Almost too much fun for one movie
Miles removed from the horror movies he's best known for, Big Trouble In Little China is nevertheless John Carpenter to the core, right down to (unfortunately) the worst closing-credits title song of all time, Carpenter-composed and performed by some mysterious entity called "The Coupe De Villes". He'd try again for this kind of "mainstream" appeal six years later in Memoirs Of An Invisible Man (natch, both films tanked). The difference is, Memoirs was pedestrian; Big Trouble is one of the weirdest damn movies he's ever done.
A mullet-sporting Kurt Russell, looking a little jowly here, stars as Jack Burton, a truck driver prone to working-class windbag monologues into his CB which, very likely, nobody listens to. We find out later on that he actually talks like that. After cleaning out his friend Wang (Dennis Dun) in dominoes and a doomed bet regarding the bisection of a beer bottle, he accompanies his friend to the San Francisco airport to pick up his betrothed, the green-eyed Miao Yin (Suzee Pai). She's promptly kidnapped by a Chinese street gang, and thus begins Jack's and Wang's quest (with an increasingly large supporting cast in tow) to free her from the iron grasp of Lo Pan (James Hong), a 2000-year-old astral projector who needs to marry a green-eyed bride in order to take fleshly form again and wallow in his carnal desires.
It only gets weirder from there, with a back-alley Braveheart battle between rival Chinese gangs, giant spider-chipmunk-things snatching people into holes in the wall, gravity-defying martial arts battles, what appears to be Raiden from Mortal Kombat, secret passageways, slides down fireman's poles, a Talking Villain scene where everybody's in a wheelchair, Burton doing his best to pass himself off as a nerd, not to mention spending half of the climax incapacitated or unconscious due to his own incompetence, a floating sphere that looks like Jabba the Hutt's head with more eyeballs, and...I could go on for days. If there's one thing this movie has got a lot of, it's Neat Stuff.
Even though Carpenter didn't write this one (it was apparently based on a discarded script for the much-speculated-on Buckaroo Banzai sequel, promised in that film's closing credits), it bears his stamp all over the place. Burton makes a fine Carpenter anti-hero, though his less-than-heroic nature is more due to incompetence than anti-social decisions. The sub-Chinatown shown bears a similarity to the urban hells of of previous (and future) Carpenter movies, though far more fantastical. Carp's electronic score is thumping and suspenseful, though like, say, that of The Thing (actually, Morriconne's), probably unlistenable on its own. The only really unCarpenterian misstep is a way-outta-place patriotic toast late in the film; where'd that come from?
Russell has a lot of fun in his role, playing Burton as a klutzy sort of John Wayne. Some of his utterances cross the line from amusing to confusing, though, like when a couple of thugs pull some marginally exotic weapons on him (I say marginally, because it gets a lot more exotic in this movie) and for some reason he protests "Where'd you get that?" Hell of a thing to ask. Then his ass is kicked.
The cast around him doesn't fare nearly as well; Dun is more appealing than he would be a year later in Prince Of Darkness, but never manages to elevate his character beyond mere sidekick status (come climax time, I couldn't help but imagine what this role would've been like in Jackie Chan's hands). Hong is an enjoyable villain, and pulls off his motivations here, however hole-punched (he dismisses his 2000-year-inability to find a green-eyed bride with one of those "Ahhr, you know how women are" grumbles), are a lot more convincing than similar motives in his vanity project The Vineyard. Kim Catrall and Kate Burton are here too, taking up space and not bringing anything at all to the movie except I guess more white people.
But the movie itself is a winner on most every front, and certainly Carpenter's most energetic and lively film. This is the movie that keeps making me reconsider my general apathy towards Carpenter's action scenes in, say, Escape From New York. It's exciting, it's violent, and it's totally implausible; it's a total hoot. People literally fly through the air swinging swords at each other here! Gunfire, bladed weapons, lightning bolts, exploding pouches of, uh, magic Chinese stuff, the action scenes here take a lot of forms and Carpenter isn't afraid to stretch your disbelief way past the snapping point. It's this kind of lack of restraint I would've liked to have seen more of in EFNY, and which he somewhat delivered in Escape From L.A..
Big Trouble In Little China received some marginal flak upon its release for its portrayal of Chinese immigrants as a selection of stereotypes; y'know, the Fu Manchu evil wizard guy, the street gangs, the brothel chicks, the kindly wizard guy who seems cryptic until you figure out he means everything literally. I dunno; I see a lot more affection on Carpenter's part than dismissal. Hey, Prince Of Darkness had more roles filled by Asians that didn't HAVE to be Asians than, well, any movie I've ever seen (three!). The film presents some stereotypes, sure, but doesn't seem to want you to forget that they ARE stereotypes; Catrall's character at one point makes some comment about "These people", to which Burton replies "What people?" It isn't a scolding, despite the snappy tone, it's a request to be more specific.
The only failing along these lines for me is the fact that in this movie, EVERY Chinese character appears to be a martial arts master. However, it is nice to see that this movie doesn't fall prey to the oft-held movie conceit that the only thing that can bring down a martial artist is another martial artist; hey, what I know about martial arts couldn't fill a thimble, but I don't think they teach you invincibility when you go to class for them. Occasionally, a gunshot to the head WILL bring one down. Similarly, no "silver bullet" is needed to bring down the occasional supernatural entity; sometimes, you just have to drop a rock on its head.
Yep, it's safe to say that Big Trouble In Little China is probably Carpenter's most fun movie, and deserved a lot better fate than was dealt to it at the box office, despite (at least here) a huge ad campaign that had full-page ads for days before the movie rhetorically asking "Who is Jack Burton?". A few years ahead of its time, I guess; martial arts films wouldn't be back in vogue for another half-decade. Fourteen years later, and people still clamor for a sequel. (fit Jackie Chan in somehow!!!) Rumors persist of a TV series based on the film. I don't really know which to be afraid of more, but this kind of action-fantasy isn't something we see a lot of here outside of Xena. In the meantime, Big Trouble is always more than enough entertainment than you could ask for from 99 minutes.
Fond non-memory: after seeing this for the first time as a teenager, I had a weird dream later that night where the nominal cliffhanger at the end was resolved in pretty neat fashion. I can't remember for the life of me just what that was.
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