MovieChat Forums > You Only Live Twice (1967) Discussion > Aki and Kissy should have been one chara...

Aki and Kissy should have been one character

posted 9 years ago by FilmKoala
9 replies | jump to latest

I don?t see any real purpose in the character of Kissy. She's introduced really late into the film and she's pretty much useless and doesn't do enough for me to care about her. If Bond "married" Aki she could have been present during the raid on the volcano and she could have helped out. Instead we have Kissy being there for no reason.

Aki is a pretty good character and I enjoy her death scene, but because she dies before the final act she ends up being a pretty forgettable Bond girl.

[–] gregforttmags 9 years ago

Aki's death was very creepy, sad, and dramatic, with its main problem being that it wasn't mentioned afterwards and we had a half written replacement.

[–] Spike64 9 years ago

Not to mention Aki is a helluva lot better looking.

[–] gregforttmags 9 years ago

Mia was very beautiful as well, actually.

[–] domester82 9 years ago

I didn't see the point of killing off Aki, and replacing her with another girl in the final act, either. Other than the Bond tradition of killing off at least one of the movie's Bond girls.

[–] gregforttmags 9 years ago

This time they killed the defacto main love interest while the more minor fling survived.

[–] kevinn02 9 years ago

Look at the history of the Bond films. In EVERY SINGLE MOVIE, there is a character close to Bond who is killed...the "sacrificial lamb". I think it's meant to denote realism.

The unholy triumvirate:
The Bat, the Trek, the Bond

[–] you_savvy 9 years ago

Denote realism? In a movie with an evil space-shuttle-stealing fortress hidden inside a volcano?

[–] Slavish_asteroid90 9 years ago

The character of Kissy has no real purpose and it would have worked better had they just kept Aki alive.

However, the actress who plays Kissy (Mie Hama) was originally cast as Aki, but when she couldn't learn English fast enough the proudcers decided to let her go. Hama was so ashamed that she threatened to kill herself, so naturally the producers felt compelled to offer her the smaller role of Kissy.

[–] mistermycroft 9 years ago

Well, as has been mentioned, when Roald Dahl wrote the screenplay for this in 1966, the producers ordered him to follow the Bond Formula of Goldfinger and Thunderball, to have 3 women in it

The first girl Bond meets is an ally who is killed off (Jill Masterson, Paula, Aki)

The second doesn't like Bond, and she later dies, also (Tilly, Fiona Volpe, Helga)

Bond ends up with woman # 3 (Pussy Galore, Domino, Kissy)