Review: Big Trouble in Little China

Blowhard trucker Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) takes his buddy Wang (Dennis Dun) to a San Francisco airport to meet his green-eyed girlfriend Miao Yin (Suzee Pai). Also at the airport is lawyer Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) similarly there to meet someone. All of a sudden, a gang known as The Lords of Death turn up and whisk Miao Yin away. When Jack and Wang go after them in hot pursuit, they end up in Chinatown where a street funeral procession turns into gang warfare between rival gangs the Chang Sings and the Wing Kongs. Meanwhile, it appears that The Lords of Death were doing the bidding of one David Lo Pan (James Hong), whom Jack runs over with his truck…only to find that Lo Pan is no mere man but an ancient sorcerer who needs a green-eyed girl to offer as a sacrifice to lift a curse that he has been living under. Lo Pan wants to be young again, basically. Jack also has his truck stolen, and he’s not happy about that. He’s also seriously confused, so it’s a good thing he has Wang and tour bus driver/folklore expert Egg Shen (Victor Wong) around to explain things to him – and the audience.

 

A theatrical box-office flop at the time, this 1986 John Carpenter (“Halloween”, “Dark Star”, “They Live”) tongue-in-cheek martial arts fantasy became much more popular on home video release and has since gained a large cult following. Some have called it ahead of its time, but I actually think the dreadful marketing campaign is almost entirely to blame for the lack of box-office success. ‘Who is Jack Burton?’ newspaper ads of the time asked. ‘Who Cares?’ replies an unimpressed Kurt Russell in the wonderfully entertaining DVD commentary shared with director Carpenter. 20^th Century Fox execs seemed utterly clueless as to what this film was or how to sell it. A wild, non-stop action-fantasy flick with a genius inversion of the hero-sidekick dynamic, it’s one of my all-time favourite films and quite possibly my most re-watched.

 

Carpenter’s homage to the martial arts/fantasy films of China and Hong Kong (Principally the fun “Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain”), at its centre is a classic performance by Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, basically an ‘idiot John Wayne’. He thinks he’s the ladies’ man hero of the film, and indeed he’s certainly the main character. However, this is a guy who accidentally knocks himself unconscious during the film’s big action climax. The real physical heroics are performed by his ‘sidekick’ Wang (Dennis Dun), and several other Chinese characters. Burton is really the Western audience’s surrogate into the world of Eastern mysticism, martial arts, and so forth. Russell’s opening CB radio monologue is priceless idiot male bravado, and he spends the rest of the film looking alternately buffoonish or bewildered, which is hilarious. I said earlier that he knocks himself out right at the moment where he attempts to be the big hero, he also spends several moments with lipstick on his lips unaware and looking silly as hell. I also love the bit where Russell’s normally swaggering Jack Burton masquerades as a nerdy would-be brothel client named Henry Swanson. It’s probably no less a subtle performance than the one Russell gave in “Escape From New York”, where he was lampooning Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name schtick. On this occasion both Russell and the audience are able to enjoy themselves, whereas in that film I think Russell and Carpenter were just amusing themselves. That’s the difference for me: Entertainment. Jack Burton is fun, Snake Plissken was mostly not fun for me.

 

