Film and TV – Vintage Ninja. The Samurai, starting in 1. Japan’s first shinobi export to the English- speaking world, but that phenom was contained strictly to Australia. So for the rest of us, the first ninja we saw on any screen were flanking Sean Connery.
Fifty… yes 5. 0… years ago, the rest of the world caught its first shrapnel from the 1. Japanese ninja explosion, as James Bond and an army of modern shinobi wowed global audiences in the film franchise’s fifth entry You Only Live Twice.
The shuriken- slinging silver- screen shadows left an indelible impression on British and American audiences likely seeing any sort of ninja for the first time, and for Japanese audiences the film was a foreign studio’s blockbuster franchise validating their homegrown martial espionage history. But YOLT was more than just a cinematic first — the original book, tie- in newspaper comic strips, and a rare TV special preceding the film also provided a wealth of oft- overlooked ninja pop culture firsts as well.“Advanced Studies” – the first English- language ninja prose. The ninja elements of YOLT were likely germinated during an early 1. Japan by the author of the Bond novels Ian Fleming. Himself steeped in the ways of spies and commandos from a storied military career, Fleming and two journalist friends (who would inspire characters in the book) spent time with Judo champion and Asian fighting arts enthusiast Donn Draeger.
With the 6. 0s ninja boom in full swing, the hooded icons were everywhere — movies, TV, books, comics, toys, ads for cars and kid’s snacks. Whether it was the influence of martial artists or just osmosis of pop culture, Fleming saw a golden opportunity to snatch something to expose the West to for the first time.
The novel You Only Live Twice was released in 1. Mist Saizo” reboot of Shinobi no Mono, Warrior of the Wind and The Third Ninja were in Japanese theaters, Ninja Kaze no Fujimaru hit kids TV and Kamui Gaiden changed manga forever. The 1. 2th Bond story sees a bottomed- out secret agent on the verge of losing everything, unable to cope with the recent death of his wife at the hands of his nemesis Blofeld (YOLT and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service were adapted in reverse order for the films). Bond is shuffled off by his bosses to Japan on a cupcake of a mission as a last ditch effort to salvage his career, and ends up entangled in the manipulations of the brutish head of the Japanese secret service Tiger Tanaka.
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Tiger pressures him to assassinate an outré foreign scientist, who in a remote coastal castle has created a “Garden of Death” infested with carnivorous plants, poisonous snakes, volcanic lava pits, piranha pools and deadly insects. The macabre nature preserve has become a Mecca- like spot for Japan’s suicidal to meet their end, and a major black eye for law enforcement and government alike. Handcufed by honor and international protocol, Tanaka needs a foreigner to be the trigger man, and Bond becomes an expendable assassin critical to a high- governmental machination. Not an unfamiliar plot device to those of us who love shinobi cinema. But the ninja- like political intrigue ends there as, via intel photos, Bond realizes the bizarre botanist is none other than an on- the- lam Blofeld in disguise, living a second life alá Momochi Sandayu in Shinobi no Mono. Now driven by personal revenge, he agrees to play the part of Tanaka’s errand boy.
But its no silenced Walther PPK or sniper rifle assembled out of a brief case for Bond this time — when in Japan, these things are done ninja- style. In the history- making chapter “Advanced Studies,” Tiger Tanaka takes Bond to the ‘Central Mountaineering School,’ a hidden training compound where 0. Iga and Togakure ninjutsu.
Night- black and woodland- camouflaged shozoku, kaginawa grappling hook techniques, mizuguno water spiders and more are demonstrated for the somewhat skeptical mod spy. Tanaka is sternly defensive: …my agents are trained in one of the arts most dreaded in Japan—ninjutsu, which is, literally, the art of stealth or invisibility. All the men you will see have already graduated in at least ten of the eighteen martial arts of bushido, or “ways of the warrior”, and they are now learning to be ninja, or “stealers- in”, which for centuries has been part of the basic training of spies and assassins and saboteurs.
Bond’s typical Brit- colonialist smirk towards the ancient Japanese arts ends quick though, as he is schooled by Tanaka on the necessity of things like a manriki chain hidden in a belt and a simple short fighting staff when operating undercover in a part of the world where guns are strictly illegal and a dead giveaway as to one’s spy status. Bond is also schooled in how to act Japanese and is disguised, somewhat ninja- style, as a local coal miner. To further the cover, he is embedded with an Ama pearl diver named Kissy Suzuki, a perfect guise to get him close to the shore cliff castle. After some straight up ninja infiltration, Bond finds Blofeld in the Garden of Death, clad head to toe in samurai armor for protection from his own plants.
A climactic battle of staff and sword ends with Bond choking the SPECTRE mastermind to death in a brutal moment of raw retribution. You all remember this from the movie, right? Watch Manhattan Romance Online Hollywoodreporter on this page. Bond burned out and near suicidal, Donald Pleasence in full Shogun regalia, surrounded by Triffids?
No??? Well, that’s because after Ian Fleming’s death in ’6. By Thunderball all bets were off on spectacle and expense. YOLT would be the first of the films that totally deviated from its literary source, retaining only the title, a few broad situations, and some character names, for a result unrecognizable from the book. Strips… Comic Strips. The first adaptation of YOLT was actually in newspaper comic strip form. The London Daily Express started adapting Fleming in 1.
Connery films with the prose of the original stories. YOLT was syndicated worldwide from 1. John Mc. Lusky providing what was likely the first ninja in illustrated comic form that any given country outside of Japan had seen to that point.
Tanaka’s ninja school scene was metered- out over nine issues. The artist did his homework on Blofeld’s plant- proof samurai suit, but chose to forgo Bond in full ninja gear. The strips also veered from the book a bit in having Kissy accompany Bond on his infiltration of the castle, and Blofeld’s death is blunted in a way that left room for him to return in the future. Mc. Lusky didn’t seem to have a firm grasp on the ninja suit, but his phantom- like shrouded shinobi are a significant footnote in the history of ninja media outside of Japan.
And… they’d be a lot closer to our idea of ninja than what was to be seen on screen a year or so later. Enter the Scottish Ninja. With vast amounts of the book discarded completely, we can thank the omnipresence of pop culture ninja in mid- 6. Japan for swaying the filmmakers to retain the book’s martial arts elements for the big screen YOLT. Producers Albert R. Broccoli & Harry Saltzman and director Lewis Gilbert had followed Fleming’s footsteps for scouting trips to Japan and been treated to local ninja demonstrations, press cameras blazing around them.
One final opportunity to take in a ninja exhibit led to the crew changing a flight back to England, and the original flight subsequently crashed killing all on board. So ninja literally saved the Bond franchise. The film’s writers Harold Jack Bloom (veteran of shows like Dragnet, Adam 1. Emergency!) and Roald Dahl (of Willy Wonka and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang fame) also spent time in Japan, equally exposed to the ninja craze, and it shows. Debate has ensued since as to whose ideas were whose, but clearly someone saw Shinobi no Mono and its ilk, as scenes common to ninja village training montages are mirrored directly during Bond’s tour of Tiger’s compound. Dropped was the entire Garden of Death angle (and thankfully Fleming’s notions of the Japanese preoccupation with suicide).