Sometime in the winter of 1975, a father in Houston, TX took his 007-obsessed son to see the series’ latest release: “The Man with the Golden Gun”.
Filmed largely on location in Thailand, the film seemed to leap off the screen in front of the nine year-old’s eyes — bringing a riot of exotic Asian colors to an otherwise drab winter day in suburban America.
The most memorable scene — one which would stick in the boy’s mind for nearly fifty years — was one in which a Thai boy, about the same age as our wide-eyed American viewer, swam from boat to boat in the floating market outside Bangkok, attempting to sell a wooden elephant to camera-toting tourists.
Enter James Bond — played by Roger Moore in his second outing as the iconic spy — fleeing the bad guys in a long-tail boat. The Thai boy crawls aboard Bond’s boat, trying to ply him with flattery and ever-decreasing prices. When Bond cannot get the boat to start, he tells the boy he’ll give him 20,000 baht — a veritable fortune for a river urchin — if he can help restart it.
The boy casually flips a valve, the boat’s engine roars back to life, and the boy gleefully demands his reward — only to be shoved by Bond into the river before he speeds off without making good on his promise.
The suburban American boy’s mind was blown: first of all, Bond was kind of a dick!
But more than anything, this cheeky Thai boy was in his mind the coolest kid in the world: not only did his mom allow him to swim around in the swirling, brown Chaophraya river (the American boy’s mom wouldn’t even allow him in the neighborhood pool without watching him like a hawk), he had just saved the life of our hero…only to suffer the indignity of being stiffed on his reward.
The American boy (naturally) was me — and the Thai boy was a thirteen year old kid named, I would only learn much later, Sayan Chantanarat.
Flash forward to 2021, and I find myself having lived in Thailand for over 30 years (quite coincidentally, but that’s another, very long story). With the COVID lockdowns of that year, I found myself gorging on old movies to pass the time.
One of those movies was “The Man with the Golden Gun”.
I was surprised how accurately the river scene had stuck in my mind, despite having not seen it since that winter day in 1975. When I mentioned it to friends, I was even more surprised that not only had virtually everyone seen the scene, but they also remembered Sayan’s scene as vividly as I had. “Oh, that kid! I remember him!” was the common refrain.
Maybe it was lockdown restlessness, but I began thinking about the uncredited Thai boy in the famous scene. Who was he? Was he still alive? How did he end up on the big screen with Roger Moore, and what had he been up to for the past nearly 50 years?
So, I decided to track him down — which I eventually did — living a modest life in a modest Bangkok neighborhood, and thrilled to be remembered by the American stranger who showed up unannounced at his front door.
We eventually became friends, and I learned that not only did his character never get his 20,000 baht he was promised by 007, but Sayun also received just a paltry $12 for his role. Now, at the age of 63, he was living off a small pension of less than $80 per month, supplemented by freelance work as a motorcycle delivery man for a shipping company.
With his consent, I decided to create this website to preserve the story of how a young Thai kid’s life ended up intersecting improbably with the most famous Hollywood franchise of all time, and — for anyone who might be interested — what he has been up to for the nearly 50 years since.
But most of all, I wanted to help Sayan supplement his income by offering some personal merchandise to 007 fans and collectors. 100% of the proceeds go exclusively to him.
Rusty Lerner
Kanchanaburi, Thailand
August 2022
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