It’s a shame that Dennis Dun, who plays the real hero here never quite broke out as an actor, though the now 69 year-old has worked fairly steadily in film and TV over the years. He’s immensely likeable here. Kim Cattrall has a pretentious, snooty Diane from “Cheers” demeanour about her here as attorney Gracie Law that – combined with a few clunkily delivered lines of cartoony exposition – add up to a hit-and-miss performance. She does however work quite well opposite Russell in the kinda-sorta love interest department. Victor Wong is pitch-perfect as tour bus driver and occasional sorcerer Egg Shen, and Donald Li steals his every moment as Eddie Li, a slightly goofy maître ’d who helps out the protagonists. As for the Three Storms, whilst Carter Wong’s command of the English language is obviously rough here, his sinister Thunder is a definite highlight of the film. Let’s just say that in addition to being built like a brick shithouse, he’s got an extra trick or two up his sleeve that prove to be truly bizarre. James Pax and Peter Kwong are fine, but it’s definitely Carter Wong you’ll remember. Meanwhile, the creators of “Mortal Kombat” are clearly fans of the film and The Three Storms in particular (Me personally, I’m more a fan of The Lords of Death. They’re barely featured here but are awesome and deserved their own spin-off). Look out for small roles for veteran stuntmen (and occasional bit players) Al Leong, Gerald Okamura, and Jeff Imada, the latter of whom was the chief stunt guy on this film. Leong and Okamura participate in the film’s best scene, the funeral-cum-gang warfare. It’s a heck of a set piece. Towering over all however, is the one-and-only James Hong, a most versatile and long-serving character actor from film and TV. As centuries old evil sorcerer David Lo Pan, he’s an oddball, sinister delight, really getting into the tongue-in-cheek, bizarre spirit of the film. Caked at times in old-age makeup he also gets my favourite line reading of all-time: ‘Now this really pisses me off to no end!’. Hong does an excellent job of playing the character in several different and distinct guises. His Lo Pan is at turns diabolical, funny, weird, and perverted, and one of my all-time favourite villains.

 

The film copped a lot of crap at the time in some quarters for playing up Asian stereotypes, and this privileged white male doesn’t know about all of that. “Year of the Dragon”, sure. This, though? I mean, it’s a fantasy and it’s deliberately silly for a start, and secondly the idiot white guy plays second fiddle in action to his heroic Asian counterparts. Come. On. But like I say, I’m probably ill-qualified on the subject. I actually really liked the bizarre fantasy worldview on show here with all the sinister and dangerous alleys and the mystical Chinatown underbelly. The production/set design is terrific overall, as is the cinematography by Carpenter regular Dean Cundey (“Halloween”, “The Fog”, “Escape From New York”). I also like the inclusion of all these bizarro monsters that Carpenter and co don’t even bother explaining the existence of. Unlike with Carpenter’s “The Thing”, they don’t stop the film dead in a show-off way either, the film is too busy moving onto the next thing for that to happen here (Carter Wong’s big moment probably comes closest, but it’s too funny and weird to complain about). Overall, the FX work by Richard Edlund (“Star Wars”, “Ghostbusters”) holds up better than most of the period, including some of Edlund’s own other work. The action and overall pacing is terrific throughout, it beggars belief that this is the same man who directed the somewhat stodgy, if good-looking “Escape From New York”. Perhaps stunt co-ordinator Jeff Imada should get more credit than Carpenter I don’t know, but the difference in energy and excitement is blatantly obvious. The music score by Carpenter and his frequent associate Alan Howarth is great stuff. The title song…is another matter. Billing themselves as The Coup De Villes, director Carpenter and his directorial pals Tommy Lee Wallace and Nick Castle are hardly The Rolling Stones. They’re not even Tommy Tutone, though I’ll admit Castle at least has a surprisingly decent voice. However, the music video is hilariously bad and well worth suffering through at least once for camp value alone. It’s the most appallingly 80s MTV thing ever, except performed by three guys who look like Geology teachers.

 

Endlessly entertaining, deceivingly clever martial arts action-fantasy with tongue firmly in cheek. It’s a perfect blend of cool and goofy, and it’s a real shame that it flopped at the box-office. I saw it in cinemas as a kid and loved it then and love it even more now at age 41. A fun cast, plenty of action and a pace that never flags, this is one of the best films of the 1980s. It’s certainly one of the most-loved films of the 80s amongst people I’ve encountered of the vintage over the years, along with the likes of “The Goonies”, “Stand By Me”, and “The Princess Bride” (the latter of which I’m a bit mild on). The off-the-wall screenplay is by Gary Goldman (“Total Recall”), W.D. Richter (who worked on the superior 1978 version of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”), and David Z. Weinstein (who has no other screenwriting credits, strangely). Meanwhile, I need to get a pair of those cool white Lords of Death shades…they’re awesome.

 

Rating: A+