1986 cult classic
Rating: 14/20
Plot: A truck driver gets mixed up in Chinese mysticism and folklore while trying to help a buddy find a girlfriend who was kidnapped by some thugs and taken to the depths of Chinatown. There, they find the titular big trouble with everybody kung-fu fighting, evil sorcerers doing evil sorcerer things, and a few monsters. And he can’t find his truck!
A couple things. First, it’s impossible to argue with a poster like that. John Carpenter wanted to make himself a kung-fu movie, but he apparently found it impossible to control himself and added those goofy monsters and magical mayhem which just makes this thing explode with goofiness. For the better, I think, because the mashing together of a trucker movie hero, martial arts bedlam, supernatural mumbo-jumbo, comedy, and Western themes (apparently it was originally supposed to take place in the 19th Century and was rewritten for modern times) give it a unique feel. Second, this is probably my favorite movie title ever. It’s at least the one that I say the most while hardly ever making an actual reference to Kurt Russell or a hog-tied Kim Cattral. I use it as a threat, lowering my voice slightly and saying things to my children or students like, “If you don’t so-and-so, there’s gonna be big trouble in little China.” They respond by looking a little confused.
The thing that really stands out with this is the cool set pieces. There’s an early fight in the streets of Chinatown where the action kicks off (and punches off) early in this and never really lets up, and that action sequence with a pair of warring gangs and Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton clutching a knife in the cab of his truck is ridiculous. Then, just when that whole scene–where the only thing missing might have been Buster Keaton trying to film it all–started to fizzle, you get some dopey special effects and the appearances of Thunder, Lightning, and Rain. How’d you like to be Rain in that trio, by the way? You’ve got three badass supernatural warriors, and one of them is like “Yeah, I get to be Lightning–flashy, baby!” and another one is like “Yeah, Thunder–Ka-boom!” and then you’re like “Rain? Drizzle drizzle?” The characters are cool but kind of transition from completely invincible to pansies as this thing goes. The sets for the bad guys’ lair in the subterranean depths of Little China are great, much more vast than your typical B-movie, and I especially liked a horrifying swim to safety. There’s probably too much color for an evil lair though, and I bet the interior decorator was fed to one of those monsters after the work was completed. The monsters are just the right amount of cheap for a production like this. Their appearances are an amusing surprise even if they don’t really have that much to do. Kurt Russell is a guy who’s impossible not to respect because 1) he was nailing Goldie Hawn, 2) he was Snake Plissken, and 3) the mullet. How about that Russell/Hawn Hollywood relationship, by the way? 30 years strong, right? Are they still together? That’s a long relationship considering it just started because Kurt Russell was enamored with Goldie Hawn’s posterior. But I digress, especially dangerous for me when I’m moving into Golden Hawn’s posterior territories. I like Jack Burton here, a neo-John-Wayne-ian vulnerable but otherwise cliched action hero with arms that barely fit on the screen. His line “I feel kind of invincible” is pretty great. His friend played by Dennis Dun can certainly move, and the martial arts stuff in this is really pretty good throughout. And then there’s one of the handful of actors who will make you say “Oh, it’s THAT guy!” as Lo Pan. That’s right, the recognizable voice of the always-cool James Hong. Here, he’s wearing about seventy pounds of make-up. Victor Wong is also really good as a bus tour guy who turns out to be more than a bus tour guy. This thing never lets up on the gas and is fun for 90 minutes even though there’s no way it should have gone on for longer than 90 minutes. And it’s got a really cool ending.
