Saw the new Star Trek film last night...... awesome!
Saw the new Star Trek film last night...... awesome!
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Hello there. Recently I reviewed the Sean Connery boxed set of all his Bond films. I haven't reviewed a single Bond film on its own merits so about time I resolved this.
The year is 1967- Beatle mania was at its peak, and the new Bond film, You Only Live Twice had its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square on 12th June 1967.
The title is taken from Ian Fleming's twelfth novel and the plot point of Bond being 'killed' so he can continue to work undercover, with his enemies assuming he is dead and out of the picture. The title is uttered by Blofeld when he realises Bond was not assassinated in Hong Kong after all. In the novel Bond goes after Blofeld to get revenge for the death of his wife Tracy at the end of the previous book, On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
The director Lewis Gilbert has a budget of just $9.5 million dollars to ensure that Sean Connery once again returned to the role of James Bond for the 5th time. And at the time unbeknown to the producers, of what has now become a very successful franchise, was also going to be his last.
---The Film---
The plot of revolves around the capturing of Soviet and American manned space probes.
The usual gun barrel opening begins, this time the music of the Bond Theme sounds slightly oriental. Orbiting the Earth, an American space capsule is suddenly captured by an unknown craft; the lifeline of one of the astronauts is cut in the process as the enemy craft literally swallows the smaller capsule. A governmental meeting is taking place in a cold and snowy location where diplomatic representatives are discussing the incident, heated discussions between the Americans and Russians take place, only to be interrupted by the British delegation who advises that the British have there best man on the job.
Cut to 007 is in Hong Kong, where it appears he has just romanced an oriental beauty, suddenly a two men burst in, the bed that 007 is laying on folds up against the wall, the two men empty their machine guns at the bed. Shortly after the Hong Kong Police arrive and pull the bed down, only to discover that James Bond has been assassinated. A pool of blood is seen coming from under 007.
The titles are run with Nancy Sinatra singing the main song.
After the titles, a paper is shown with the headlines British Naval Commander murdered. 007 is given a burial at sea, as Bond is a Commander this is a fitting send off. When the body reaches the bottom a group of divers bring the body aboard a submarine. They open the wrappings to find James Bond in full Naval uniform with breathing apparatus. M and Moneypenny are on board and M brief's 007 on what his mission is, stating that "this is the big one! 007."
The reason as to why the fake killing took place is so that the attention that Bond has been receiving recently cab be extinguished, allowing him to get on with his job.
Bond starts his journey to Japan and upon arrival meets his contact at a Sumo match, she is a rather elegant Japanese lady, and Bond tells her the phrase "I love you." She blushes and
says that they must go to Henderson.
Henderson is played by Charles Gray, who in Diamonds are Forever plays Blofeld. Confused? Anyway he meets with Bond and gives in some information regarding the unknown spacecraft. Henderson stops talking mid sentence, he has been stabbed through the paper wall of the room. Bond gives chase to the assassin and brings him down with the knife used to kill Henderson. He takes his shoes, hat and coat and goes to the meeting point of the assassin's accomplice. They go to the Osato Chemicals building, Bond who has faked a stabbing injury is carried up to the office and a fight ensues with the heavy that carried Bond up. After he has been managed Bond gets himself a drink and notices a safe, which was uncovered in the fight, he cracks the safe taking the contents which contains photo negatives. The alarm goes off the moment the safe is opened. After evading the security guards Bond exits the Osato Building being chased by more guards.
The contact arrives in her white Toyota that dropped Bond off at Henderson's. In the gunfire Bond kills a guard and gets away in the car with the contact.
When the contact refuses to answer any questions from Bond, Bond get suspicious, the girl runs off and Bond follows only to be led into a trap. Thankfully it is more of test than a trap, as the slide ends up in the office of the Japanese Head of Secret Service, Tiger Tanaka. The girl Bond met was his assistant Aki. Bond and Tanaka discuss issues surrounding the capture of the spacecraft over a drink which Bond impresses Tanaka with his knowledge of Japanese culture, then it is off to meet Henderson.
