Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Movie rating: 5/10
This was a difficult one to grade. I’ve heard a lot of raves over the years about Big Trouble in Little China, which is often referred to as a cult classic. I love John Carpenter’s work: Halloween, The Thing, and They Live are all cinematic gems. Meanwhile, Jack Burton appears to be one of Kurt Russell’s most beloved characters.
I will say that this movie is fun. Whether it’s good is another question. I was warned in advance that the film would be cheesy and silly, and boy, is it ever. But I got the distinct feeling that that was an intentional choice by Carpenter. Big Trouble is clearly an affectionate homage to old martial arts movies, which are known for piling on the fromage. I’ll also say that this was like no other movie I’ve ever seen. Carpenter doesn’t just make a standard martial arts action film, but brings in supernatural elements with ghosts, magic, sorcery, and creatures from the underworld.
Jack Burton is another stylistic element thrown into the mix. In some ways Burton feels like a satire of the typical ‘80s action hero: tough, wisecracking, working class white guy, dressed in a wife beater, wielding a big gun, with a one-liner for every situation. Reading that description, it sounds like a dry run for John McClane in Die Hard. But Jack’s bluster hides someone who is not just in over his head, but less equipped to deal with this situation than someone like McClane.
When he first kills someone, the movie implies he’s never done so before, though Jack pretends otherwise. In the climactic scene, he fires a shot into the air that causes debris to fall on his head, briefly knocking him out. In the DVD commentary, John Carpenter describes Burton as a sidekick who thinks he is a leading man. Either way, Russell’s charm makes Burton an enjoyable character to watch.
The shadow of Ghostbusters looms over this film, from its special effects and focus on the supernatural to a scene that appears to be shot in the same New York firehouse as Ghostbusters HQ. There are a lot of hideous monsters here, but it’s not always clear what they are or where they come from. The action and fighting are fun to watch early on, but over the course of the movie they grow more tiresome and outlandish. There were parts when I started to tune out.
Other than Kurt Russell, most of the people onscreen were more appealing because of the actors playing them than the actual characters. There are a lot of familiar faces in the cast: Kim Cattrall, James Hong, Victor Wong. I liked Jack’s friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun), and there’s a good argument that he should have been the leading man instead. Wang is the one who more often knows what’s going on. He’s also a far superior fighter. But when it’s a movie from 1986, I guess your hero has to be a white guy with a mullet. Again though, Russell’s character was almost a self-aware and self-mocking reaction to that.
I guess I should address the elephant in the room, which is Orientalism. An Edward Said scholar might be a better person to ask about that than me. There’s a lot of portrayal of Chinese culture as not just exotic and different, but a literal gateway to the underworld. Chinese people believe in sorcery. Miao Yin (Suzee Pai), the first “girl with green eyes”, is central to the movie but barely has any dialogue. David Lo Pan seems like a Fu Manchu-type character. I’m not accusing John Carpenter of malicious intent; I think it’s more just a product of the time the movie was made. Jack Burton is in a sense the audience identification character for white America, but his Asian buddy Wang also comes off like an ordinary Californian guy; on the other hand, Wang also exhibits astonishing martial arts abilities apparently just because he’s Chinese.
The music is great in that dated ‘80s synth way, composed by Carpenter himself. The movie is cheesy and fun, but not quite as good as I was hoping. I think nostalgia plays a big role in the appeal of a movie like this. There are certain movies I loved as a kid that were critically derided, but which I still love just because I grew up with them. A lot of people who grew up in the late ’80s might feel the same way about Big Trouble in Little China.
I think this is an enjoyable enough movie to watch for a laugh with some friends and adult beverages. It’s not one of John Carpenter’s best movies, but it’s a talented filmmaker dipping his feet into a new genre and having fun with it. That shows in the final product. Still silly though.