Big Trouble in Little China

Give this movie a ten, it has more excitement and pure fun than almost any other, John Carpenter has constructed a masterpiece. This movie is awesome, It's got Kurt Russell at his best. Every line that he says just rocks. This picture is the most unique film that had come around in years when it was released. Nothing comes close to its ingenuity or classic mixture of Chinese mythology. If you don't watch it I will personally search out and destroy you. Like some dude up there said, just chill with your popcorn snacks and drinks, and saddle up, because it's going to be one hell of a ride!

Kurt Russell stars as Jack Burton, a long haul truck driver who ends up getting caught up in this bizarre fight in San Francisco's Chinatown district. As an aside, never once does he have a trailer hooked up to his rig. What exactly is he hauling? I guess I can assume he picked up a trailer from his origin point, dropped the trailer off at his destination, and now is driving through San Francisco enroute to pick up another trailer to bring somewhere else? Who knows.

Russell gets caught up in this crazy conflict in Chinatown involving a Chinese prince/crime lord. It seems that the prince/crime lord have kidnapped Russell's friend's fiancee--a beautiful green-eyed Chinese woman. It seems that the a green-eyed woman is the key to removing an ancient curse that keeps the prince/crimelord immortal and flesh-less. Kim Cattrall appears as a green-eyed American woman who I guess just lives in Chinatown and knows all about the conflict. Cattrall's green eyes end up attracting the interest of the Chinese prince/crime lord who decides to kidnap her as well, thinking that he can offer her up as tribute to the god who placed the ancient curse on him, then the green-eyed Chinese woman will live out her life as his unwilling wife.

This movie was ridiculous and absurd in all the best ways-- lots of extended gymnastics tumbling scenes, overly long airborne sword fights, people jumping much higher than they should be able to, a monster with an eyeball on the end of his tongue, Russell getting his boot knife stuck in a guy's body, blinding lasers coming out of people's mouths, lightning strikes emanating from people's bodies... this movie has everything.

This is one of the wildest stories ever: a cartoon come to life and a mixture of an old-time serial with modern special-effects with bold colors all the way through.

This movie is pure tongue-in-cheek. One just has to take nothing seriously in here and just go along on the wild ride. From the nonsense mystical Chinese sorcery that is taken so reverently, to the American hero "Jack Burton" (Kurt Russell) who displays the fearless macho man, to combatants flying through the air (this was 15 years before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed), to one exotic character and situation after another - it's all absurd fun.

Russell plays his role to the hilt, playing his favorite kind of role when he was younger: brash, bold and an ignoramus who fears absolutely nothing. His lines are deliberately corny and one can bet he had a lot of fun making this movie. He even gets in a few good comedic lines. His partner, Dennis Dunn, is a likable guy with a devilish grin on his face and Kim Cattrell plays the more modern damsel-in-distress role to the hilt, too.

They could have lightened this up a bit on the action - it gets to be too much at times - but the movie is just slightly over an hour-and-half. It still wore me out the first few times I saw it.

All in all: ludicrous fun, a kind of Indiana Jones in Chinatown adventure flick.

One of the Best Maverick, B-Movie Directors Ever, John Carpenter has Gained Legions of Fans and has Attained an Almost Deity Status that, say, Roger Corman Never Could, Mostly because of Home Video and the Internet.

He has Directed a lot of Entertaining Movies, mostly Outside the Hollywood System and has Always been Comfortable Making Low to Mid Budget Movies with that Carpenter Vision. He has made Sure Enough Classics, a Few Mediocre (although His Cult would never admit it) Movies, and a Handful of Bad Ones (Blasphemy).

This is One that when First Released was Unfairly Maligned, Dismissed, and Outright Blasted by the Critics. It was Ignored at the Box Office and was a Big Flop. But the Director Never thought He was in Big Trouble. He just Continued Making Movies as if Nothing Ever Happened. This Film is Part of the Carpenter Canon and has become a Cult Favorite.

It is a High Energy Hoot of a Movie. The Director's Homage to those Mystical Asian Movies Full of Sorcery, Fun and Fantasy, Combined with an Over the Top Take on Marital Arts and Monsters. This was a Colorful, Costumed Creation Done with Wire Works and Real Life Make Up with a Minimal Use of the Primitive CGI Available. It is Entertaining as All Get Out.

Despite his recent slide into mediocrity, John Carpenter is responsible for what could be termed some of the biggest cult movies of the 1980's. Following his resounding success with Halloween he went on to direct a number of quirky yet excellent movies that began to tail of toward the end of the 80's with the release of such dross as Prince of Darkness. Carpenters movies are probably some of the most under appreciated pictures of recent cinema history on a commercial level, and none more so than perhaps one of his finest, the delightfully absurd action movie Big Trouble in Little China.

The plot is as daft as they come. Loud mouthed truck driver Jack Burton (played by Carpenter's long time collaborator Kurt Russell) arrives in San Francisco's Chinatown where he agrees to help out old friend Wang (played by Denis Dun) by driving him to the airport to pick up his green eyed fiancé. Things quickly go south however when a band of street punks kidnap the girl and the motley duo set off in pursuit. The pair soon find themselves caught in the middle of gang war that takes on a decidedly mythical bent and are forced to flee while Jack's truck is stolen. All this occurs within the first fifteen to twenty minutes.

If there's one thing you can say about Big Trouble, it's that it's action packed. The plot (such as it is) moves at an incredible pace and the film rarely slows to take breath as it rolls from one action set piece to the next. In such movies, normally the dialogue, and subsequently the acting suffer from a lack of any real attention. Not so here. Carpenter balances everything so perfectly that it's a wonder his career took such a slide. Although the actual story may be incredibly absurd and at times suffers from some rather obvious gaps of logic, the dialogue never fails to sparkle. Russell gives his very best wise ass shtick as Burton, the confused have a go hero who's so out of his depth he should really be fish bait, while Dun excels with a character who is consistently more heroic and capable than the lead. Another wonderful turn comes from an appearance by a young Kim Cattrall (of Sex and the City fame) as Gracie Law, a downmarket lawyer with an ability to talk at incredible speed. Some of the scenes between these three are pure comic genius, as Dun and Cattrall rattle out plot information at a rapid staccato pace while an increasingly bewildered Russell tries desperately to keep up.

Despite such positive remarks, Big Trouble was perhaps one of Carpenter's biggest commercial flops. While many of the movie's fans find this difficult to understand I do not. The reason for its failure is really incredibly simple. In terms of its style and the underlying comedy behind the piece, Carpenter's loving part tribute, part send up of all things Kung Fu was way ahead of the curve in every important respect. Take the relationship between our 'hero' Jack and his 'sidekick' Wang. The true dynamic of this relationship is a wonderfully post modern slant on the cliché buddy dynamic that existed in the 80's and it was done long before post modernist humour became truly fashionable in films (the most obvious example of post modern piece of cinema being Scream). Despite receiving star billing, Russell's Jack is actually a sidekick to Wang. While Wang has the knowledge, the skill and the courage to make him a true classic hero figure, Jack lags behind, being brash, ignorant and of little actual use in a fight. Similarly the action, although remarkably quaint by today's standards in both its look and execution, is a surprisingly accurate foreshadow of the current Hollywood move toward the more graceful, balletic chaos exhibited by movies like The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Ultimately Big Trouble in Little China is a movie that survived thanks to the home video market and for that we can only be grateful. While its looks may have aged, its sense of humour and style is as fresh today as the day it first rolled out in cinemas. In short, it's pure escapist magic.