Every Bond Girl Ranked - Worst To Best

Cute as a button, but only marginally more memorable, Kissy Suzuki on paper is an awesome character. As an agent of Tiger Tanaka’s ninja troupe, Kissy is assigned as a replacement for Aki’s far more capable, and vocal, heroine after her death to partner Bond on his undercover mission to locate Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s hidden stronghold in the Japanese countryside.

A ninja warrior named Kissy sounds almost too good to be true, and unfortunately it is. Watching the film brings the harsh realisation that Kissy is neither a warrior, nor a ninja, and is apparently affiliated with Tanaka purely for her skills at wearing bikinis and holding her breath.

Diving underwater to escape a SPECTRE helicopter is probably the most dynamic action Suzuki gets to experience in the film. Even in the explosive final assault on Blofeld’s volcano base in the film’s climax, Kissy’s involvement mostly consists of tagging along and hiding while Tanaka and his soldiers battle SPECTRE goons with ninja stars and grenades, still wearing her bikini.

Her main role is merely to serve as eye candy, and purely on that score is a resounding success. In fact, actress Mie Hama was the first Asian woman to appear in Playboy magazine as a result of the film. It’s difficult, however, to shake the feeling that if the film were made a few decades later, Kissy would’ve been a lot more like Aki, and in a much bigger role. Probably still wearing a bikini.

Best moment: Shunning Bond’s initial romantic advances by insisting they sleep in separate beds, despite 007’s protestations that they’re supposed to be married. “Think again, please. You gave false name to priest.” She lasted a lot longer than Mary Goodnight, at least.

Worst moment: It’s strictly not her fault, but the entire sequence involving Bond “becoming Japanese” by having his hair dyed black and chest hair plucked is an embarrassment and one that, as his “undercover wife”, Kissy is unforgivably affiliated with.