You Only Live Twice is a 1967 spy film and the fifth in the James Bond series produced by Eon Productions, starring Sean Connery as the fictional MI6 agent James Bond. It is the first Bond film to be directed by Lewis Gilbert, who later directed the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me and the 1979 film Moonraker, both starring Roger Moore. The screenplay of You Only Live Twice was written by Roald Dahl, and loosely based on Ian Fleming's 1964 novel of the same name. It is the first James Bond film to discard most of Fleming's plot, using only a few characters and locations from the book as the background for an entirely new story.
In the film, Bond is dispatched to Japan after American and Soviet crewed spacecraft disappear mysteriously in orbit, each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War. Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island to find the perpetrators, and comes face-to-face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. The film reveals the appearance of Blofeld, who was previously a partially unseen character. SPECTRE is working for the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to be the People's Republic of China, to provoke war between the superpowers.
Principals
- Akiko Wakabayashi as Aki
- Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki
- Tetsurô Tanba as Tiger Tanaka (as Tetsuro Tamba)
- Teru Shimada as Mr. Osato
- David Toguri as Assassin in Bedroom
Smaller Roles
- Yumi Fujiwara as Tanaka's Agent (uncredited)
- Masaaki Hatsumi as Photographic Assistant to Tanaka on Train (uncredited)
- Hisako Katakura as Blofeld's Financier (uncredited)
- Kiyomi Kobayashi as Title Geisha (uncredited)
- Junko Makimura as Tanaka's Agent (uncredited)
- Kikko Matsuoka as Diver Girl (uncredited)
- Yuka Minami as Ginza Girl (uncredited)
- Isaburo Shikimori as Gyoji (uncredited)
- Sumo Wrestlers
- Takemitsu Fujinishiki as Sumo Wrestler (uncredited)
- Masakatsu Kotozakura as Sumo Wrestler (uncredited)
- Sadanoyama as Japanese Sumo Wrestler (uncredited)
- Akio Tsurugamine as Sumo Wrestler (uncredited)
- Bath Girls
- Mai Ling as Bath Girl #2 (uncredited)
- Yee-Wah Yang as Bath Girl #3 (uncredited)
- Yasuko Nagazumi as Bath Girl #4 (uncredited)