The Golden Child (1986)

Starring: Eddie Murphy with Charles Dance, James Hong, Randall “Tex” Cobb, Tiger Chung Lee, and the voice of Frank Welker
Grade: A-

I understand expectations were high at the time and some were let down, but people criticize The Golden Child way more than they should. The hate it gets is undeserved.

Summary

In Tibet in the present day, we see a group of monks in a remote temple. There, the Golden Child (J. L. Reate) is watching a puppet show and brought into the center of the room. Next, he is given a special hat by an elder monk. Following this, the Golden Child takes the man’s necklace and puts it on himself, as the elder monk smiles. Meanwhile, a group of marauders led by Sardo Numspa (Dance) make their way near the temple and start taking people out in the snow. Back inside the temple, another monk brings up a platter with four dead parrots. The Golden Child uses his powers to bring one to life by his touch, and the other monks are amazed. Why he doesn’t bring the other parrots to life is beyond me. Just then, Sardo and his group break into the temple and start slaughtering monks left and right. The Golden Child sits there motionless watching the destruction. Sardo goes right up to the kid and has his men put him in a human-sized birdcage. Instead of running, the Golden Child just accepts it. Just as Sardo tells one henchman to not let the kid touch him, the Golden Child touches the guy and uses his power to manipulate him. The henchman turns to Sardo and tries to kill him, but Sardo is just as mystical, disappearing and reappearing at another spot in the room. The henchman tries to fight the others, but they take him out. As the parrot the kid brought to life flies out of the temple, Sardo and his group leave the place with the Golden Child in their cage.

They leave the door open too, which feels unnecessary.

In Los Angeles, California, Chandler Jarrell (Murphy) goes about his day putting up fliers and talking to people he knows around town. Chandler’s job is to find missing children. He’s a guest on The Mel Bachman Journal with Mel Bachman (Charles Levin) to talk about it. Mel brings up a show called The Finder of Lost Loves as a response, but Chandler ignores him to bring up his most recent case, finding a 16-year-old girl named Cheryl Mosley. Bachman continuously interrupts Chandler to either talk about himself or ask irrelevant questions while Chandler tries to stress the importance of his case. At the same time, Kee Nang (Charlotte Lewis) watches the show from her apartment and takes notes. Bachman steers the conversation away from Chandler to talk to the other guests, which prompts Chandler to take the microphone and talk to the viewer directly to say Cheryl Mosley was last seen in Vineland in North Hollywood wearing a sweater and a skirt. He puts out his contact information while threatening to beat the cameraman’s ass for putting the focus on Bachman and leaves the set when he’s done. Later, Chandler is playing basketball with some schoolchildren, and Kee Nang approaches him. She knows he’s the finder of missing children, so she brings up how there has been a kidnapping five days ago in Northeastern Tibet. Chandler laughs because Tibet is a little out of his range, but Nang is dead serious when saying this kid’s destiny is to save the world. After Chandler throws the basketball back to the children playing, Nang goes on about how 400 years ago, the Nechung Oracle predicted that the Gompen Tarma, which is Tibetan for “Golden Child”, would be taken to the City of the Angels and “would be rescued by a man who is no angel”. Of course, this man in the prophecy is Chandler. Naturally, he doesn’t believe her and laughs it off, joking that the scroll the prophecy is on looks like a joint she smoked. Still serious, Nang tells Chandler that it’s his destiny to find the Golden Child, but Chandler goes back to his game. Following this, Chandler is at a crime scene. He found Cheryl Mosley, but she’s dead.

