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IMDbPro

You Only Live Twice

  • 1967
  • PG
  • 1h 57m
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
113K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
3,376
741
Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice (1967)
James Bond and the Japanese Secret Service must find and stop the true culprit of a series of space hijackings, before war is provoked between Russia and the United States.
Play trailer3:19
5 Videos
99+ Photos
ActionAdventureThriller

James Bond and the Japanese Secret Service must find and stop the true culprit of a series of space hijackings, before war is provoked between Russia and the United States.James Bond and the Japanese Secret Service must find and stop the true culprit of a series of space hijackings, before war is provoked between Russia and the United States.James Bond and the Japanese Secret Service must find and stop the true culprit of a series of space hijackings, before war is provoked between Russia and the United States.

  • Director
    • Lewis Gilbert
  • Writers
    • Harold Jack Bloom
    • Roald Dahl
    • Ian Fleming
  • Stars
    • Sean Connery
    • Akiko Wakabayashi
    • Mie Hama
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    6.8/10
    113K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    3,376
    741
    • Director
      • Lewis Gilbert
    • Writers
      • Harold Jack Bloom
      • Roald Dahl
      • Ian Fleming
    • Stars
      • Sean Connery
      • Akiko Wakabayashi
      • Mie Hama
    • 382User reviews
    • 132Critic reviews
    • 61Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 BAFTA Award
      • 2 wins & 3 nominations total

    Videos5

    Trailer
    Trailer 3:19
    Watch Trailer
    These Bond Women Are Changing the Spy Game
    Clip 6:36
    Watch These Bond Women Are Changing the Spy Game
    Bond 25 Returns to 007's Origins
    Clip 3:39
    Watch Bond 25 Returns to 007's Origins
    You Only Live Twice: Clip 2
    Clip 1:13
    Watch You Only Live Twice: Clip 2
    You Only Live Twice: Clip 1
    Clip 1:19
    Watch You Only Live Twice: Clip 1

    Photos321

    Sean Connery and Mie Hama in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Akiko Wakabayashi in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Sean Connery and Karin Dor in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Tsai Chin in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Akiko Wakabayashi in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Donald Pleasence in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Sean Connery and Desmond Llewelyn in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Mie Hama and Tetsurô Tanba in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Sean Connery, Mie Hama, and Tetsurô Tanba in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Sean Connery and Mie Hama in You Only Live Twice (1967)
    Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice (1967)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Sean Connery
    Sean Connery
    • James Bond
    Akiko Wakabayashi
    Akiko Wakabayashi
    • Aki
    Mie Hama
    Mie Hama
    • Kissy
    Tetsurô Tanba
    Tetsurô Tanba
    • Tiger Tanaka
    • (as Tetsuro Tamba)
    Teru Shimada
    Teru Shimada
    • Mr. Osato
    Karin Dor
    Karin Dor
    • Helga Brandt
    Donald Pleasence
    Donald Pleasence
    • Blofeld
    Bernard Lee
    Bernard Lee
    • 'M'
    Lois Maxwell
    Lois Maxwell
    • Miss Moneypenny
    Desmond Llewelyn
    Desmond Llewelyn
    • 'Q'
    Charles Gray
    Charles Gray
    • Henderson
    Tsai Chin
    Tsai Chin
    • Chinese Girl - Hong Kong
    Peter Fanene Maivia
    Peter Fanene Maivia
    • Car Driver
    Burt Kwouk
    Burt Kwouk
    • Spectre 3
    Michael Chow
    Michael Chow
    • Spectre 4
    Ronald Rich
    • Blofeld's Bodyguard
    Jeanne Roland
    Jeanne Roland
    • Bond's Masseuse
    David Toguri
    • Assassin in Bedroom
    • Director
      • Lewis Gilbert
    • Writers
      • Harold Jack Bloom
      • Roald Dahl
      • Ian Fleming(uncredited)
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      While scouting locations in Japan, the chief production team narrowly escaped death. On March 5, 1966, producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, director Lewis Gilbert, cinematographer Freddie Young, and production designer Ken Adam were booked to leave Japan on BOAC flight 911 departing Tokyo for Hong Kong and London. Two hours before their Boeing 707 flight departed, the team was invited to an unexpected ninja demonstration, and so missed their plane. Their flight took off as scheduled, and twenty-five minutes after take-off, the plane encountered severe turbulence and disintegrated over Mt. Fuji, killing all aboard.
    • Goofs
      After a 4 hour hike to the top of the crater with no backpack, Bond pulls out a full suction cup apparatus set up. How did he ever know to bring this, not knowing there was anything inside the crater?
    • Quotes

      Blofeld: ...You made a mistake, my friend. No astronaut would enter the capsule carrying his air conditioner. Let's see who he is.

      [the guards remove 007's helmet]

      Blofeld: James Bond. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Ernst Stavro Blofeld. They told me you were assassinated in Hong Kong.

      James Bond: Yes, this is my second life.

      Blofeld: You only live twice, Mr. Bond.

      James Bond: [DELETED LINE] Well, they say twice is the only way to live.

    • Crazy credits
      THE END of YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE but James Bond will be back ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE
    • Alternate versions
      The Ultimate Edition reinserts some additional brief scenes that were omitted from early video versions and English broadcasts. Missing brief scenes were:
      • 1) Tiger shows Bond the rocket guns.
      • 2) A ninja cuts the arms off the 'hay man'.
      • 3) A ninja throws shooting stars.
      • 4) An assassin attempts to kill Bond by a spike out of the pole.
      • 5) Tiger's throw of the stars at Blofeld's arm is longer.
    • Connections
      Edited into The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
    • Soundtracks
      You Only Live Twice
      Music by John Barry

      Lyrics by Leslie Bricusse

      Performed by Nancy Sinatra

    User reviews382

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    8/10
    Bond-san, Blofeld, Asian Delights and Production Value Supreme.
    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
    helpful•49
    4
    • hitchcockthelegend
    • May 1, 2012

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    FAQ17

    • "You Only Live Twice" marks the first on-screen appearance of the villain Blofeld (played by actor Donald Pleasance) in which we can see his face. Every Bond film after this in which Blofeld appears features a different actor playing 007's nemesis. Why didn't they have the same actor play Blofeld throughout the series?
    • What is 'You Only Live Twice' about?
    • Which number in the Bond franchise is this movie?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • June 13, 1967 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • United Kingdom
      • United States
    • Official site
      • Official site
    • Languages
      • English
      • Japanese
      • Russian
    • Also known as
      • Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice
    • Filming locations
      • Mount Shinmu-dake, Kirishima-Yaku National Park, Kagoshima, Japan(exteriors: Blofeld's Volcano Lair)
    • Production company
      • Eon Productions
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $9,500,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $43,084,787
    • Gross worldwide
      • $43,095,926
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      1 hour 57 minutes
    • Sound mix
      • 4-Track Stereo
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.39 : 1

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