this powerful criminal organization: Ernest Stavro Blofeld, with his famous white cat. This film is also the first where James Bond gets married, although the marriage was part of his disguise. The agent, one of the most famous womanizer's in cinema, will only marry again (this time for real) in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service".

This film has inherited from the previous its central cast, who plays not only Bond but the characters M, Q, and Monneypenny. To the actors who embodied these characters will join Akiko Wakabayashi (in the role of Bond-girl Aki) and Mie Hama (in the role of another bond-girl, Kissy, with which Bond marries); Donald Pleasence incarnated Blofeld, the villain and Tetsuro Tamba played the chief of the Japanese espionage, Tanaka.