It won't be the nicotine that kills you, Mr. Bond.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Chosen by Blogalongabond

But not for long

Bond's Intro: After seeing the world's most bored looking NASA worker (you work with spaceships man!) and Shane Rimmer (who later gets promoted out of desk work and commands a submarine) we get the line 'our man in Hong Kong is working on it now' - hur hur. Being Bond of course, who as we know by now is a bit of a rubbish agent, he is naturally dipping his wick. And we have another pre-credit sequence obsessed with the idea of Bond dying. I'm not sure any of this plot thread makes sense (all it really does is show SPECTRE up as monumentally stupid) but it's barely referred to anyway and exists to give the film it's 'poetic' title.

Theme Song and Credits: Not quite the taint exporling antics of Thunderball this plays it more subtly (for Bond anyway) with mostly eyes and head shots over cascading, spurting lava (so not that subtle perhaps). We do get some very perky nipples at the end. The song itself is not bad, a little wishy washy.

The Ladies: Helga Brandt is a weak tea version of Fiona Volpe from Thunderball but has her charms, every Bond villainess should be a redhead. Aki is a rather dull, needy, ally ('you wouldn't touch her would you') and strangely written out so we get Kissy at the end who is never even named in the film.

The Baddies: Some henchmen here make one of the laziest attempts at assassination ever, creeping ever so slowly behind Bond, in a car, a few foot away with a machine gun. Just outside of their office. None of this seems well thought through. Hans is a rather dull tough guy type not even introduced until over an hour in and over shadowed by the piranha. Osato is a beaureaucrat. Blofeld is Pleasance so pretty cool but is as idiotic as his underlings (why does he take Bond on a trip of his lair before shooting Osato, going on another trip and then giving the immortal 'Goodbye Mr. Bond'). He should really feed himself to piranha.

License to Kill: A few security guards are callously shot whilst just doing their job. The little nellie sequence is pretty cool, bond showing off his skills and something we haven't really seen in the other Bond films. Hans is, like so many Bond villains, not actually killed by Bond, who seems to take it in his stride the pushing someone into water will make them scream in pain and die.

Bond hates foreigners: 'why do chinese girls taste so different from all other girls like peking duck is different from russian caviar.' I don't know if this is more condescending to women or nationalities. And the whole disguising Connery as Japanese - yesh.

Bond hates women: 'men always come first, woman second' Bond is told 'I might just retire to here' he of course replies.

Bond's crazy knowledge: 'you forget i took a first in oriental languages at cambridge' 'lox - well it's the american name for smoked salmon but it's also the technical name for liquid oxygen which makes rocket fuel'. Naturally knows the right temperature for saki

Bond's a big fat snob: 'russian vodka well done' except he doesn't seem to mind henderson gets the wrong order for shaken not stirred (still Henderson pays the price for that mistake) 'siamese vodka' ugh - I love Bond looking disdainful.

00's killed: Still not a 00 but henderson last all of two minutes after meeting bond who is a form of black plague to intelligence workers. Later Aki bites it aswell of course.

Mini overview: A tremendously lazy, badly paced (the whole 'wedding' sequence is there for what purpose exactly? - although it does take a slight unintended tinge of sadness with what is to come next film) package. But the fun bits are so much fun that doesn't seem to matter. This is the one with the awesome volcano rocket base. Ninjas! Piranha! Red Heads! Cigarette rockets! Gyrocopters! That cool shot of the fight on the roof! Oh and these guys

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