The Man with the Golden Gun gets a bad rap from a lot of critics. That it’s dopey. Or that it doesn’t play out James Bond like it normally should. I don’t see that. I will admit, it is kind of silly. What, with the midget, and the boat chases, and the flying cars, and the kung-fu. But he’s a secret agent for god’s sake. How about a little suspension of disbelief? I mean, you’re watching a movie about a British secret agent, and you’re gonna complain like “there’s no way that could happen…”
Kung-fu is a big part of this movie, too. This is during the whole kung-fu craze during the mid-70s. With the whole “zoom-in, close up” shots during the fight scenes and everything. There’s a decent amount of martial arts fighting in this movie. Ironically enough, not all of it is kung-fu, though. Even that gets a little silly when a couple of teenage girls beat up an entire school of martial arts students to rescue James Bond from a dangerous situation. But the writers needed a reason to make them fight. And you couldn’t NOT have them in the movie, right?
And for some reason, in the 70s, there always needed to be a chase scene. And I’m not just talking about James Bond. I mean, in any show that could fit a chase scene into it. It’s like Starsky and Hutch or The Dukes of Hazard was the model for shooting a movie or television show back in those days.
Speaking of The Dukes of Hazard, they brought back the Louisiana Sherrif from Live and Let Die for this movie. He just happens to be on vacation when Bond gets to Hong Kong and they just happen to run into each other. Now, this is a very 70s-centric character. Big, fat, loud-mouthed, racist, American Sherrif and his wife. A couple of tourists, with their hats, and cameras, and souvenirs. And he gets swept up in a speedboat chase because he recognized Bond from sometime a while back in the United States? Doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
Scaramanga is one of the better Bond villains, though. His intent isn’t to destroy the world or extort anybody. He just wants to prove he’s better than everybody else. And he does it with a series of life or death duels. And yeah, that makes him evil. But he’s not like, mean about it…
So, yeah. Go and see The Man with the Golden Gun. It might not have gotten the best ratings from the critics, but I’ve always liked it. And when it comes to 70s movies, this is almost categorical. You can tell when this movie was made. There was no such thing as CGI back in these days. Breathe in those practical effects. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…
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