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Review: Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
In John Carpenter’s recent release, there is virtually no bloodshed and not much in the way of scares. At least not in the way people expect in his genre offerings. Quite a surprise from the director responsible for such cinematic shockers as Halloween (1978) and the remake of The Thing (1982). Kurt Russell stars as a truck driver who finds Big Trouble in Little China.
Russell is Jack Burton, a road-weary cynic who talks like John Wayne. His pal Wang (Dennis Dun) is planning to meet a woman from China whom he has come to know via postal correspondence and marry her. No sooner does his bride-to-be arrive in the USA that she finds herself a captive of a posse of Chinatown punks. For Wang’s girl is a rarity: she has green eyes.
It is discovered that the punks do business with a brothel and green-eyed Chinese girls fetch quite a pretty penny. Jack and Wang join up with a feisty attorney named Gracie Law )Kim Cattrall) and her friend, a reporter named Margo (Kate Burton, daughter of late acting great Richard) to rescue her. Jack’s disguise of a would-be john clad in loud polyester is hiarious.
Jack and company soon come across a trio of Asian giants who happen to be in the employ of a mysterious Howard Hughes-like recluse (James Hong). Without giving much else away, the recluse is afflicted with a curse that can only be undone by him taking a green-eyed girl as his bride.
The film plays like a somewhat crude parody of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Big Trouble in Little China lacks the flair and finesse of Steven Spielberg’s 1981 megahit, though. Still it is a solid solid adventure which stands out on its own. Russell may not be Harrison Ford but he seems to have a ball playing a role that is a collage of such heroes as Thomas Magnum, Indiana Jones, and John Wayne. Yet he winds up with his booted foot in his mouth and needing to be helped out if trouble. Russell shows a great knack for comedy here even more so than in his co-starring role with Robin Williams earlier this year in The Best of Times. Big Trouble in Little China is a tongue-in-cheek concoction of ghost stories, kung fu films, and pulp adventure tales that is a lot of fun.
Robert Baum is Currently a Bryn Mawr, PA-based film afficanado and pop culture junkie.
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