You Only Live Twice (1967)
d. Lewis Gilbert

Ling (Tsai Chin)

England's "man in Hong Kong" 007 agent James Bond (Sean Connery) was reportedly working on a problem in Asia - he was first seen kissing a Chinese girl in bed, pretty Ling (Tsai Chin) and asking: "Why do Chinese girls taste different from all other girls?" She asked: "You think we better, huh?" Bond: "No, just different, like Peking duck is different from Russian caviar. But I love them both."

Ling replied after rising from the bed - questionably racy: "Darling, I give you very best duck." Bond thought that would be lovely: "We've had some interesting times together, Ling. I'll be sorry to go," he recollected.

She activated a switch on the wall, flipping the bed (with Bond in it) into an upright position into the wall. This allowed gunmen to enter and fire machine guns at the bed.

[Later, it was revealed that Ling had been hired by MI6 to help 'fake' Bond's death.]

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi)

In bustling downtown Tokyo, Bond (Connery) was followed as he entered a Sumo hall where wrestlers were preparing for their matches. He was seated in the large audience hall, where his Japanese Secret Service agent contact - pretty, soft-spoken and polite partner Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi), joined him.

After uttering the code words "I Love You," she drove him in her nearby white Toyota convertible sports-car to meet local MI6 operative Dikko Henderson (Charles Gray) in his Japanese-styled home.

After the operative was killed, Bond traced the killers to the Osata Chemical & Engineering Company, a local chemical corporation, where Aki fortuitously rescued Bond when she drove by in her white Toyota 2000 GT sports-car.

Bond became suspicious when Aki refused to answer his questions, and then stopped the car and fled into a deserted subway station. As he walked towards her, a trap-door opened in the floor beneath him, and Bond found himself sliding down a slick metal chute. He was deposited in an arm-chair in the secret underground HQ office of the head of the Japanese Secret Service (SIS), "Tiger" Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba).

Bond was invited to spend the night in Tanaka's magnificent ancient castle. After his traditional bath, Bond selected one of four "sexyful" girls (see below) for a massage, although Aki replaced his chosen female and then promised no interruptions for the remainder of the night ("No one will disturb you tonight. I think I will enjoy very much serving under you"). Bond carried her to the bed where they made love for the first time (off-screen).

In another well-timed rescue the next day, also at the Osata Company, Aki saved Bond in her Toyota sports-car in front of the building, and radioed Tanaka for support ("arrange usual reception"). They escaped, and later as the two were investigating the suspicious Ning-Po freighter at the Kobe docks, they saw that liquid oxygen tanks were being loaded before they were both attacked.

Later in the film, as "extra special cover," Bond was to "become a Japanese," receive training in Ninja skills, and "take a wife." Aki was disappointed that she wouldn't be the lucky one - Bond had to marry an Ama girl, one known on the island (Kissy Suzuki, see below).

Bond was transformed and disguised as a "Japanese" by Tanaka's female bath attendants (see below) so that he could infiltrate the mysterious island near a volcano. He would pretend that he was a poor Japanese fisherman. Before leaving, he made love to Aki "Japanese style."

But during the night as they slept after their second passionate love-making, a SPECTRE assassin killed Aki, with deadly poison intended for Bond dripping onto her lips down a long string. Bond shot and killed the hitman, but couldn't save Aki.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Four Japanese bathing girls:

Masseuse: Jeanne Roland
Bath Girl # 2: Mai Ling
Bath Girl # 3: Yee-Wah Yang
Bath Girl # 4: Yasuko Nagazumi

At his ancient castle where Bond (Connery) was invited to spend the night, the head agent Tanaka (Tetsuro Tamba) provided his shared "possessions" - four scantily-dressed female bathing attendants in pink bras and panties who assisted in Bond's "first civilized bath." Bond quipped as he eyed the ladies: "Really, well I like the plumbing."

Tanaka explained: "Place yourself entirely in their hands, my dear Bond-san. "Rule number one is: 'Never do anything for yourself when someone else can do it for you'...Rule number two: 'In Japan, men always come first. Women come second.'"

After the hairy-chested Bond was soaped and scrubbed, Tanaka remarked: "I suppose you know what it is about you that fascinates them. It's the hair on your chest. Japanese men all have beautiful bare skin." Bond responded: "Japanese proverb say: 'Bird never make nest in bare tree.'"

For a massage, Bond selected one of the girls with bangs, a masseuse (Jeanne Roland) confirmed as "very 'sexyful'" by Tanaka. But at the start of Bond's back massage, the girl was replaced by Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) (see above).

Slightly later in the film, as part of the plan to defeat SPECTRE, Bond was transformed and disguised by Tanaka's female bath attendants as a "Japanese."

