film information
Produced by Albert R. Broccoli & Harry Saltzman
Directed by Lewis Gilbert
Screenplay by Ronald Dahl
World Premiere 12th June 1967 (London, England)
US Release Date 13th June 1967
Worldwide Box Office $111,600,000 US
Budget $9,500,000 US
Running Time 116 Minutes
james bond
bond girls
q-branch
posters
vehicles
bond villains
Donald Pleasance (Ernst Stavro Blofeld)
bond allies
Charles Gray (Dikko Henderson)
locations
Hong Kong; Tokyo; Kobe/Osaka; Cape Kennedy; Star City, USSR; small Japanese fishing village near Matsu.
bond james bond
Once again James Bond doesn't use his classic introduction. Everyone appears to know who he is anyway. However, Bond does introduce himself as Mr Fisher when he meets with Mr Osato.
behind the scenes
At the start of the film, the second person to talk in the Hawaii tracking station is Captain Carter from The Spy Who Loved Me. He is the one who also speaks throughout the film from the tracking station.
Mie Hama was originally going to play Aki, but had great difficulty learning English and was going to be dropped from the film. However after saying that if she got dropped she would commit suicide, she got given the part of Kissy Suzuki instead.
Up until recently a number of scenes were cut from English broadcasts and early videos, these have now been restored. The cut scenes were where Tiger shows Bond the rocket guns, the scene where the Ninja cuts the arms off the ‘hay man’, the scene with the Ninja's throwing the shooting stars and also when the assassin tries to kill Bond with the spike coming out of the pole. The scene where Tiger throws the shooting star at Blofelds arm was also slightly cut.
Czech actor Jan Werich was originally supposed to play the villainous Ernst Stavro Blofeld, but after a couple of scenes where shot it was thought he was not menacing enough and so Donald Pleasance was cast instead.
The outside scenes at Osato Chemicals was taken at Hotel New Otani, Tokyo.
You Only Live Twice is the only film James Bond isn't seen driving a car. §
