Big Trouble In Little China
It’s amazing how almost 40 years after their initial release, so many films of the 1980s have managed to hold up incredibly well despite what many feel were obvious drawbacks in special effects and other production values. Perhaps no director of the era was more adept at so called “timeless” works than one John Carpenter (whose original 1978 Halloween STILL stands as the template for the slasher horror subgenre) and this 1986 release remains both one of his most beloved efforts as well as one that has also stood the test of time in remarkable fashion. Here, Carpenter was taking his shot at paying homage to both the Hong Kong martial arts assembly line movies along with heavy doses of Chinese mysticism and fantasy that had also been a key component of much of Asian cinema, in the process casting two of the single greatest Chinese character actors to ever live first with James Hong, a mainstay of Hollywood for over 50 years who continues acting to this very day in his mid 90s and Victor Wong, the wonderfully eccentric performer with the droopy face and squinted eye whose overall acting career was far more limited than Hong’s (although he did live an extraordinary life otherwise) but he still made the greatest of impressions in the films that he actually did appear in mostly because he was so much damn fun to watch. In the starring role, Carpenter would cast his old standby Kurt Russell, here giving a tongue in cheek comedic performance fueled by pure charisma. As obnoxious trucker Jack Burton, Russell rides into San Francisco to drop off his latest haul and then stop by and see his old friend (Dennis Dun) whom he then gives a lift to pick up his fiancée at the airport, fresh off the plane from Peking. Unfortunately, since this particular Chinese girl has green eyes (said to be a rarity for females of this racial type), she finds herself suddenly kidnapped by human traffickers who have received a special request for a Chinese girl with such eyes from a mysterious Chinatown crime boss named David Lo Pan (Hong) whom as it turns out is much more than just a corrupted business owner, but is also an ancient practitioner of Chinese black magic who is not only said to be over 2000 years old, but also exists in a ghost like transparent state due to having a curse placed on him long ago and needs this specific type of girl in order to lift the curse via marrying her and then sacrificing her so that he would not only become mortal again, but would finally gain the world dominance and power which he has always sought after. Standing in his way are Russell, Dun, and a supposed “good” sorcerer named Egg Shen (Wong) who has his own trick bag filled with goodies and spells to ward off both Lo Pan and his three elite bodyguards with their own superhuman, supernatural powers. Russell of course is the one who just gets roped into the whole thing out of loyalty to his buddy, but then when his truck gets stolen, it becomes personal even as he starts falling for Kim Cattrall, whose character’s involvement in the whole affair is rather vague as she appears to be either a) a lawyer, b) a social worker, c) a human rights activist or d) a little bit of everything. It’s funny how the viewer is given a full explanation of the backstory for Lo Pan, but other things such as Egg Shen’s own background (with him possibly even being one of the original, real life, exiled Chinese Elders) or how Dun’s character comes off early on as being just as much of a skeptic as Russell only for him to suddenly display intense high flying fighting skills that would put Keanu Reeves’ Neo to shame are never fully explained, but at least Dun’s abilities underscore the film’s brilliantly central conceit which is that Dun the high flying fighting master is the actual hero of the story while Russell’s Burton is more like the brash, tough talking yet bumbling sidekick who still manages to come through in the end when the chips are seemingly down, with plenty of quotable dialogue along the way. The fight scenes themselves of course are simply spectacular whether it be two warring gangs who are being manipulated by Lo Pan or the big showdown in Lo Pan’s underground lair (featuring a still breathtaking “avatar” sword fight between the two old masters Wong and Hong) which is a simply spectacular example of set and production design with the idea being that Chinatown (and only Chinatown) has an entire subterranean world underneath it where all sorts of monsters and other unimaginable beings live and breathe away from the eyes of conventional society. This is quite the potent concept and more importantly, an idea that leaves the viewer wanting more, something that both Russell and Carpenter were willing to do had the studio not dropped the ball on the marketing campaign and nudged the film into a pretty disastrous box office performance, one that was alleviated somewhat by its second life as a cult classic through both cable TV and home video with the film’s carefree, whimsical approach to the material being what has helped it connect to its audience over the years and continues to do so to this day…
9/10