Akiko Wakabayashi
Birth : 1941-08-26, Ota, Tokyo Prefecture, Japan
History
Akiko Wakabayashi (born December 13, 1939 in Ōta, Tokyo) is a Japanese actress, best known in English-speaking countries for her role as Bond girl, Aki in the 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice. Prior to this, she made many movies in her native Japan, especially Toho Studio's monster movies such as Dagora, the Space Monster and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (both of which were also released under various other titles). When production of You Only Live Twice began, Wakabayashi was originally slated to play the role of Kissy Suzuki whilst her co-star Mie Hama played Suki, one of Tiger Tanaka's top agents. When learning English proved to be a major hurdle to Hama, the women switched roles, with Hama now playing the smaller part of Kissy and Wakabayashi playing the larger part of Suki. Wakabayashi, as Aki in the movie You Only Live Twice. At her suggestion, the character of Suki was renamed to Aki. This is probably partly because[citation needed] in 1966, Woody Allen took the Japanese action film International Secret Police: Key of Keys (in which both Mie Hama and Wakabayashi starred), re-edited, re-dubbed, re-plotted, and renamed it What's Up, Tiger Lily?. In the film, Wakabayashi's character was "Suki Yaki" whereas her You Only Live Twice co-star Hama played "Teri Yaki". Wakabayashi made only one more film (and a guest TV appearance) before disappearing from both the big and small screen. In an interview in G-FAN magazine (No. 76), Wakabayashi said she retired from acting due to injuries sustained while making a movie.
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Aki (archive footage)
Maud Adams narrates a tour of the locations of You Only Live Twice.
Aki (archive footage) (uncredited)
Roger Moore presents the ten best sequences ever to have appeared in the James Bond series, and cast members recall their favourite moments.
Romantic action film set against the beautiful backdrop of Rio de Janeiro. Jiro Ibuki has decided to leave the world of the yakuza and live with his fiancée Reiko.
Aki
A mysterious spacecraft captures Russian and American space capsules and brings the two superpowers to the brink of war. James Bond investigates the case in Japan and comes face to face with his archenemy Blofeld.
Suki Yaki
In comic Woody Allen's film debut, he took the Japanese action film "International Secret Police: Key of Keys" and re-dubbed it, changing the plot to make it revolve around a secret egg salad recipe.
Seventh movie of the Wakadaishō series directed by Kengo Furusawa
Spuria, Chamberlain's daughter
Osami, a soldier-of-fortune from Japan, joins with priest Ensai in a quest for the ashes of the great Buddha. Their journey takes them to a kingdom in the Middle East, where they find intrigue and romance in the court of an evil king.
Sayuri Sugimoto
Tashiro coincidentally meets his best friend Sugimoto in a bar very close to the apartment in which Sugimoto’s wayward wife is found dead. Although Tashiro is not a suspect in the police investigation, he is racked with guilt and confesses to his wife, Masako. In an effort to further relieve his tortured sense of guilt, he then confesses to Sugimoto. Neither his wife nor his friend can believe that he could have been involved.
Bai-Lan
Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi is the fourth instalment of five films in the "Kokusai himitsu keisatsu" series. The film is a parody of James Bond-style spy movies, and was used by Woody Allen, along with footage from the third instalment, in one of his first films, "What's Up, Tiger Lily?", in which the original dialogue is redubbed in English to make the plot about a secret egg salad recipe.
Mas Selina Salno
A meteor lands in Kurobe Valley as detective Shindo is assigned to protect Princess Salno from assassination. She emerges under the guise of a Venusian prophetess and catches the attention of journalist Naoko and Mothra's fairies by predicting a powerful space monster's arrival. The infant Mothra must convince Godzilla and Rodan to set aside their hatred of humanity or face the monster alone.
Girl Taken at Haneda
In the third installment in the "Kokusai himitsu keisatsu" series, agent Jiro Kitami investigates the mysterious disappearance of a prominent scientist. Edited into Woody Allen's "What's Up, Tiger Lily?" along with the 4th film in the series, "Key of Keys".
Gang Moll
A floating amorphous life-form descends from the atmosphere to consume carbon in the form of diamonds.
Yaya's maid
An adventurous and daring sailor sets sail to the castle of an ailing king to stop an evil premier, hungry for power and wealth, from succeeding the throne and marrying the king's beautiful daughter. Along the way, with the help of some courageous rebels and a lustful wizard, he must overcome the powers of a bewitching witch, a band of ruthless pirates, and the castle's Imperial guards. He must also free those kidnapped into slavery and restore the king's reputation.
Agent Jiro Kitami attempts to stop a smuggling ring from shipping arms to Vietcong guerrillas.
Tamiye (uncredited)
US version. The re-edited John Beck version of the film: released outside of Japan and restructured with new footage of American actors centering around a news report plot not present in the original. Eric Carter of United Nation News is joined by Dr. Arnold Johnson as a prehistoric monster emerges from hibernation while a pharmaceutical company seeks publicity with their own monster.
Toho-produced crime drama involving the drug trade.
Tells the story of Shintaro, a lawyer who quits his job to work at a camera factory, and his love adventures.
Tamiye
The advertising director of Pacific Pharmaceuticals, frustrated with the low ratings of their sponsored TV program, seeks a more sensationalist approach. He orders his staff to Faro Island to capture King Kong for exploitation. As Godzilla re-emerges, a media frenzy generates with Pacific looking to capitalize off of the ultimate battle.
Midori
Based on the comic by Fuyuhiko Okabe.
Anna Suh
Unusual race relations melodrama from West Germany follows a German sailor who meets and weds a Chinese woman while on leave in Hong Kong, only to meet with disapproval from his family and friends when the couple returns to Europe.
Akiko
The quaint life of Ottavia, a widow living in Rome, is turned upside down when a young and pretty Japanese girl knocks at her door, claiming to be the daughter of her late husband, an Italian military officer who went to Japan on a secret mission during WWII and reportedly killed in action there.
Episodic, globe-trotting quasi-mondo focused on women of the East.
Hostess
Keiko, whom everyone calls Mama, narrates her story: she's a hostess on the Ginza, 30, a widow. She describes life's vicious cycle: acting cheerful around drunks, dressing and living well to convey confidence, needing money for these expenses and for her demanding mother and brother, and knowing she's growing older. She's of an age when she must choose: to seek marriage (difficult given her tarnished occupation), to be a kept woman, or to borrow money to buy a bar of her own. Each route has dangers, including investors demanding a return on their loans. Keiko has a quiet dignity that attracts men, but are they what they seem? Does she actually have choices?
Hostess at the Rollita B
A promising post-graduate literature student is transformed into a psychotic killer following the suicide of his father and a sleazy affair by his mother with a younger man.
An Ishiro Honda film.
