The Golden Child (1986)

The Golden Child is far from a perfect film. In fact, it is at times awkward, confusing, and bizarre. Nonetheless, it happens to be a rather unique Eddie Murphy adventure comedy made in the era when he was content just playing an impossibly cool, cocky, smart-mouthed rendition of himself (think Beverly Hills Cop, but with Eastern mysticism and kung-fu) and that counts for something.

Eddie Murphy plays an LA private investigator who specializes in finding lost children and wisecracking. He is contacted by a mysterious, and of course sexy member of the apparently-existent Los Angeles Tibetan Mystic community named Kee (Charlotte Lewis). She insists an ancient scroll prophesied that Eddie Murphy would rescue the Golden Child, a young monk  who is destined to save humanity from itself, and who was recently kidnapped by a band of moronic cretins, subhumans, and the bad guy from Last Action Hero, who happens to be a powerful demon.

Eddie Murphy spends most of the film making fun of Kee’s beliefs, or propositioning her for sex. As for being “the Chosen One,” he is not terribly effective as a savior of children, mystical or otherwise. The Golden Child mostly saves himself after waiting days and days to be found by Eddie Murphy, and the only other child we see Eddie looking for is found – dead. As for heroics, Eddie’s butt is often saved by Kee’s superior acrobatics and martial arts (often while wearing no pants, or while being splashed with water and wearing white clothing). Still, despite his lack of empathy, general incompetence, and enormous ego, Kee falls madly in love with Eddie’s character in the end.

The villains are mostly on the ridiculous side, and despite seeming very capable, waste literally hundreds of opportunities to harm the Golden Child, and seem to just be waiting around for Eddie to come and smart-mouth them and save the day. The level of urgency was extremely low in this movie, even though we were made to believe the world as we know it was at risk the whole time, and yet the film manages to be extremely entertaining, mostly thanks to Eddie Murphy just being himself.

This movie has at least one iconic scene – Eddie must conquer a test of faith by crossing a bottomless pit while carrying a glass of water which he mustn’t spill a drop of (I wonder if Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was inspired by this at all). I don’t know if this is the case for everyone, but I feel like this scene of The Golden Child has been impressed on my memory since childhood, whether or not I could remember what movie it came from.

Overall, as a fan of adventure comedies, traditional 80’s special effects, and classic Eddie Murphy movies, I really enjoyed this movie despite its flaws. Overall, I’d give it a solid 3.5 out of 5.