He takes pictures of a tattoo she has of a yellow dragon and walks and talks with Det. Boggs (Wally Taylor) afterwards. Boggs tells Chandler what he found out. Three days ago, a rental sign went down at this house, and a white truck backed onto the lawn to the front door. The neighbors heard this continued low murmur night and day. At 10PM last night, the white truck pulled up again and the murmuring stopped. One of the neighbors went out to shut up his dog and he ran into Cheryl’s body. Chandler and Boggs walk into this home that Cheryl rented in cash, and there are spray painted writings all over the walls in red and black. Boggs asks if Chandler took the referral he sent him, but Chandler didn’t because he only takes the kid cases. Chandler looks around the house more and peers out the window to see Nang also at the crime scene. They share eye contact, and Nang smiles at him and bows slightly. Chandler turns back to the rest of the room and finds a bowl of oatmeal. He presses it down with a spoon and blood comes out of it, so he takes a picture of it. Following this, Chandler stops at a tattoo place for clues, and Nang watches him from her car in an alley. He notices her and walks over to the alley. Once he gets there, she’s not in the car. He shouts aloud that he’s not taking her case, but Nang shows up behind him to tell him he’s already on the case. They go to a diner to talk, and Chandler questions why she would think the Golden Child would be in the house he was at. Looking at one of the polaroids he took, she points out that the writing on one wall is a restraint curse. They must restrain him spiritually and physically and need to keep evil on all four sides of him at all times. The writing wouldn’t be enough though because the kid would project himself astrally otherwise. Chandler laughs. However, the same people that killed Cheryl might be the same people who have kidnapped the Golden Child. Nang isn’t sure why they would kill Cheryl though when Chandler asks. Chandler inquires further why they would be feeding the kid blood based off the oatmeal he found. Nang doesn’t know this either, but she knows someone they can talk to about it.

Chandler and Nang go to Dr. Hong (Hong) at his store. Surprisingly, Hong and his customer already know who Chandler is and have a great deal of respect for him. Hong and Nang take Chandler to the basement to speak with the mysterious Kala (Shakti Chen), a woman behind some curtain who speaks like a mystical goddess. Confused, Chandler asks for more details regarding the Golden Child. Kala talks about how every thousand generations, a perfect child is born that has come to rescue “us from ourselves”. He is the bringer of compassion. If he dies, compassion will go with him, meaning the world will become hell on Earth. The people that took the kid want evil rather than good. Noting how vague this is, Chandler asks if she has any idea who that could be, but she doesn’t. He asks why they would make him eat blood, but Kala assures Chandler nothing in this world can hurt the kid. However, “If he were to pollute himself with anything impure, he would become vulnerable”. In a sarcastic tone, Chandler deduces that the Golden Child can be killed if he eats the blood, implying how ridiculous it sounds out loud. When Kala asks if he has any more questions, he jokingly asks her out because her “silhouette is kicking”, and she gets angry, questioning how he is the Chosen One. Afterwards, Chandler talks to Nang about how good the show they put on was and asks details on Kala. Apparently, Kala is the librarian at the Secret Repository at Palkor Sin and was flown there to help them. She’s also over 300 years old and was able to live this long because “one of her ancestors was raped by a dragon”. Yes, you read that right. Nang gives Chandler a ride home, and he offers her to come in for a drink, but she turns him down twice. Elsewhere in some abandoned area, the Golden Child is being held in his cage. Around him is some satanic scene with monks sitting there with their faces painted black, a series of drawn shapes on the ground indicating something evil and supernatural, and puddles of blood everywhere. One henchman, Til (Cobb), tries to mess with the Golden Child and tries to slingshot something at him, but the Golden Child uses his power to send it back, knocking out a light behind Til. Til brings over a garbage can between them, and the Golden Child uses his power to bring a Pepsi can out of it.

Next, he turns it into an anthropomorphic figure by cutting the can in a few ways, and it dances around until Sardo shows up and steps on it. He tells the Golden Child that he will eat. Then, he turns to Til and tells him to get rid of the can and the rest of his “playthings”. As Til gets to work, the Golden Child uses his power to flip a bowl of oatmeal over. Secretly, he pulls out a little plant and eats a leaf to satiate himself. One of the monks surrounding him however passes out. At the same time, Chandler is lying on the couch at his home and sees a golden light flashing out of his window. He looks outside and sees a vision of the Golden Child sitting cross-legged, presumably projecting himself astrally. The Golden Child sends the parrot he brought to life and the vision disappears. However, the parrot is still there, and it sits on a tree. Chandler asks the parrot jokingly if he saw a “Hare Krishna midget in the tree, floating” or if it was just him, but he’s interrupted by a phone call. It’s some guy who has information on the people who killed Cheryl Mosley. He tells Chandler about a house behind the freeway in Pacoima owned by some bikers called the Yellow Dragons. Cheryl was with them last week. When Chandler asks who this is on the phone, the guy hangs up. The next day, Chandler and Nang tail the Yellow Dragon bikers to the house. Once Chandler parks, he sees the parrot again. He pulls out his gun and tells Nang to stay in the car. If anything happens, he gives her permission to take the car and get out of there. He climbs over a brick wall into a family’s backyard, and they freak out, though he just steals some potato chips before leaving. As he gets close to the house, Nang climbs over a huge wall to join in on the action. Unbeknownst to Chandler, he was spotted. Once he enters the house and points his gun at the group of bikers to demand some answers, a biker takes him down from behind. Chandler is tied standing up, something you very rarely see, but Nang breaks in and starts kicking ass. She unties him, and the two lay waste to everyone inside the small house, destroying the place. After it’s over, Chandler gets mad at her for not staying in the car. Chandler grabs a guy to interrogate.

