“INDEED!”
Now let’s talk about one of the mothers of all cult films, forty years on—for some, it’s perhaps John Carpenter’s most memorable and certainly most quotable films. We’re talking ancient Chinese sorcery, six demon bags, maniacs jumping around on strings, black blood of the earth (which is, in fact, black blood of the earth), wind, fire, all that stuff—time to make sure we park our trucks right as we jump right into Big Trouble in Little China.
The plot gets rather dense, but to make a long story short—Kurt Russel is truck driver Jack Burton, heading on into San Francisco to collect some gambling winnings from his friend Wang (Dennis Dun). Things then get very sidetracked when Dun’s fiancee then gets kidnapped by the airport, drawing them into a supernatural gang war in the local Chinatown where one David Lo Pan (played by the legendary James Hong) happens to actually be a 3000-year old ghostlike sorcerer who sees his opportunity to regain his former power. And it only gets crazier from there.
Carpenter drew inspiration from both Hong Kong cinema (he wanted to cast Jackie Chan as Wang originally, which would’ve made the fight scenes mind-blowing) and the horror material he was familiar with, with the odd moments of creepiness and supernatural mind-bending. And, with all the gusto you get from genuine love for all those sources, put them together into one hell of a farce—where everything is balanced just right.
The joke with Jack Burton, for instance, is that he’s kind of a blowhard butting into his friend’s own quest, but he’s not played as an unlikeable cretin nor a coward—as someone who’s well-meaning and brave, but still very much out of his depth with the magical martial arts going on around him. Likewise, Kim Catrall as a lawyer wrapped up in this plays things exactly as they need to be, delivering deliberately cheesy lines out of a comic book with actual fervor.
Likewise, James Hong is one hell of a bad guy, playing things over the top and yet still holding the scene even when his character’s in a wheelchair (Lo Pan being both a decrepit old man and a seven foot tall sorcerer—it’s complicated). And his counterpart is the tour bus service owner slash incognito wizard played by Victor Wong, who utterly commits to the grouchy but surprisingly physical mentor who really doesn’t have time to educate Burton on every demented thing that’s going on.
In simple terms, the film’s having fun with itself, without the need to stop and laugh at its own premise as others might do—this is also exemplified in the soundtrack, especially the opening theme that hits that right tone of awesome yet casual that we’re going for here. The rest is Carpenter’s synth goodness, with the track ‘Abduction in the Airport’ seeming to foreshadow the Stranger Things theme a bit.
It’s a film that could’ve only been made at that time, in that place, by the select few here—now, it does play pretty fast and loose with actual Chinese mythology, but it’s also about making fun of the idea of the all-American hero coming in to play saviour (one of the best moments of physical comedy comes in the climactic fight scene, where Burton mostly bumbles about while his Chinese friend does the real ass-kicking). With talk of remakes or sequels, all I can think of it is being watered down one way or another—as it is, it stands by itself.
There’s been debate on how much it aped Hong Kong films, or if they aped it—I can’t think of many there that have its specific mix of comedy and supernatural, though. Either way, others argue it takes its own specific theme of showcasing how all manner of things can lurk around the right corner of a cosmopolitan city. So take that from me, as when the earthquakes and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake…
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