It is the man who drinks the first flask of sake; then the second flask drinks the first; then it is the sake that drinks the man

Tiger Tanaka’s saying, “It is the man who drinks the first flask of sake; then the second flask drinks the first; then it is the sake that drinks the man,” describes drinking as a gradual reversal of agency. Its decisive image is not simply intoxication but a change in who acts upon whom: the drinker begins in command, yet the sake ultimately takes command of the drinker.

The Saying’s Sequence

The proverb unfolds in three linked stages. First, a person drinks the sake; then the next flask seems to consume the first; finally, the sake itself consumes the person. The repeated verb makes the progression feel almost mechanical, while the changing subject shifts the drinker from active agent to object. The last clause completes the reversal without specifying a precise quantity or moment at which control is lost.

Dramatic Context

Tiger offers the saying while James Bond is asking for more sake. Bond has already drunk five flasks and claims that their effect is comparable to a double Martini; he treats the drink as a manageable test of Western instinct against what he calls the wiles of the Orient. Tiger counters that it is unwise to underestimate sake. The proverb gives that caution a memorable form, replacing Bond’s confident comparison with a process in which apparent mastery can steadily give way.

The exchange also preserves the scene’s teasing social tone. Tiger has just corrected Bond’s mistaken reference to Chinese porcelain, and he presents the proverb amid laughter rather than as a formal admonition. Yet the warning is not erased by the humor: Tiger later relays the judgment that Bond is an eight-flask man, making the distinction between impressive capacity and safety especially pointed.

Rhetorical Force

The saying works through reversal rather than a direct prohibition. It does not tell the drinker to stop; instead, it imagines each flask altering the balance of power until the drink becomes the actor. That compact progression answers Bond’s boast on its own terms: the question is not only how much he can drink, but whether he can remain the one in control. In the scene, the proverb makes sake’s danger legible without interrupting the banter, and leaves Bond’s confidence exposed to the possibility that the drink’s effects may arrive by degrees.