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Rating: About halfway through the film, Tigre Tanaka, head of the Japanese secret services, 100% disabled who needs the help of at least four caregivers to bathe, swirls his pixelated penis while revealing to Bond his plan to assault the evil SPECTRE's secret base:
Formaggino: "First: you become a Japanese (?).
Second: you train quickly and well to become a ninja like us (??).
Third: to give you more security (?!?), you take a wife (?!?!?!). You must marry a girl known on the island."
Bond: "And is she beautiful?"
Formaggino: "She has the face of a pig."
A scene follows set in what should be a high-tech operating room, where 00bucket undergoes a delicate plastic surgery operation on his eyebrows, at the end of which he is transformed into the legendary
BONDO-SAN
(Holy Mary, help us...)
And it's exactly at that moment that you realize that something, somewhere, has definitively gone to hell.
Something that you can't explain, that you wouldn't know how to name, but that has to do with decency, modesty, and shame.
"You Only Live Twice" (1967) is a misstep.
Or rather, a slip on a banana peel stuffed with Vaseline left on a freshly waxed floor.
The misstep deserves respect because at least you tried.
The slip means you're an idiot who doesn't watch where he steps.
And, I must say, the problem is not even the "Poverata" effect caused by the embarrassing and somewhat moving special effects in the space scene (meaning set in space) at the beginning, where a can of frying oil literally "eats" a can of tuna.
Because, in this case, one can still appreciate the desire to dare and/or to amaze the viewer, perhaps in a clumsy and awkward manner, but still to the fullest extent of the technical means of the time.
No.
The problem is that too many things are blatantly "rushed".
First and foremost, let's not hide it, Connery's performance.
Slightly overweight, understandably bored of a role increasingly on the brink of caricature, the Scot works only out of necessity, showing off his most gratuitous (and, dare I say? annoyingly) playful performance.
All around him, careens a script with huge holes and contrivances (really genius to try to kill Bond right in front of Osato's entrance!), a pace that never takes off, comedy in Mel Brooks style, and a brass-based musical theme that sounds like a bersaglieri march played by the town band of Abbiate Guazzone.
And, especially, a final combat sequence confused and chaotic, in which a hundred ninjas, described just before as "masters of camouflage and surprise" (quote), in order:
- immediately get caught by the base's surveillance system;
- get massacred like livestock by machine guns;
- can't find the entrance to the secret base (Hahahah!);
- after they manage to enter, create a hell of a mess with machine guns and grenades that's more chaotic than Chinese New Year in Naples;
Note that the only one to brandish "something" vaguely ninja-like is actually Bond who, at a certain point, could easily shoot an extra-soldier with a gun but instead decides to complicate things by using a ninja star to hit the poor guy on the foreskin.
There's also time for a small skit, quite surreal, in which the screenwriters wanted to show solidarity for LGBT causes, I believe on the occasion of the approval of the Cirinnà Bill.
Bond and Tigre, whose penis occupies no more than 5-6 pixels, are being bathed by a group of bikini-clad girls, when the aforementioned military strategy genius also reveals himself to be an expert in sociology and female psychology, hilariously:
Formaggino: "I imagine you know what, about you, fascinates them... (winks). It's the chest hair (winks a bit more forcefully). Japanese men all have magnificent smooth skin (winks so hard that Enzo Miccio gets up from the couch and leaves belching and farting simultaneously)."
That would have been enough. But in the mud, you have to dive headfirst. And here comes the reply from the spy who came from the underwear department:
Bond: "An ancient Japanese proverb says: birds do not nest in bare trees".
In the distance, a dull thud echoes.
It's the shame that has just thrown itself off the balcony.
Let's be clear: not everything is to be thrown into the undifferentiated trash.
The car chase with the usual helicopter-based "treatment" is a notable idea and is shot very well.
The Spectre's secret base is (again!) cool.
Donald Pleasence lends his face (finally) to Blofeld and, in just a few scenes, brands himself into the mind of any viewer.
The entire sequence aboard the Little Nellie helicopter is nice, even if the direction doesn't do much to conceal that large models the size of a Kinder egg were used.
But the final balance is insufficient and, to be honest, makes me fear an ugly turn for the subsequent episodes of the saga.
Wanting to move (a verb never more appropriate) to the "pussy department", the situation doesn't change much.
On this subject, I have already reiterated several times, even on these pages, my sincere appreciation for oriental beauties.
Put simply, I think that a people and a culture that has given us bukkake must deserve our unconditional respect.
However, my East-eros-philia does not prevent me from stating that we are faced with the, indeed the, worst Bond Girls so far.
Akiko Wakabayashi, as Aki, present in the first part of the film before falling victim to an assassination attempt intended for Bond (incidentally, he doesn't seem to have huge problems with transfer and mourning, since within a couple of scenes he's already after another young Japanese girl without batting an eyelid) is cute and nice but objectively can't hold a candle to those who preceded her.
Mie Hama, as Kissy Suzuki, could have had even more potential than her unlucky colleague, but is relegated to an absolutely secondary role, appears in a few scenes (almost always in a bikini), and, in any case, doesn't leave an indelible mark on my sheet... I can give her an extra half-point because I discovered she posed for Playboy and initiative must always be rewarded.
Come on, guys, how is this possible?
Just a few days ago I put someone like Claudine Auger at the bottom of the ranking and now you show up with these two cysts?
The Japanese setting offered a thousand possibilities!
I dream of a Bond gym teacher who steals panties from students' lockers.
I imagine a Bond samurai who makes bad jokes in the tavern about big swords and spacious sheaths and bamboo sticks that don't bend even in the fiercest storms.
I would have even been okay with a Bond that you could throw the components at and he'd transform into Steel Jeeg Robot and hook up with the Pink Power Ranger.
Instead, you put a toupee on him, fake eyebrows on his face, and two cold spring rolls on his plate.
More than ever before, the rankings make themselves:
"Best Boom Bond Movies":
1) "From Russia with Love";
2) "Mission Goldfinger";
3) "License to Kill";
4) "Thunderball (Operation Thunder)";
5) "You Only Live Twice"
"Best Boom Bond Pussies":
1) Daniela Bianchi – Tatiana Romanova;
2) Honor Blackman – Pussy Galore;
3) Ursula Andress – Honey Rider;
4) Claudine Auger – Dominique "Domino" Derval;
5) Memole and the other Japanese girl who dies;
Next appointment: "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"
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