The French answer to James Bond is back. And this time he travels to Tokyo and battles international terrorists. This film does have some things going for it: Frederick Stafford is a good enough spy lead (I'll take his OSS 117 over Timothy Dalton's 007 any day!), the cast includes a French mega-babe (Marina Vlady) and a Japanese super-cutie (Jitsuko Yoshimura), there are some enjoyable fight scenes, and the Oriental setting actually predates Connery's "You Only Live Twice" by one year! Despite all that, however, the film is a bit of a bore. It is VERY slow-moving and lacks a strong central villain. The filmmakers probably stretched the budget as far as it could go, but in comparison to the Bond pictures of the time, they still came up short. They just about beat "Diamonds Are Forever", though. (**)
Review of Atout coeur à Tokyo pour OSS 117
