Private Project

Golden Child

Kintaro, a prodigy, grows up around parents and teachers who expect the best out of him, and never fails to meet their expectations. However, when he becomes an adult, he crumbles at the smallest failure and struggles to find what he really wants in life. He falls into depression, realizes that his 'dream' of becoming a musician was fake the entire time, and eventually ends his own life.

  • Charon Chong
    Director
  • Charon Chong
    Writer
  • Charon Chong
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Short
  • Genres:
    Mental health
  • Runtime:
    6 minutes 32 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 14, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    Singapore
  • Language:
    English, Japanese
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Charon Chong

Charon Chong is an independent animation producer and director. They are also an illustrator and musician.

Charon makes animated music videos and short films for a teenage audience, and they also have long-form projects in the making for a similar audience. These works aim to normalise minorities, mainly the LGBT community and those with disabilities; and evoke mixed, but strong emotions in their audience.

Growing up, Charon has always been a fan of Disney and Ghibli films, which paint a world of fantasy and evoke a range of emotions to keep their works memorable; and they aspire to have that effect in their own productions as well. Charon is a member of the LGBT community and has ADHD, which has motivated them to create works that benefit those similar to them.

Charon produces majority of their works alone. Apart from animation and producing music, they are interested in freestyle dance; which they would likely incorporate into their film projects in the future. They also have an interest in origami and paper crafts. Outside of the arts, they also love to watch videos about astronomy and topology, and enjoy sports such as sprinting, soccer and swimming.

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Director Statement

This AMV is a comment on Golden Child Syndrome, which is the phenomenon of child prodigies with too many expectations placed on them becoming maladapted adults. It is directed towards parents/teachers with intelligent or talented children/students who expect too many achievements out of them and moulding them into what they believe is best for them, while not letting them fail enough to get ready for adult life.

While most cases are not as serious as Kintaro’s, I have observed an increase in parents in my own country signing up their young children for excessive tuition and classes on weekends just to push their skills, when they are not even genuinely interested in what they are learning. I have also noticed the trait that many adults tend to go into certain career paths because they are good at what they do, even if they do not like it.

It is incredibly concerning to me that many prodigies later fail as adults due to the unique challenges of being an adult, while they have barely developed any ability to recover from failure. This is further worsened by the fact that they no longer have the safety or time to explore what they truly want from life before another adulthood challenge strikes them. Therefore, I hope that this AMV brings solace to the past prodigies going through this unique situation, as well as educate the parents of said prodigies.

Prodigies are still children after all. Let them be children and find their own dream.