Eddie Murphy has a lot of standalone movies that are great like Trading Places, Harlem Nights, and the more recent Dolomite is my Name, but he’s also been a bit of franchise gold in the past. Obviously, Beverly Hills Cop is the biggest and most recent example, but he’s also been part of 2 48 Hours movies, a couple Nutty Professor flicks, a couple Doctor Dolittle movies and is an integral part of the mega franchise that is Shrek. While we unfortunately have to call Coming to America a franchise now after that abysmal rehash that Amazon dropped on us, there is another movie and character that I actually wouldn’t mind being brought back and has potential, under the right writer and director combo, to be a fun time and maybe even fix some of the mistakes from its predecessor. While Pluto Nash and Norbit are all time stinkers that have more business in Awfully Good territory than anything else, 1986’s The Golden Child (watch it HERE) is truly the Black Sheep of Eddie Murphy’s illustrious career.

Let’s get this out of the way. I used to have a joke that this movie is we have Big Trouble in Little China at home but there’s actually a lot to that. In addition to the movie being on the silly side when it was originally supposed to be something different, it also has 3 actors from Big Trouble with Victor Wong, James Hong, and Peter Kwong. Since James and Victor are probably more easily recognizable and Egg Shen and David Lo Pan, its understandable to miss Kwong who is a henchman in Golden Child but also one of the three storms in Big Trouble. He plays Rain and has that great fight with Wang in the big final battle. They both came out in 1986 and they both weren’t really loved by critics. A big one is that John Carpenter was originally going to direct The Golden Child but eventually turned it down to make Big Trouble with his friend Kurt Russell. Now, here’s a pretty big difference.

While Big Trouble in Little China has gone on to be beloved by nearly everyone and Golden Child is still seen as pretty lackluster, Golden Child was actually a pretty sizable hit. Big Trouble came out in the summer and even on the 4th of July weekend to attempt a run at big numbers, but it was swallowed up by the competition making it Russell and Carpenters 2nd summer failure together after 1982’s The Thing. It wasn’t marketed very well, and audiences didn’t know what to make of it with it only making 11 million on its 25-million-dollar budget. As much as we all love Kurt Russell, Eddie Murphy was a next level mega star at this time, and they released it in the first half of December. While it still didn’t get the best reviews, it raked in a solid 149 million on its 25-million-dollar budget. Its also an interesting note that the movie was almost another collaboration of Mad Max minds with Mel Gibson starring and George Miller directing. The original tone of the script would have worked there but Gibson could also have pulled off the silly if he needed.

The rest of the cast besides Murphy and the previously mentioned Big Trouble alumni is a fun one. Randall Tex Cobb, the beautiful Charlotte Lewis, and Charles Dance all put in great work here as the main henchmen, the main villain, and the love interest respectively. Charlotte Lewis is admittedly more complicated here as she was just barely 18 during filming but Murphy was also barely into his mid-twenties at this point. Charles Dance as the oddly named Sardo Numpsa yet again proves how great he is, and this character is right up there with his roles in Alien 3 and Last Action Hero. He just has a classy charisma weather he is playing a good guy or a bad one. Even the bad ones we love to hate.

The movie follows Murphy as a private detective who specializes in missing children’s cases. He is approached by Kee Nang who tells him about the abduction of the Golden Child, a scene we see at the opening of the movie, and that he is the chosen one who is destined to rescue the child. He doesn’t believe her but then his current case and that one intersects when the girl he is looking for is found dead and Nang tells him that the house was also where the Golden Child was held. He gets involved in the case and is introduced to a supernatural and mystical world. At times he feels like Axel Foley transported to a different universe with the same trademark laugh and ability to think quick on his feet. Charles Dance has long had regret about all the changes to the original script and even test screenings allegedly didn’t like the more serious tone, particularly with Murphy’s character so a lot of his humor was added later, and you can tell.

