When John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China was released theatrically in 1986, neither critics nor audiences knew what it do with it. Its bizarre, self-reflexive combination of the traditional Western action-adventure movie with creature features, gang movies, ghost stories, slapstick comedy, and a blend of Chinese kung-fu and mysticism with the style of Japanese anime was simply confounding, and the result was, therefore, not surprising: Critics panned it, audiences didn’t go see it, and the movie flopped. Since then, it has gained a cult following on video, and re-viewing it 15 years later, one gains a better appreciation for what Carpenter was trying to achieve. The movie was and still is a narrative mess, but it is an immensely enjoyable mess, one whose sheer energy and inventiveness outweighs its numerous flaws.

A postmodern exercise in genre and style blending, Big Trouble in Little China is a purposeful mishmash-hybrid of often conflicting elements that somehow comes together into a creative and utterly unique whole. I don’t think Big Trouble is a “good movie” in the traditional sense, but in this case that is a good thing because part of the movie’s fun is the way it snubs its nose at tradition, both Western and Eastern.

Kurt Russell, in his fourth outing with Carpenter after the TV movie Elvis (1979), Escape From New York (1981), and The Thing (1982), stars as Jack Burton, a shaggy, smug, overconfident truck driver who gets embroiled in a heap of trouble in and beneath San Francisco’s Chinatown. It all starts when Miao Yin (Suzee Pai), the fiancé of his poker buddy Wang (Dennis Dun), is kidnapped by a members of a street gang. It turns out that Miao Yin has been taken by Lo Pan (James Hong), a 2,000-year-old sorcerer-spirit who needs to marry and then kill her in order to become flesh again. Lo Pan is aided by “The Three Storms,” a trio of supernatural warriors who appear from time to time riding bolts of lightning or flying through the air.

That is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg, of course. Also involved is Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall), a nosy lawyer who, because she is the complete opposite of Jack (where he is thoughtless and gung-ho, she is measured and organized, though not lacking in spirit), is destined to become his love interest. In tow with Gracie is Margo (Kate Burton), a burgeoning journalist who has her eyes opened wide by the events that transpire in the subterranean world beneath Chinatown.

Describing the plot of Big Trouble in Little China is ultimately an exercise in futility because the movie is not about its plot. The plot, which is essentially a contrived series of chases, escapes, and rescues, serves only as a convenient excuse for the staging of elaborate action sequences in weird, highly stylized settings. Carpenter is a good action director, and he manages to stage exciting sequences with a great deal of fast-cut editing without letting it devolve into utter chaos. Most of the action takes place in Lo Pan’s underground lair, which is a neo-Oriental concoction of ancient furnishings (lots of Buddhist statues), dank dungeons, and neon lighting, all of which is surrounded by a swamp-like area known as “The Bog of the Dead Trees.”

What makes Big Trouble in Little China stand out from most action movies of the mid-1980s is not only its visual inventiveness, but also its willingness to put at the center of the story a not-so-heroic hero who is a direct counterpoint to the Rocky-Rambo theatrics of the Reagan era. Kurt Russell is a kind of everyman’s action hero, a no-nonsense, blue-collar trucker (his truck is nicknamed “The Pork Chop Express”) who acts and speaks before he thinks, yet always manages to slip out of the trouble he gets himself into. He is not so much brave as he is bull-headed, and it shows in his actions and his self-concept, especially in how he speaks of himself constantly in the third person (“Well, you know what ol’ Jack Burton says in these situations...”).

Russell’s character is indicative of Carpenter’s whole approach to the movie, which is one of lighthearted excess and a refusal to take anything too seriously. He uses Jack Burton comically as a way to bring ordinary skepticism into a fantastical story. Most fantasy stories simply ask you to accept everything they put on-screen, no matter how outlandish. There is plenty of outlandishness in Big Trouble in Little China, and Jack is always on hand to question and doubt everything, only to be put in his place by someone whose knows what is really going on. At one point, when traveling through the underground caverns beneath Chinatown, the movie’s good sorcerer, Egg Shen (Victor Wong), notes that the liquid flowing in the river below them is “the black blood of the earth.” “You mean oil,” Jack says assuredly, thinking he is correcting the old man’s outdated English. “No,” Egg replies. “I mean black blood of the earth.”

And that’s the kind of movie Big Trouble in Little China is. Where others see oil, it sees black blood of the earth. It throws wild ideas at you and literally laughs at your skepticism, just as it does at Jack’s. The second you start thinking about it, the movie bogs down and simply becomes ridiculous. But, if you allow yourself to sink into its bizarre subterranean world without pause or questions, it’s a fun ride.

Copyright © 2002 James Kendrick

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