Talking about Cheryl, Chandler tells the guy how they had a girl there tattooed with a yellow dragon a couple of days ago and he demands to know what happened to her.

The guy denies knowing Cheryl even after seeing the picture Chandler has, so Chandler hits him with a hard right punch to the stomach. Immediately, the guy confirms it was Cheryl and says they sold her to restaurant owner Tommy Tong (Peter Kwong) on Broadway. Actually, they traded her for a case of cigarettes and a quart of pork fried rice. Apparently, Tommy needed a girl for this deal he made with the devil. The guy quotes Tommy directly in that Tommy said, “He needed her blood”. The guy pleads with Chandler not to tell Tommy he told him, and he’s fine with it. After he reconfirms they sold her when Chandler asks, Chandler becomes incensed and lays him out with another punch to the jaw. That night, Chandler and Nang drive over to Tommy’s restaurant, and Chandler has her wait in the car again. Chandler enters the place and demands Tommy. Everyone acts like they don’t know what he’s saying. Taking out a picture of Cheryl, Chandler details how the last time she was alive she was seen with Tommy. After he threatens to beat this random guy’s ass, Tommy pops out with two bladed weapons and starts swinging like a madman, turning the whole restaurant into a frenzy. Chandler doesn’t have much to defend himself with, but Nang comes in at just the right moment to fend Tommy off. Tommy escapes, so the two run out after him. Tommy hides behind a dumpster to elude them. When he reveals himself, a rat in the alley turns into Sardo. Sardo takes the surprised Tommy’s weapon and kills him with it. Then, he turns back into a rat. Chandler and Nang find the body and wonder what happened, with Chandler having to explain to Nang that he’s not the one who killed him. Changing the subject, Nang tells Chandler they are facing the supernatural in this battle, meaning demons. Sardo goes back to the place where they are holding the Golden Child at, and he tells the kid that it will be too late by the time Chandler finds him. Going into a private room, Sardo pulls out a carpet from a chest and lays it on the ground. Going to his knees, he starts murmuring to himself. With this, the surrounding walls next to him disintegrate, revealing demonic and supernatural scenery that temporarily transports Sardo into Hell itself.

A demonic voice gives Sardo credit for killing Tommy because he was weak and may have betrayed them, though he questions why the Golden Child is still alive. Sardo says he has no reason to fear the kid because he is surrounded in all four directions by evil. Even so, the demon tells him not to underestimate the power of good and to not dismiss the strength of the child. He says the child will never eat the blood, and he must move the child before the Chosen One gets near. To kill him, Sardo needs the Ajanti Dagger, as it’s not of this world. With it, he can kill the Golden Child. Sardo argues how well guarded it is, so the demon tells him to offer the kid in exchange for the knife because they can “refuse nothing for his safe return”. All Sardo needs is the Ajanti Dagger to kill the Golden Child. With it, he won’t need any other evil. That night, Chandler lies in his bed but wakes up in a completely different room. Confused, he walks out into the living room and a white horse walks past him. Chandler looks into the mirror and sees Sardo behind him. Once he turns, Sardo is gone. Right after this, Sardo enters the room with Til and a couple of other henchman like Fu (Pons Maar) and some fat guy. Sardo greets Chandler directly, as he is aware of who he is. After Sardo excuses Fu and the fat guy upon Chandler’s request, Chandler starts to think this is all a dream. It’s hard not to argue it since Til is dressed in a black top hat and white suit, Sardo looks like a vampire, and the other two just look ridiculous. Plus, a few of Chandler’s jokes are laughed at by an in-studio audience like he’s in a sitcom. In-between Chandler’s sarcastic comments of not taking any of this seriously, Sardo offers a proposal. He will give him the Golden Child for the Ajanti Dagger, but Chandler still doesn’t think any of this is real. Til holds Chandler’s arm out, and Sardo burns a straight line into his arm as a reminder, which surprises Chandler because he knows he’s not supposed to feel pain in a dream. Sardo leaves the room, and Chandler uses Til’s cane to knock a statue off the table. Til catches it, and he uses the opportunity to knock Til out with a kick. Chandler goes in a different room and finds Nang tied up with toilet paper.

