James Bond: I mean sir, who would pay a million dollars to have me killed?
M: Jealous husbands! Outraged chefs! Humiliated tailors! The list is endless!
Lazar: Mr. Bond, bullets do not kill. It is the finger that pulls the trigger.
James Bond: Exactly. I am now aiming precisely at your groin. So speak or forever hold your piece.
Everything about The Man with the Golden Gun is mediocre. Passably so. It is the bread and room temperature water of Bonds. It doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it, I simply feel bland about it.
The song is forgettable. The plot standardly Bond. The production adequate, and the cast knows the drill. So, there's nothing to get excited or feel bad about.
In the chronology of Bond, I would say with Roger Moore this is the beginning of the era where the script has to be simply bursting with ribald puns and crude jokes told in a classy way. My less than precise accounts puts the jokes for Moore at 2x over Connery per film. (They are generally better jokes, too.)
This Bond is slightly unique in that Bond doesn't so much travel to one place as many. I think they just figured...yeah let's just send him to.....Asia.... My count was Macau, Hong Kong, Thailand, and somewhere in China. I am guessing that Red China at the time was none too keen to allow extended filming within their borders. I also noticed a Pan-Asian theme in that the business man's lair in Thailand was full of Chinese Architecture and allusions to sumo wrestlers. My own tastes would have been to let Thailand be Thailand.
Lastly, the inclusion of the loudmouth sheriff from Louisiana in Thailand was simply dreadful. I really hope he doesn't come back.
On a scale of pho to phuyuck, I give The Man with the Golden Gun 2.86 out of 5 stars.
As a child of the 80's, I basically think of Christopher Lee as old. I'd really only seen him when he was old. It was refreshing to see him as a spry 50 year old.
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