With the paperwork that Bond stole from Osako, it is identified via the photos of the coastline. The next day Bond visits Osato Chemicals and meets Mr Osato and his secretary. Bond pretends to be a salesman for Empire Chemicals called Fisher and is unknowingly scanned by an x-ray machine. When leaving the building Bond is followed, Aki arrives in her car and tells Bond to get down, he jumps in the car and is chased throughout Tokyo.
What follows in one of the best scenes in the film, the car being chassed is picked up by a Chinook helicopter with an electromagnet, the car is dropped in the ocean. With information given to him by Tanaka Bond requests that he contacts M and asks for Little Nellie to be delivered. Bond and Aki got to Kolbi docks. When they are both chased, Bond sends Aki to tell Tanaka, as they have rattled someone's nerves. Bond is knocked out and captured. He awakens on the ship that was in the pictures fro the safe, the Ning-Po with the secretary on his visit to Osato Chemicals holding a medical blade. After some kissing between the two of them, Bond persuades her that he is a spy for Empire Chemicals; she joins him in a small aircraft. Suddenly a restraint appears and Bond is trapped, the girl then bails out the aircraft and parachutes to the ground. Bond gets out of the restraint and manages to land the aircraft, just before it explodes.
Back with Tanaka, Q arrives with Little Nellie, a gyroscopic helicopter. Only this is different, this has missiles, flamethrowers, incendiaries devices and so on. Bond is asked to check out an area where a faint echo was received of the unknown spacecraft landing. He takes Little Nellie, when investigating the area four helicopters appears as if from nowhere. Bond has a battle on his hands and uses Little Nellie to the max.
In Russia, a space capsule is launched. After a number of orbits it too is captured by an unknown craft, in am identical manner to the American one. This brings the world closer to war.
While he was in Little Nellie, Bond was suspicious of one of the volcanoes; he goes undercover at Tanaka's Ninja training school.
Back at Osato, the x-rays taken when Bond visited are looked at closely, it is discovered that this man is Bond by the Walther PPK in his holster.
The plan is that the Ninjas will be bought onto the volcano island disguised with Bond as Japanese fisherman. Bond then must become part of the fishing village near the Volcano. Another countdown for the American has begun…… an attempt to kill Bond fails and kills Aki instead, it is decided that the island must be investigated and quickly.
It is when the Volcano is attacked that Bond comes face to face with Blofeld for the first time. Just seeing the volcano that is big enough to launch a rocket into outer space is breath taking, so I will not spoil the ending of the film at all.
---The Cast---
For this Bond, the filmmakers bought together a truly international cast….
Sean Connery IS Bond; he looks a little older and a little heavier than the previous film Thunderball. What I found interesting is that his Scottish accent is stronger than in the previous four films.
Donald Pleasance plays Blofeld, the ultimate enemy of Bond and Head of Spectre. This is the first time that we have seen Blofeld on screen, Pleasance plays him with a scar down the right hand side of his face in a more dangerous and psychotic manner.
Akiki Wayabayashi plays Aki, the girl that Bond meets at the Sumo match. Even though she is the eye candy for the film, she does do a good job of being a Bond girl and you do feel that her character and Bond have a spark.
Tiger Tanaka is played by Tetsuro Tamba, a well known Japanese film actor. This was one of the only times that he appeared in an English speaking film as the Japanese counterpart of M. Although is voice was dubbed over, he does carry a screen presence when on screen with Connery, and in the attack on the Volcano can show he can handle himself in a fight.
Kissy Suzuki is played by Mie Hama, Kissy is one of Tanaka's operatives in the village. Although she is different from Aki, she is more athletic and plays an important part in the story.
Teru Shimada plays Osato whose chemical company is a front for Spectre. Teru is well known for playing Japanese parts in films such as Batman (1966) and also in American TV series such as Hawaii Five O and the Six Million Dollar Man.
Karin Dor plays Osato's secretary Helga Brandt, a German actress whose scene with Sean Connery shows what a good choice she was for the part. Towards the end of the film she comes to an unexpected end.
Bernard Lee plays M for the fifth time and although he is only in a small number of scenes he looks more relaxed than previous films. This is one time that we get to see M in his Admirals uniform as well.