He helps her and they flirt a bit until Sardo sends his henchmen to attack Chandler until he wakes up in his normal bed. Immediately, he looks at his arm and the scar is there. He goes back to Hong’s to speak to Kala, and she confirms it was Sardo Numpsa. Chandler asks about the Ajanti Dagger. She explains how the cross-dagger of Ajanti was brought into this world to kill the second Golden Child, the bearer of justice. His death was a great loss. Hong chimes in to tell him Sardo needs it to kill the kid, but Chandler can use it to save him. Kala adds that he must obtain the knife and lure Sardo into freeing the child, but he cannot let Sardo get possession of the knife. Walking alongside Nang, Hong tells Chandler that, if need be, they will exchange the dagger for the child. Nang adds that this can only happen if the Abbot of Karma Tang will let them have the knife. Chandler brings up a valid question in that if the Golden Child is so important, why doesn’t the guy just give them the dagger. However, Hong explains he’s a very difficult man. Regardless, Chandler will go with Nang to Tibet to obtain the Ajanti Dagger because only the Chosen One can get the knife. Chandler is still not convinced of the dream being anything more than that, he thinks the Chosen One label is too far, and does not want to go to Tibet. He needs to think things over, so Hong and Nang talk privately. After Chandler continues to make comments on the way out about how crazy this all is, he goes into the store and picks up a piece of Yak loin. The worker there says it’s good for erectile dysfunction, but Chandler assures him he’s good in this department. Following this, Chandler is walking with Nang asking how the dream transmission works. She explains how it’s half-dream and half-real, so he realizes the scar is real. She confirms that Sardo is real too. When he brings up how Nang was in the dream too and said some things, she assures him that this part was a dream. She drives him home, but this time she wonders if he’s going to ask her up. Excited, he brings her in and they have sex.

The next morning, Chandler brings her some coffee, but she asks right away for him to go to Tibet. He wants to stay with her here, but she is going with or without him. Seeing her persistence and acknowledging that he is the Chosen One and only he can grab the dagger, Chandler agrees to go to Tibet with her.

It’s time to save the Golden Child!

My Thoughts:

After a two-year hiatus following the immense success of megahit Beverly Hills Cop, Paramount’s biggest star in Eddie Murphy came back with The Golden Child, a fun and over-hated supernatural action comedy that pits peak Murphy and his persona in the middle of a love child of Indiana Jones, Army of Darkness, and Big Trouble in Little China. At a time when adventure films and mystical themes were all the rage, The Golden Child is yet another entertaining addition to the genre and was a deserving box office hit.

