The Golden Child
Directed by Michael Ritchie
- action
- adventure
- comedy
The story
After a Tibetan boy, the mystical Golden Child, is kidnapped by the evil Sardo Numspa, humankind's fate hangs in the balance. On the other side of the world in Los Angeles, the priestess Kee Nang seeks the Chosen One, who will save the boy from death. When Nang sees social worker Chandler Jarrell on television discussing his ability to find missing children, she solicits his expertise, despite his skepticism over being "chosen."
What it’s like
Bright, flat studio light and broad 1980s comedy staging give this one a loud, cheerful surface, cutting between sun-washed Los Angeles offices and dim, incense-hazed Tibetan monasteries and caves. The palette swings between saturated daylight colours and murky browns and shadowy greens, with fast handheld-feeling coverage, big physical gags and a synth-heavy score that pulses through the chase sequences. Pacing is brisk and episodic, built around set pieces, and the tone is light, silly and self-aware, playing mysticism for laughs while a reluctant hero, a wisecracking social worker, grudgingly learns to take a spiritual quest seriously. The intensity is moderate: martial-arts-style fights, slapstick, demonic creatures and a few tense ambushes, with some crude language and a brief, non-graphic sexual innuendo, but no real gore and nothing truly frightening. It suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a nostalgic rewatch, or a group movie night, and is best for people who enjoy broad 1980s action-comedy with a mischievous, irreverent streak.
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