Big Trouble in Little China
Director - John Carpenter
Starring - Kurt Russel, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun, James Hong, Victor Wong
Year - 1986
One of my all time faves, loved this when I was groing up and still love it to this day. I can quote just about every line of dialogue in the film, much to the annoyance of people watching it with me.
So whats it about?
Kurt Russel plays wiseguy trucker Jack Burton, a reasonable guy, that's just experienced some very unreasonable things" when he decides to help his best mate Wang (Dennis Dun) rescue his fiance that has been kidnapped by local street gang the Lords of Death in San Franscico Chinatown. What he gets is mixed up in 2000 year Chinese ghost story, Lopan (James Hong) now posing an aging business man in Chinatown. Lopan is cursed with immortality and needs a girl with green eyes to appease the first sovereign emporer of China and break the curse. And guess who just hppens to have green eyes? that's right Wang's girl so too does Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) who also has eyes for Burton. Luckily for our heroes, mystic sorcerror Egg Shen (Victor Wong) is standing by ready to full fill his life long destiny to destroy the evil Lopan and his 'Three Storms' (see last image) once and for all.
The heart of this film is really the buddy relationship between Jack, a wise crackin', overley confident, sceptic that's in over his head and Wang, the believer that just wants to resuce and settle down with his fiance at any cost as they stumble from one insane situation after another.
Written, directed and scored by John Carpenter in 1986, it was originally concieved as a western but was re-written due to time and budget constraints and rumour has it they wanted to beat the Eddie Murphy vehicle The Golden Child's release date.
The film is a perfect mix of action, Chinese mythology, sorcery and wise cracking heroes that they did so well in the 80's and is sorely missed these days in continuesly hit and miss genre films.
I could probably talk all day about this movie but really just check out the trailer here or just go and watch the film.