Putting a star like Eddie Murphy in such a new territory can be a troubling sell for fans of his, which is why the beginning of the film is done strategically. After the viewer is let in on just a sliver of what’s to come with the opening in the Tibetan monastery, where we see flashes of magic, demons, and all-around mystique regarding the details amidst a fruitful landscape in the mountains, the story shifts back to Los Angeles to reintroduce us to inner-city Murphy, an area in which his persona thrives. Certain comic actors have more to play off of depending on their environments or co-stars, but this is why Eddie Murphy was such a unique talent. He is at his best when treated as a street smart, fun-loving, larger-than-life personality in the big city unafraid of bad people, regularly laughing in their faces to the cheers of millions watching. The team behind The Golden Child were aware of this and utilize this ready-made formula to make Chandler Jarrell the “Axel Foley” of child abduction cases, solidifying his likability almost immediately upon his walking down the street during the LA montage where he looks at a mural of Humphrey Bogart and Marlon Brando. It’s a subtle sequence as if Murphy is saying, “I’m back, and this is my Hollywood now”, adding this inexplicable leather hat to his attire that only he could make look fashionable along with it. Now, the other thing about Murphy during this timeframe and how good he was during his prime, it bothers me how soon people forget, is that you could slap any character name on him and place him in virtually any scenario or location, and it’s genuinely watchable because of how entertaining he is. It’s a quality that only the greatest comic stars have (see Adam Sandler). Eventually, these stars can lose it (see Chevy Chase), as you can’t be on top forever and are bound to hit a string of flops, but the biggest talents go through a period where their fanbase and larger audiences will watch their comic personas in any premise because they are that likable (see Jim Carrey).

Here, the idea is to take Murphy at his best in inner-city Los Angeles, where he’s fighting bikers and Chinatown criminals and doing his private investigating to help save lost children while not taking shit from anyone. In doing so, they retain the larger audience at hand that love this Murphy and can’t get enough of it. The second act takes him into an entirely different landscape and culture in Tibet once the viewer gets settled in, and the fish-out-of-water comedy stemming from Chandler’s refusal to conform to the outlandish talk of prophecies, demons, and the “Chosen One” is very entertaining, as the material is tailored to Murphy’s comedic stylings perfectly. At the same time, it turns him into this action hero and “Chosen One” before our very eyes once he proves himself by securing the Ajanti Dagger in the creative and intriguing obstacle course sequence. It is said that though the man who is chosen is no angel, “only a man whose heart is pure can wield the knife”, presenting to us that the Chosen One is the best of both worlds. Just like the murky water given to Chandler, it’s not pure per say, but neither is he. Even so, is his heart pure? He has to prove himself as a pure person that can stay on the path, but just like the murkiness of his character, Chandler needs to know when he can break the rules, as only someone like him can pull off both sides of the coin. Holding a glass of water while walking onto wooden stakes stemming from a bottomless pit without spilling a drop of said water, Chandler messes around until he gets serious once he realizes that failure could result in death. With this, the hero reveals himself. This sequence is done very well in that it never forgets about Chandler’s humor or charismatic personality, but it also shows how us the athleticism, the toughness, and the ability to think on one’s feet that Chandler possesses, his heroic qualities. Though he may joke in the face of any and everyone, he gets serious when it comes down to making a difference and being the hero that needs to save the day. The third act merges the two sections that have shown Chandler’s ability to evolve in different landscapes, and it becomes the moment of truth where he has to lay it all on the line to prove why the prophecy was not wrong about him.

Other than some shotty CGI, which probably looked much better in 1986 but dates it now, it all came together nicely. Admittedly, I was expecting something more elaborate to in the payoff of such a well-done buildup, but it was still solid nonetheless.

As is the case with a lot of us, a defiant protagonist in the face of evil is always a joy to watch. Chandler Jarrell is defiant in the face of a minion of Satan himself in Sardo Numspa, played by the naturally creepy Charles Dance. In the fantastic airport scene where Chandler outsmarts Sardo and dares him to make a move with a cocky grin on his face as if to say, “Got you!”, he comically shows how intelligent and witty he is by getting in Sardo’s face, telling him how if the knife is considered a stolen object and if he’s arrested, it would sit in a room until a trial comes up. Since the trial could happen anywhere between a month or a year (Big “W” for the American justice system, something you may not hear every day), he dares Sardo to get him arrested. At this point, you take a step back and appreciate how Chandler is more no-nonsense than he initially portrays himself to be. He knows who Sardo is, but he doesn’t care. Chandler has been given this mission to do what’s right, and he will find a way around any obstacle, no matter how large. However, it’s not only with the villain, as Chandler refuses to be intimidated by anything he sees as smoke in mirrors (“Kala, you’re too shy and need to open up. You can’t sit in this basement naked, smoking cigarettes, watching soap operas for the rest of your life”), such as the mission itself. Even when he does finally decide to accompany Kee Nang to Tibet to get the Ajanti Dagger, he’s still not fully convinced of the gravity of the situation. He accepts there is a missing child that he’s been asked to save, but that’s pretty much it. For some reason, the scar he got in the half-dream sequence wasn’t good enough. Even when more is revealed to him and he does finally understand the forces he’s facing, he still refuses his role in the movie as this servant to the ancient forces at play, as evidenced by his destroying of Kala’s protective wall because he’s tired of her vague informational dumps. This leads to the shocking reveal of Kala in her full reptilian form, though Chandler refuses to apologize for the outburst because of what has happened and the perceived lack of help that he’s receiving. It’s really cool to see how rebellious Chandler Jarrell is to the format of the adventure movie formula, even bringing up a valid question as to why no one asks him to go to the Bahamas for such a mission instead of Tibet.

