Bond #5: You Only Live Twice (1967)

Sean Connery's fifth outing as James Bond continues with the formula abate with an increasing level of spectacle and outlandishness. Thanks to a bigger budget, the film locales includes outer space and to Hong Kong and Japan. One of the joys of watching these earlier Bond movies is the way they feel like time capsules of an era that is lost. Asia is portrayed as mysterious and exotic. Japan is particularly featured here picturesquely and we are introduced to sumo wrestling and ninja fighting in addition to the touristy sights. And as usual, Bond gets to bed every woman that he meets (except the ever flirting Money Penny) while making cringing sexist remarks and one-liners. Such on screen behaviour is probably not going to see the light of day in current movies. Is this a reflect of our "progress" in our behaviour? Or perhaps a suppression of something that probably haven't changed that much fundamentally!

While the scale and scope of the adventure has upped, You Only Live Twice suffers from too many illogical situations which serves merely as plot devices or an excuse to inject some action scenes and kills that seem to come out of nowhere. Bond again narrowly misses being killed several times only to be conveniently rescued by his Japanese lady counterpart zooming in right in time to shout at him to "get in" for a quick escape in her convertible sports car. The part of the plot requiring Bond to masquerade as a local Japanese is ridiculous and hilarious except it wasn't played out to be a joke! Despite the cast of hundreds on both the good and bad side, there was no key nemesis for James Bond to take on apart from a rather tame fight scene towards the end with a big sized henchman who was never properly introduced.

On the plus side we get to finally see archenemy Blofeld SPECTRE's mastermind, after being teased with just the camera showing his hands stroking a purry cat for the last 4 outings. However he seems a bit foolish as he lets James Bond get away (again) while being merciless and non hesitant when killing his own people as punishment for failure. Despite a brief screen appearance, Donald Pleasence did a good job as Blofeld, making him a memorable villain whom we will no doubt be seeing more of in future outings.The theme song You Only Live Twice sung by Nancy Sinatra once again succeeds in being yet another classic sounding amazing and mesmerising. I could just listen to this over and over again.

All in all, I wouldn't say this was outstanding. More like business as usual and more of the same .. Even Sean Connery appears to be getting bored and lacked the spark in the earlier movies. Apparently Sean Connery was reported to have been bored by his James Bond character and had creative differences with the film's producer resulting in his exit from the series and the introduction of a new Bond for the next Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service! Interesting times ahead as we venture deeper into the series!