A trucker plunges into San Francisco’s underground Chinatown, a labyrinth of royal halls and torture chambers. He wants to free a woman with green eyes, the green eyes make her desirable, from the clutches of a demon. Deep underground we see: swordsmen dueling in horizontal flight; the Chinese hell of bubbling oil; and the bag of six demons. And all evil Asians look like Fu Manchu.
“Big Trouble In Little China”! The kung fu film with the great B-movie title was fascinating, colorful, funny, and above all, very camp – and he was the nail in the coffin for John Carpenter in Hollywood.
Far Eastern battles where gravity doesn’t play a role? America wasn’t ready for fantasy martial arts in the ’80s. At the time, the cinema of filmmakers like Jackie Chan was admired as exotic, imported, but not self-made.
Like many fantasy films of his time, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” in 1984, “Labyrinth” in the same year or Eddie Murphy’s “In Search of the Golden Child” a little later, the action takes place predominantly in darkness, strange, subterranean realms are invaded. The work, of course, failed at the box office; director John Carpenter would not work with a major studio again for years.
Much fuss about nothing
The film was deliberately staged as a grotesque; when translated, the Chinese characters draped around the American film title proclaim: “Evil Spirits Make A Big Scene In Little Spiritual State” – which, loosely translated, means a lot of trouble about nothing.
But “Big Trouble” didn’t rust. It started a triumph in the home video sector, where you can watch individual scenes several times as party fun or to help you fall asleep. The costumes alone are worth it – the monkey with his light bulb eyes. Today, people who were born in 1986 also know the film, which was released in 1986, which isn’t exactly bad for a flop.
“Big Trouble in China” has found so many fans that a remake is now being planned. With Dwayne Johnson in the role of truck driver Jack Burton, which was played by Kurt Russell in the original.
The casting of Johnson raises concerns that Hollywood has understood the spirit of the story differently than most of its followers. The actor known as “The Rock” is the prototype of a fighting machine. Kurt Russell portrayed his trucker more like a cowboy caricature who is completely out of his depth.
Break down paper doors
After the end of the 100-minute-long film, it slowly dawns on you: Burton was the main character, but in the catacombs of Chinatown he was no more than a sidekick – his Chinese friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun), who is experienced in martial arts, defeated the ghosts almost single-handedly. The rabid Westerner made his way with the machine gun; But like Homer Simpson, he breaks down paper doors instead of opening them. At one point, Burton even knocks himself out before the fight begins.
Since Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” from 2003, flying fighters and Asian mythologies have been established in Hollywood, and genre mixes have also been experimented with, although, see “Cowboys & Aliens” or “Bone Tomahawk” (with Kurt Russell), with dubious ones Success. “Big Trouble In Little China” was originally conceived as a western and was supposed to be set in late 19th century America, which would have depicted the clash of cultures between settlers and immigrants even more dramatically. That might have been a very topical film. Unfortunately, for budget reasons we had to return to contemporary San Francisco.
Jack Burton’s sweaty shirt
For Kurt Russell, “Big Trouble meant a career break, even though he created Jack Burton, the third exciting character from a Carpenter film. The first was Snake Plissken, the “rattlesnake,” then came helicopter pilot McReady from “The Thing.”
In any case, Tarantino remembered the old Burton when he hired Russell for his “Death Proof” in 2007. The director said he wanted to see Russell, whose career was failing in the 1990s, back in a tough role and cast him as stuntman Mike. Burton left his mark on Death Proof. There’s a Big Trouble in Little China prop hanging on the wall of a diner: the trucker’s sweaty tank top.