R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema: Big Trouble In Little China

Archive

There was a time when John Carpenter was a God of cinema. The man is responsible for the best of the slasher genre in Halloween. The Thing is the scariest sci-fi/horror film ever produced that doesn’t have some combination of the words Alien, Ridley, Scott, James or, Cameron on its poster. Both Snake Plisken films, Escape From New York and Escape From L.A. are very midnight movie fun and have an iconic antihero as the lead character. The Fog and Starman are both surprisingly good films, and as far as guilty pleasures go, They Live isn’t exactly Oscar worthy, but it does feature one of the longest fight scenes in history. You can’t deny that watching Roddy Piper kick some serious alien ass on screen has its merits. Then at some point, the bottom fell out. Vampires is a disaster. In the Mouth of Madness has an interesting premise that goes nowhere. Village of the Damned is really boring and not scary unless you just find albino kids terrifying in and of themselves. Memoirs of an Invisible Man stars Chevy Chase, ‘nough said, and I won’t even go into Ghosts of Mars. John Carpenter was one of the best directors in the sci-fi/horror genre, and for some reason hit a wall of creativity. Fortunately, before that occurred, Carpenter was able to create one of the most inventive adventure films of all time, Big Trouble in Little China.



Starring Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, Big Trouble is your basic action/sci-fi/horror/western/comedy/martial arts/fantasy film. This film has the distinction of being one of the main inspirations for this column. The picture starts with truck driver Jack Burton, returning to one of his old stomping grounds to hang out with old friend Wang, played by Dennis Dunn. On the way to his friend’s restaurant to collect on a debt owed to him, Jack has to take a quick detour to pick up Wang’s new fiance Miao Yin. What looks to be a simple task of picking up Wang’s love from the airport turns into a desperate search to find her kidnappers. Things then go from bad to worse as Wang and Jack end up in the middle of a gang war in San Francisco’s Chinatown. A streetfight breaks out between the armies of the yellow clad Chang Sings and the evil Wing Kongs wearing red. The battle ends with the Chang Sings being annihilated by a group of supernatural beings known as the Three Storms, who surely were the inspiration for Rayden of Mortal Kombat fame. The victory by the Storms is swift, giving our heroes good reason to retreat and regroup later. As they try to assemble a plan of rescue, Jack falls for Kim Catrall’s Gracey Law, a legal professional trying to expose Chinatown’s slave trade of women. A rescue attempt for Miao Yin goes awry as Gracey is kidnapped. The finale for the film is a fantasy battle of Jedi-like proprtions as Jack and Wang team up with the remainder of the Chang Sings and a mystical Mr Miyagi meets Harry Potter Asian named Egg Shen to take on the forces of Lo Pan, a 2000 year old sorcerer who plans on offering up the two heroines as sacrifices in order to reverse a centuries old curse placed on him by the God’s.



Big Trouble in Little China represents John Carpenter at the top of his craft. Carpenter saw this movie as a chance to bring his love for Eastern Cinema to North America. The film ends up loaded with fantasy and martial arts battles, huge monsters and lots of comedy. The battle of street gangs near the beginning of the film even has shades of Akira Kurosawa’s Ran as the two armies feature their red and yellow uniforms while charging each other. Big Trouble also features some of the first instances in Western Cinema of using wire work in its martial arts fights. While not as intricate as those fights in modern action films such as The Matrix or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the fights were all choreographed to seem reminiscent of old school Chop Socky films from Hong Kong like Duel to the Death and the Shaw Brother’s classic The Five Deadly Venoms . This blending of the martial arts genre with westerns and sci-fi is also a precursor to American standards like the aforementioned Matrix and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill. Carpenter had opened the door for films with Eastern motifs which had not been prevalent since the death of Bruce Lee a decade earlier.



To make the film more accessible, Carpenter had to add other elements that would bring more western audiences to the film. John Carpenter’s well-known love of westerns was already evident in his film Assault on Precinct 13 which was a remake of the John Wayne vehicle Rio Bravo and Carpenter’s feature film debut Dark Star which owed a lot to John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven. Big Trouble in Little China featured a hero that could have fit in terrifically in the old west of Carpenter’s dreams, Jack Burton. Played larger than life by Kurt Russell, Jack represented the third time the actor and director had worked together on screen. Russell had achieved cult status as the previously mentioned Snake Plisken. the convict sent into the prison island of Manhattan to save the American President in Escape from New York. Russell also gave a commanding performance as MacReady, a member of a scientific expedition in Antarctica who has to survive an alien encounter in Carpenter classic remake The Thing. The Difference here was that Snake and MacReady were the real deal as heroes. Both men were able to overcome every major obstacle in front of them out of sheer will. Jack Burton deep down, on the other hand, is a coward. Jack is portrayed as the epiotome of brash machoism who talks like John Wayne, but is completely inept in his actions. Nearly every obstacle that is placed in front of Jack is overcome, but done so completely by accident. Fortunately Jacks heart of gold and his reliable side-kicks help him to get the job done. It is Russell’s charisma that enables him to carry this role fully to the hilt. His wisecracks and one-liners have perfect comic timing; towards the end it becomes easier for the audience to buy him as an action hero. Through Russell’s performance we become attached to Jack Burton even though he has proven hilariously awkward and inept in a crisis time and again.


The remainder of the cast is able to stand toe to toe with Russell throughout the film. David Dunn’s Wang is actually the “man of action” in the film. All of Big Trouble‘s major fighting is left up to him. Over and over his character is called upon to guide Jack along in the story and save him from certain peril. It is actually Wang that carries much of the picture through till the end, driving the film forward with his constant search for Miao Yin. Kim Catrall’s Gracey Law is the perfect foil for Jack’s eccentric nature. Gracey comes off as a modern update of the blueprint used for Lois Lane in Max Fleischer’s Superman serials. Catrall’s Law is outspoken and always sticking her nose in where it doesn’t belong, and is usually getting into trouble for it. Gracey falling for Jack is note perfect as she fights his quirky charm vehemently, but then slowly warms to him as the story progresses. James Hong and Victor Wong have a funny rivalry on screen as each try to steal the film away from its main stars. Hong’s Lo Pan is an exceptional performance. In his earthly form Lo Pan is a pitiful old man. Even under tons of makeup, Hong brings a rich layered performance of a villain longing for power, but mostly just wanting to feel a woman’s touch again. As good as this performance is Lo Pan is equally as menacing in his youthful state. Lo Pan’s traditional Mandarin robes brought out an otherworldly quality to his appearance. Hong’s presence was very formidable, bringing the level of threat needed by the film’s major villain even though he has no action scenes. Victor Wong’s Egg Shen is a delightful sorcerer and scene stealer as he brings levity to much of the films last half. His presence in this film is akin to both Yoda and Gandalf on a lot of levels.

Big Trouble in Little China was a box office failure upon its release. Due to 20th Century Fox’s inability to promote the film, audiences were skeptical and stayed away. Fortunately the film got new life on video and cable, giving the picture the cult status it enjoys today. People seeing the film for the first time were captivated by Carpenter’s melting pot philosophy of movie making. So many diverse genres had rarely been blended into one film before so successfully. Carpenter was able to bring his own vision to the screen and paved the way for other maverick film makers to show their love for genres that weren’t part of typical main stream fair. Before Big Trouble most American martial arts offerings starred Chuck Norris and featured very few Asian actors. Carpenter brought a more traditional Chinese fantasy to the screen for the first time in this country. Big Trouble in Little China was a labor of love for Carpenter and his films have not reached the same quality since.

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.