Desmond Llewelyn has one memorable scene as Q when he delivers Little Nellie to Bond.
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny has the same number of scenes as M; as usual she flirts with Bond on his way to M. Again she is seen in full naval uniform.
---The Extras----
This set is loaded with extras from documentaries about the making of the film to what happened when Sean Connery resigned from the role of Bond.
It also tells the story of how the producers wanted to go big with this film in terms of action, story and set pieces and how with this film they took a step back to produce an entirely different film to what had been seen before. When the volcano set is referred to it is with full pride of the crew involved as the work that went into construction of what were them a record breaking film set was an incredible effort which is reflected in the documentaries. That set cost 105 of the budget and was designed by Ken Adam, who has a documentary about him included. Surprisingly it also shows the downside of the production with what went wrong, it is very moving story regarding the cameraman. That lost a foot when the helicopter blades came too close to the copter that he was filming from.
This is the second time that he film has been released on DVD, as this is an Ultimate Edition disc the extras have been beefed up and includes extras such as interviews from Whickers World to Radio adverts and trailer. A great selection, full list of extras below:
• Audio commentary from director Lewis Gilbert and members of the cast and crew • 'Inside You Only Live Twice' featurette • 'Silhouettes: The James Bond Titles' featurette • Plane Crash: animated storyboard sequence • 'Welcome To Japan, Mr Bond' featurette • Whicker's World: highlights from the 1967 BBC documentary • ON location with award-winning production designer Ken Adam • Interactive guide to the world of 'You Only Live Twice' • '007 - Licence To Restore': a featurette detailing the Bond Ultimate Edition restoration process • Original trailers • Photo gallery • TV spots • Radio communications
---Packaging---
They have really pushed the boat out this time, the photos on the cover is a montage of pictures from the film in nice grey sepia. The bonus being that an embossed cardboard sleeve has also been added and this adds a nice touch when on the shelf.
Inside the case, the discs have pictures of Bond and Aki on Disc 1 and 2 respectively. You also get a 7 page booklet detailing some good facts about the film, especially a staggering breakdown of the volcano set. You also get a chance to win an Aston Martin.
---Overall---
The film eventually took $111 million dollars worldwide and the DVD represents that perfectly. The film has been restored as with all other Bonds in this release and it has been presented very well as the richness and depth of colour.
The film still stands up and looks fresh. A good entry into the Bond legacy and one that is still very watchable 40 years after it was made. I think that this was mainly down to the direction of Lewis Gilbert who added some punch to the angles and direction of the camera, compared to previous films the camera is a lot more kinetic than before.
With competition from TV series such as I-SPY The Man From Uncle and Mission Impossible, which really spawned from the success of Bond, the producers felt that it was the right time to raise the bar, and that is exactly what they did.
The music score by John Barry has a slight oriental theme to it and works really well on the film, it does grab your attention throughout, and complments well Lewis Gilbert' s direction of the film and not against it and adds tension in all the right places which with a good sound system will should sound very good indeed as the picture quality due to the restoration process has exceeeded my expectations.
One downside is that this was the film that Mike Myers based Austin Powers on, and you can see the similarities quite clearly such as the white cat, clothing and so on. It's a shame that this happened as this thought is in the back of your mind throughout.
It is also interesting to note that The Spy Who Loved Me with Roger Moore looked like a remake of this film, next time you watch it have a look.
If you are looking for a good price for this then look around, Tesco were selling these at £11.99 plus 200 Clubcard points, Virgin and HMV sell these at £13.99, but I have seen £17.99 in some places such as WH Smith. On line play.com sells at £11.99.
This film will work well as a dolby and DTS sound mix is included.
Interesting fact#1 - Riffs from the title song sung by Nancy Sinatra, was used by Robbie Williams for his somg Millenium.
I hope you have enjoyed reading this, and I hope to see you again soon. Until next time, Tim
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it in this magnificent, pull-out-the-stops movie spectacular. Sean Connery returns as Agent 007, who travels to Japan to stop the evil SPECTRE organisation and i...
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Feb 9th, 2007
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