He’s right. Very rarely do these types of movies go to a less hectic location, and Chandler is pointing out the obvious that usual protagonists would never complain about, which is part of what makes him such an awesome protagonist. Still, this is where the comedy stems from too. It’s quite funny watching Chandler travel through Katmandu and getting swindled by a local hustler, who turns out to be the English-speaking Abbot of Karma Tang and secretly Kee Nang’s father, before yelling aloud on the streets in any direction as he looks to beat his ass (“You see a naked man running around here with a $100 bill?”). Him not letting it go on the paddle boat was even funnier. The payoff being that the hustler is this “difficult man” Dr. Hong was speaking of that they have to get the knife from was a great way to tie it together. An underrated element to the crucial supporting character was the subdued, extended sequence the Abbot shares with a calmed down Chandler after Chandler proves himself by securing the knife.

It’s an understated sequence that works in a few ways. First, it shows why the Abbot’s difficult ways are actually useful, despite it at first coming off as an unnecessary roadblock when time is of the essence. The Abbot’s roughness and refusal to compromise should inherently bring out the best in someone who is supposedly the “Chosen One”. If he was too nice or spelled things out obviously, the wrong man could pull off that obstacle course. However, his frustrating responses and penchant for agitation are by design, as a normal man would get distracted and either lose out on the goal or give up on the matter altogether. On the other hand, the correct headstrong, street-smart man who answers the prophecy’s call of a “man who is no angel” can take the unneeded interruptions of the Abbot, throw it back in his face when necessary, and use it as fuel to figure out a way to find a solution. When Chandler initially panics because “I followed all your rules! What am I doing wrong?!” after trying to grab the dagger but the fire around it gets larger, he then slows down to think things over. Repeating the words to himself, he states, “Keep your mind and your thoughts as pure as the water. Don’t drop the water”. It’s all a test. When Chandler realizes he is to drink the water once he’s close and the fire around the knife dissipates, after it’s initially teased as a joke when he’s tired, it solidifies Chandler’s herodom. All of this can become significantly easier if the real Chosen One is revealed and approaches the situation logically, which in a way kind of makes a pass for the smaller one-on-one fight that Chandler has with the demon in the climax that should have arguably been longer. Even so, I digress. The importance of this sequence cannot be understated with how it proves the protagonist’s worthiness, which is why the Abbot starts to respect him afterwards, though not to his face. He still has to protect his image as a nuisance to Chandler in their private conversation discussing Chandler’s need for advice to know what a man should say to a woman that he loves and wants to marry.

Though I would have preferred in this moment for the Abbot to get serious since he does now know that Chandler is in fact the Chosen One instead of him burping (“I’ll let that slide because I know that’s your way”), burping again (“Don’t press your luck though”), and him picking a booger and wiping it on himself (“You just gonna wipe that right on your jacket, huh?”) while Chandler is earnestly asking for his words of wisdom. Evidently, this is the way they wanted to take the character to retain some semblance of humor in these moments, but it did feel unnecessarily sophomoric during a moment of would-be sweetness. In their defense, Chandler’s reactions to the Abbot’s obnoxiousness are funny. After the Abbott explains that the short path for enlightenment is for Chandler to (1) remain “pure” (abstaining from sex), how he (2) must trust someone he has no reason to trust, how he (3) must make a promise to someone he just met, how he (4) must love someone who loves him, and how he (5) must tell no one that he put Chandler on the path, the Abbot downplays his helping in a mocking way. All of this is used to fake the audience out into thinking he’s an asshole before the Abbott goes over to Kee Nang where she admits how much she likes Chandler but hates herself for it because of the number of bad qualities he has. To the viewer’s surprise, the Abbot defends Chandler to Nang and counters with a positive to every negative, even though we thought he hated him. It’s all a ploy, as the Abbot has to play the role of the difficult man, but he’s secretly a caring father who has taken a liking to the foolish Chosen One. He would never say it to Chandler’s face, but he tells Nang, “I do like him very much. It’s very hard not to. Those magnificent Americans. So much power, and so little understanding what to do with it”. In a way, it shows why Chandler is the guy but also is far from the valiant knight they were hoping he would be, as the imperfect hero still possesses a lot of deficiencies and doesn’t fully grasp his potential. Even so, Nang is right that Chandler may not think of anything but protecting his own feelings, but the Abbot is even more correct in that “…but if you touch his heart, there is nothing he wouldn’t do for you”.

