Big Trouble In Little China
(1986)
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A cult favorite (and one of director John Carpenter's personal favourites), BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA is a fantasy-action film that is brilliantly imaginative, funny, and absorbing. Kurt Russell plays hard-boiled truck driver Jack Burton, who gets caught in a bizarre conflict within, and underneath, San Francisco's Chinatown. An ancient Chinese prince and Chinatown crimelord has kidnapped a beautiful green-eyed woman, who is the fiancee to Jack's best friend. Jack must help his friend rescue the girl before the evil Lo Pan uses her to break the ancient curse that keeps him a fleshless and immortal spirit. Carpenter uses all the best elements of martial arts films, 1940s old action serials, Chinese mythology and straight-forward American adventure to make up a tale wild with imagination. Russell is wonderful as the brash, brave, and reluctant hero Jack Burton, who is hysterically out of place in this world of magic potions, goblins and curses. A visually stunning work that ranks as one of Carpenter's best films. |
Horror maestro John Carpenter (Halloween) is clearly in awe of Hong Kong movies, but this brave attempt to fuse martial arts action with a westernised adventure story sadly doesn't quite jell. Kurt Russell makes an amiably inept hero as the dense lorry driver who gets mixed up with ancient Chinese cults and magic when he ventures beneath the streets of San Francisco. But the fight scenes are surprisingly stodgy, and, in the end, the special effects take over.