There are a few things to really like and call out about the movie. The soundtrack fits the tone well, something that was also changed from Alan Silvestri to John Barry and then Michel Colombier. I’ll never advocate for fewer Alan Silvestri or John Barry scores in the wild, but I’m not convinced that it would have worked as well here. There are still bits and pieces of the more serious version, a version that may have even been able to be put in a supernatural horror category. From the scenes where the Golden Child is captured to the insane dream sequence (more on that in a moment) and even a hanging wrapped up body in the chamber where the child is being held. All of that could have been a lot scarier but you can still see it. The acting is fun even if it feels like Murphy was forced to be even MORE like himself and it can fall flat. As I said earlier, Charels Dance is a delight and I wish we got him in even more villainous turns than we have.

That dream sequence I mentioned earlier is something that everyone remembers who saw the movie and if I tried to explain it to someone who hasn’t seen the movie, they may not believe me. There are 4th wall breaks, a live studio audience, and dream logic that’s straight out of a cartoon. Its really absurdist and fun and the movie could have used more scenes like it for the overall tone. The writer was former professional photographer Dennis Feldman and his initial vision of a Raymond Chandler type story. Paramount won the bidding war but changed a ton of what it was. Feldman also has credits like Just One of the Guys, Species, and Virus under his belt. The director choice isn’t as big a name as John Carpenter or George Miller, but Michael Ritchie was no slouch and is actually better at the type of movie that Golden Child turned into. He did the first two Fletch movies, The Survivors with Robin Williams and Walter Matthau, and Cops and Robbersons also with Chevy Chase. I guess he just knew how to write Chevy’s particular brand of asshole.

Much of the movie has Murphy as the odd man out. Kee Nang, James Hong’s doctor of the mystic arts, a half snake creature, and eventually Victor Wong’s high priest who is also Kee’s father all know exactly what is going on and Murphy’s character Chandler (an obvious tie to the inspiration of the movie and character) doesn’t take any of it too seriously until well over halfway. At 94 minutes the movie moves really fast as we follow Chandler go through increasingly dangerous and wild situations. The main villain is a demon played by Scooby Doo himself Frank Welker, but Charles Dance’s Sardo is his main follower who is trying to sacrifice the golden child and bring his master out. His henchmen are fun, and all have pretty good makeup effects. Later on, when Sardo takes the form a demon to try and finish Chandler off, the creature itself looks pretty good while unfortunately the effects that surround it do not. Sardo and his team have powers that heavily outmatch Chandler and Kee ends up sacrificing herself to save him. The only way to bring her back is through the Golden Child so now Chandler has personal stake in the game as well as his need to help missing kids.

The trials at the temple and the other non-action scenes like the flights and airport sequences give the film higher stakes and a more international feel than you think it will end up being as a smaller, more self-contained tail. While nobody was really happy with the final product from the studio who still saw it as a failure financially compared to 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop or the writer who thought that the original, more serious tone would have been better, the final product was still the eighth biggest movie of the year. Some of the actors like Charles Dance made his concerns known later but even Murphy later admitted that it was still a hit. In 1989 after a few more less than successful films he said quote “My movies make their money back. No matter how I feel, for instance, about The Golden Child – which was a piece of shit, the movie made over 100 million so who am I to say it sucks” Harsh words from the star to be sure.

Big Trouble in Little China is my favorite movie of all time but even I can see that this movie has its merits and should be properly defended and seen. It has a lot of fun things to see and hear and it’s a short excursion into a very different genre than Murphy normal dips his toes into. While A Vampire in Brooklyn is his only true horror movie, wait, we aren’t counting Haunted Mansion, right? Ok so while A Vampire in Brooklyn is his only real horror movie, there’s enough here to lump it into a hybrid fantasy type genre and its much better than I think most people are willing to give it credit for. While the long gestating Beverly Hills Cop franchise is getting another shot in the limelight and a new Shrek film is always an inevitability, I could see someone dusting off Chandler and throwing him into another fantasy setting to have fun in. Let Murphy write it and have a little more control and I bet we get a fun slice of 80’s Nostalgia. Throw this movie on if you’ve been avoiding it or haven’t seen it in a while. It’s gold isn’t close to an Oscar but its nowhere near the raspberry that its made out to be either.

A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!

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