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
You Only Live Twice (novel) out. The central character in the novel is James Bond himself and the book's penultimate chapter contains his obituary, purportedly written for "The Times" by M. The obituary provides a number of biographical details of Bond's early life, including his parents' names and nationalities. Bond begins "You Only Live Twice" in a disturbed state, described by M as "going to pieces", following the death of his wife Tracy eight months previously. Academic Jeremy Black points out that it was a very different Bond to the character who lost Vesper Lynd at the end of "Casino Royale". Given a final chance