You Only Live Twice (film) manned spacecraft disappear mysteriously in orbit. With each nation blaming the other amidst the Cold War, Bond travels secretly to a remote Japanese island to find the perpetrators and comes face to face with Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the head of SPECTRE. The film reveals the appearance of Blofeld, who was previously a partially unseen character. SPECTRE is working for the government of an unnamed Asian power, implied to be the People's Republic of China, to provoke war between the superpowers. During the filming in Japan, it was announced that Sean Connery would retire from the role of Bond, but after
Motifs in the James Bond film series the degree to which Bond girls are pivotal to propelling the plot forward varies from one film to the next. Five of the Bond girls are "bad" girls (or at least working for the villain) who turn "good" (or switch sides) usually due to Bond's influence. Bond has fallen in love with only Tracy di Vicenzo in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" and Vesper Lynd in "Casino Royale", but both of them die at or near the end of the respective films. Roald Dahl, a screenwriter of "You Only Live Twice", said he was given a formula to work to