Helga Brandt (Karin Dor)

Helga Brandt (SPECTRE No. 11) was the red-headed "confidential" secretary of Japanese executive Mr. Osato (Teru Shimada) of the Osato Chemical and Engineering Company in Tokyo, who was surreptitiously supplying liquid oxygen (used as rocket fuel) to an unknown third party client, later identified as SPECTRE (run by SPECTRE No. 1 Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Donald Pleasence)). SPECTRE's goal was to start WWIII from its base inside a hollowed out volcano crater on the island of Matsu in the Sea of Japan.

She first met 007 agent Bond (Connery), who was attempting to pose as Mr. Fisher from Empire Chemicals in Osato's office. When Bond left, she was ordered by Osato to "kill him," but when she had her chance to kill him (as he sat tied up in a chair in her cabin) on board the ship the Ning-Po that was used to transport liquid oxygen to SPECTRE, Helga declined as part of a non-sensical plot twist to fool Bond.

She seduced him as he proposed a "nice offer" - convincing her that they could split the profits from the theft of Osato's process for making MSG (worth $300,000), if she cut him free and they fled to Tokyo (and then Europe) together. When she released him, he cut the two shoulder straps on her dress, quipping to the sultry vixen: "Oh, the things I do for England" as they embraced and he unzipped the back of her dress before making love with her.

However, as they flew back to Tokyo in a Cessna aircraft that she piloted, the deceitful Helga double-crossed Bond - she sabotaged the plane with a lipstick bomb and jumped out, parachuting to safety. Bond fortunately brought the crashing plane under control, and landed it before it exploded.

Later, she met her fate at the hands of Blofeld, who summoned her to his office and questioned her and Osato about Bond still being alive. Osato blamed Helga for failing to kill Bond: "I gave Number 11 the strictest orders to eliminate him...She failed." Helga retaliated: "You should have killed him yourself. You had plenty of opportunity."

Blofeld asserted she would be punished: "This organization does not tolerate failure" as he activated a hidden foot pedal, plunging her into a piranha pool of voracious fish where she was stripped to the bone.

You Only Live Twice (1967)

Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama)

As part of Tanaka's (Tetsuro Tamba) (and Bond's) mission to defeat SPECTRE, Tanaka planned "extra special cover" for Bond, who had already undergone surgery to disguise himself as a Japanese fisherman. Bond would now "take a wife" -- he would marry Tanaka's own protege/ninja agent Kissy Suzuki (Mie Hama), an Ama island pearl diver who would be known on the island.

Bond was not pleased that Aki (see above) couldn't be his chosen wife. Before seeing his bride-to-be, Bond asked: "Is she pretty?" Tanaka replied: "She has a face like a pig." Bond reacted: "To hell with that idea."

However, at the traditional (mock) wedding, she was revealed to be a very pretty young woman. After, they ferried over to the Ama diving island of Matsu, to Kissy's house (she lived there alone after her parents both died), where Bond insisted they must sleep together on their 'honeymoon' "to keep up appearances" ("We're supposed to be married") but she rejected the idea. He had taken a false name, and it was only a 'business' arrangement, she claimed.

The next morning, after they slept in separate beds, Kissy and Bond slipped away from the fishing divers and investigated a big Rosaki cave "on the mainland" where a local diving girl had recently been found dead under mysterious circumstances. They were forced to evacuate and swim to safety from the cave's grotto when it contained poison phosgene gas (and the walls were covered with yellow sulphur). Bond hypothesized that the cave's tunnel led all the way up to the top of the volcano.

They climbed to its summit, and as they took a rest break (Kissy: "It's hard work"), Bond quipped: "Some honeymoon." He kissed Kissy on the hillside, and then they observed a descending helicopter going down into the volcano, and Bond warned: "the honeymoon's over." They climbed further and discovered that the crater was covered with a false lake surface made of metal - hiding SPECTRE's headquarters and rocket site.

Bond entered the site when the crater roof opened (aided by rubber suction cups attached to his hands and knees), while Kissy went back to alert Tanaka and his Ninjas. On her swim back, Kissy was attacked by a SPECTRE helicopter, and had to dive deep underwater to evade them.

As the volcano's base was destroyed by a series of explosions (while the volcano was also erupting with lava blasts), Bond, Kissy, and Tanaka (and surviving Ninjas) fled for their lives by swimming out of the cave tunnel.

Support planes air-dropped rubber dinghys for the survivors, and Bond and Kissy found themselves in one of them. Bond reminded Kissy: "Now, how about that honeymoon?" - she replied: "Why not? But they'll never let you stay." He vowed they wouldn't be found ("But they'll never find us").

They embraced and kissed, as "M's" M1 submarine interrupted their love-making, by ironically surfacing directly under their raft. Miss Moneypenny (Lois Maxwell) was pleased to have to summon Bond below to deliver a report.