Film appreciation: The Man With the Golden Gun - Roger Moore as James Bond in Hong Kong, Macau and Bangkok

Roger Moore, Christopher Lee, Britt Ekland
Guy Hamilton

Some early films from the Bond franchise are better off consigned to the movie guidebooks, along with the pinching of women's bottoms on live television and racist jokes in stand-up comedy routines.

While the previous decade's Daniel Craig-led movies may well be accused of being too violent or unrelentingly serious (or both), culturally or sexually insensitive they certainly are not. The times have changed, and for the best.

Guy Hamilton's last film in the director's chair is packed with the elements many people want in their Bonds: the dim-witted, big-eyed, blonde sidekick (played here by Britt Ekland with unparalleled vacuity), the mad villain (Christopher Lee), and the suave, suited secret agent played with high camp.

Roger Moore is a master of that art form, and in this film he excels. "You really do have a magnificent abdomen," he purrs at a Lebanese belly dancer in one scene.

With a plot about an emerging energy crisis (thereby tapping into the zeitgeist), Hamilton's film takes our hero on a journey from dreary London to the exotic Far East, from the gambling dens of Macau and the strip clubs and fancy hotels of Hong Kong, to the mountains and islands of Thailand and the waterways of Bangkok. This is a visually entertaining vehicle if nothing else.