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) You Only Live Twice (novel) You Only Live Twice is the eleventh novel (and twelfth book) in Ian Fleming's James Bond series of stories. It was first published by Jonathan Cape in the United Kingdom on 26 March 1964 and sold out quickly. The book holds the distinction of being the last novel by Fleming to be published in his lifetime, with subsequent works being published posthumously. "You Only Live Twice" is the concluding chapter in what is known as the "Blofeld Trilogy". The story starts eight months after the murder of Tracy Bond, which occurred at the end of