Product Details

• Actors: Sean Connery, Akiko Wakabayashi, Mie Hama, Tetsurô Tanba, Teru Shimada
• Directors: Lewis Gilbert
• Writers: Harold Jack Bloom, Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl
• Producers: Albert R. Broccoli, Harry Saltzman, Stanley Sopel
• Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: French (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono), English (Dolby Digital 5.1), English (DTS 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• DVD Release Date: May 22, 2007
• Run Time: 117 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (220 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000NIBUS0
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,704 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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• For more information about "You Only Live Twice" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The film boasts the best of the Bond title songs (this one sung on a dreamy track by Nancy Sinatra), but the movie itself is one of the weaker ones of the Sean Connery phase of the 007 franchise. The story concerns an effort by the evil organization SPECTRE to start a world war, but the not-so-super villain behind the plot is the awfully civilized Donald Pleasence. The thin script is by Roald Dahl (shouldn't we have expected a better Bond nemesis from the creator of mad genius Willy Wonka?), and direction is by British veteran Lewis Gilbert (Alfie). But the movie can't hold a candle to Dr. No, From Russia with Love, or Goldfinger. --Tom Keogh

Product Description

When American and Soviet spaceships are hijacked, Bond must travel to Japan and face his rival Blofeld, who is deliberately aggravating both superpowers in order to start a world war.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG
Release Date: 22-MAY-2007
Media Type: DVD

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The finest of all the Bond novels., May 21, 2004

By	Augustus Caesar, Ph.D. (Eugene, Oregon United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Only Live Twice (James Bond Novels) (Paperback)

"You Only Live Twice" (1964) was published the year of Ian Fleming's death, and, as with its predecessor, the superb "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," it is suffused with doom and death. It is unlike any of the other Bond books, with a pervasive gloominess that was as much the result of Fleming's rapidly declining health and unhappiness with the world around him as it was the result of Bond's clinical depression after the tragedy that finished the last book.

Bond, recovering from the death of his wife, is falling to pieces. Taking the advice of a friend, M sends him on a vital mission to Japan, which he hopes will restore Bond's spirits. What seems at first to be a rather placid visit soons turns dangerous as Bond agrees to accept secrets about the Russians in exchange for carrying out a delicate mission for the Japanese government. What he encounters is the culmination of the previous two Bond novels, and the last half of the novel is virtually unputdownable.

This is the best writing of Fleming's career, and his descriptions of Bond's disintegration are surprisingly moving. The final hundred pages or so are horrifying and gripping; never before had Fleming demonstrated such mastery of his craft or technical skill at setting up a denouement. The tension becomes almost unbearable.

"You Only Live Twice" is not an uplifting book, but it is a vital book in the Bond series, and much better than its successor, the pale and posthumously published "Man With the Golden Gun." Those expecting slam-bang action will have to wait until the middle and final chapters, but the rewards are worth the patience. This is a fine novel, but I wouldn't start here if I were just discovering Fleming's Bond novels.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The SPECTRE Trilogy concludes, January 27, 2002

By	Jeffrey Ellis "bored recluse" (Richardson, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: You Only Live Twice (Paperback)

Taking place nine months after the tragic ending of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, You Only Live Twice was the last of Ian Fleming's truly completed Bond books. (The Man With The Golden Gun, released after Fleming's untimely death, is considered by many to be only a first draft.) It also served as the conclusion to the trilogy, beginning in Thunderball and continuing through OHMSS, that detailed James Bond's epic battle against Ernest Stavro Blofeld, founder of SPECTRE and essentially the anti-Bond. (Blofeld, we are reminded, refrains from almost all excessive behavior -- even being described as a virgin in Thunderball though he later somehow contracted syphillis in the later books. Of course, while he doesn't smoke or drink, he does seem to spend a lot of time thinking up ways to blow up the world.) While Fleming's prose is better than ever in this novel (showing his uncanny ability to mix sophisticated urbanity with hardboiled cynicism), its still somewhat of a disappointing end to the trilogy.

The plot does start out quite promisingly. Nine months following the death of his wife, James Bond has sunk into an alcoholic wave of depression. M, rather cold hearted in this book after being humanized in OHMSS, comes close to terminating his service but instead, gives Bond a mission designed to respark his love of espionage. Bond is sent to Japan to try to convince the head of the Japanese secret service -- Tiger Tanaka -- to ally himself with the English. These sections of the book are very strong. Bond's mission is believable, the plot (which is quite cynical while detailing how even allies like America and England are actually rivals when it comes to espionage) is compelling, and Tiger Tanaka is one of Fleming's strongest connections. The scenes in which Bond learns about Japanese culture (while containing the well-meaning condascension that of which Fleming -- like most writers of that era regardless of genre or nationality -- was often guilty) are well-written and actually quite interesting. Quite late in the book, Tanaka recruits Bond to investigate the Suicide Gardens of the mysterious Dr. Shatterhand (again, a very promising premise -- Shatterhand basically has constructed a garden of poisonous plants designed to encourage visitors to commit suicide). This investigation leads to Bond's final battle with Blofeld and it is here that the book, unfortunately, disappoints. Blofeld feels like a tacked-on addition and, unlike the previous books, his plot makes absolutely no sense. (Fleming even admits this when Bond concludes that Blofeld's gone insane -- however, his scheme is so ludicrous that it actually detracts from his status as a worthy antagonist to Bond.) Whereas the previous books made Blofeld as fascinating a character as Bond, in this book both of them feel a little bit bland and as a result, their final battle doesn't carry the emotional wallop one might have hoped for.

However, in Fleming's defense, it should be noted that he was quite ill when he wrote this book and it is a testament to his often maligned talents that, even while ailing, he still managed to create a book that -- while uneven as a whole -- still contained some fantastically strong early scenes and a character as vivid as Tiger Tanaka. No, this book is not perfect or even one of the best Bond novels but it will still be enoyed by fans of the original Fleming novels.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Quite An Ending!, February 21, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: You Only Live Twice (The James Bond Classic Library) (Hardcover)

This book, for those of you who would like to see the basis for the movie, is not like the movie at all. The only sameness is the Japan setting.

The story: James Bond is a mess after his wife was murdered. His boss considers firing him, but changes his mind and gives Bond a different kind of assignment: to get a device known as "the vacuum cleaner" from the Japanese. After much interesting negotiation, Bond is told that he can have the machine in exchange for a favor. Bond accepts the terms, and soon realizes that this favor involves an old enemy: Ernst Stavro Blofeld.

This book was well-written, and was Fleming's last finished novel. The new characters are great, as well. The only trouble is that the book reads too much as a travelogue of Japan. The ending will surprise many. Personally, I think Fleming should have stopped here, and not gone on to the disastrous Man With the Golden Gun.