Chandler Jarrell may not believe in anything specifically, but he will do what is right when the time comes. With that, he has earned their respect. They have put their trust in the right man. He is foolish, but he is brave, and he will do what is right.

Though the aforementioned climax and ending fight with the demon needed to be longer and included more struggle on Chandler’s side when facing the literal demon Sardo turns into, The Golden Child does do well on the set design aspect of the film. For a story like this, getting the set design right is imperative, and they match the energy of the mission. From the cool sequences walking up and down Katmandu to the cult-like aura of the abandoned buildings the Golden Child is being held captive at, to the alter at the mansion, and the CGI-created Hell, the movie is as fruitful in its imagery as its title suggests.

Charlotte Lewis’s performance as Kee Nang is low energy and below average. For such a pivotal role in the plot, someone with more experience was needed. The character was underwritten as well. She didn’t do much other than backflip or pick times to either have sex with Chandler or tease him about the subject. Despite their blossoming romance being written as a big part of the movie, it never felt authentic. No one is buying Nang revealing to Chandler that she had sex with him the first time on her own accord and wasn’t doing it to convince him to go to Tibet. Before and after the scene, Lewis performed it as if she was just doing her job at getting the Chosen One there. Then, all of a sudden, they’re openly talking about marriage? You can’t tell, but I’m rolling my eyes. Even on Murphy’s end, the chemistry wasn’t there. He’s good at flirting, but when there is an emotional moment with her, he botches it, like when Nang is shot with Sardo’s crossbow. He just stares at Sardo when SUPPOSEDLY the love of his life has been SHOT IN THE BACK! In addition, Nang’s outrageous athletic ability in those fight scenes came off as comical, as any moron could tell a stunt double was being used within those hackneyed camera tricks that were trying desperately to make the viewer suspend their disbelief.

Regarding the ending (“Do they have Star Search in Tibet? Probably not. Probably Food Search“), that had to be Eddie Murphy improv-ing. I know the professionals make it look easy, but it felt unrehearsed, like Murphy was just riffing to end the credits and his co-stars just went along with it because they couldn’t think of a better way to end the story. From a character perspective, it did work, but it took away from the questions we had regarding Nang and the Golden Child himself. The basic one being, “Where in the fuck are they all going from here?”.

The fact that Eddie Murphy even hates this film boggles my mind. The Golden Child is great escapist entertainment. It has some missed opportunities like the half-dream sequence that should have been used more often or extended at the very least, and it possesses faults in certain aspects like with Charlotte Lewis, a chunk of the third act, and potentially more imagination regarding the mythology of the story. On the other hand, the film is an overall enjoyable supernatural adventure where the actor runs amok, kicks ass, has fun, and looks good while doing it. With a couple of changes here and there and maybe including either more action or comedy depending on the scene, this could have started a franchise.

If it was, I would have been in line for every sequel.

Fun Fact: Originally, screenwriter Dennis Feldman’s idea for the film was more of a serious detective story and thought of Mel Gibson for the lead role. Truthfully, this would’ve been just as interesting, and the mythology could have been played with a lot more if it was taken in this direction. John Carpenter was offered the chance to direct, but he chose to do Big Trouble in Little China instead. Also, Eddie Murphy tried to get George Miller to direct the film.