Post by ronnierocketago on Jun 2, 2006 5:10:53 GMT
www.andersonvision.com/modules.php?name=Reviews&rop=showcontent&id=752
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA
United States, 1986
U.S. Release Date: 7/2/1986
Running Length: 99 minutes
MPAA Classification: PG-13
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Starring: Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dunn, James Hong, Victor Wong, Kate Burton, Donald Li, Carter Wong, Peter Kwong, Jeff Imada, Suzee Pai
Directed by – John Carpenter
Written by – Gary Goldman & David Z. Weinstein and W.D. Richter
Cinematography: Dean Cundey
Original Score: John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Film Rating - ****/5 – 4/5
This summer of 2006 really sucks so far in cinemas. From Tom Cruise to CGI non-PIXAR animals to that horrid 3rd movie of a franchise that was carefully crafted by Bryan Singer before Brett Ratner carefully crashed and burned to the ground, this summer from Hollywood has been quite lacking in the two most important departments of such blockbuster fare: quality and entertainment.
In Troy Anderson’s already legendary citation of the term “Idiot Bait” against Tom Hanks’ ugly mullet and “The Da Vinci Code,” he was quite correct in his list of movies that truly do deserve the term of “popcorn” cinema, of which the cinemas in the summer are supposed to deliver.
One such film named is easily my personal favorite movie from the career of cult filmmaker John Carpenter. Sure “Halloween” and “The Thing” are easily his most important and best movies, but the one that always and reliably delivered a fresh can of jaw-fist connecting entertainment is a picture that actually flopped in theaters during the summer of 1986, despite being packaged by 20th Century Fox along with successes like David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” and James Cameron’s “Aliens”.
Perhaps the reason why I love “Big Trouble in Little China” is the same reason why it laid a financial egg roll. While it is an enjoyable popcorn-munching excursion, it is also quite a brilliant joke of sorts towards the whole action/adventure staple of pictures from American cinema, though I wonder how many actually catch it in between the martial arts and magic.
In the decade of Rambo, the film starts off with this would-be ominous sequence where the wise Egg Shen (Victor Wong) starts a tale of where he talks of the very brave and mighty “warrior” that is Jack Burton (Kurt Russell). We then cut to Burton and his truck-driving machine that is the “Pork Chop Express” while he spouts witty lines into his radio dispatch on his way to San Francisco. The Hollywood assembly plant has made the audience quite expected to see a smart-ass of a tough American Caucasian man, and we expect to see him flex his muscles immediately.
The plot goes full-steam ahead, with Burton in Chinatown, meeting up with his pal Wang Chi (Dun), who unfortunately owes him money. Anyway, the two then proceed to pick up Chi’s fiancée at the airport, who’s just arrived to America from China, but she gets abducted by the forces of the elderly and feeble gangster David Lo Pan (Hong), who is later revealed to be an evil immortal sorcerer of a demon spirit. He wants to be flesh and mortal again, so he plans to sacrifice her because she’s got green eyes. Apparently, emerald eyes are as rare to find in China as blonde-haired black people. Teaming up with Egg Shen and his gang, Burton and Wang then ride off to save the day. Ready? They were BORN ready!
Unless the audience catches the joke of the movie itself, they probably will think of the movie as average, if not mediocre fare. I mean in the same time frame when Stallone and Schwarzenegger were using their muscles to save democracy and America by killing thousands of people in their pictures, you have a “hero” in Jack Burton who, save for an impressive knife trick in the film’s finale, doesn’t do jack what so ever to validate his claim as the action hero.
If anything, the John Wayne-wannabe redneck truck driving, mullet-wearing, All-American big mouth that is Jack Burton is actually the glorified sidekick of Wang Chi, for he actually uses his street martial arts, along with knowledge of Chinese black magic and Chinatown, to save the day and rescue his babe. Each time Burton tries to match his witty one-liners with his fists, he gets his ass knocked down to the ground, and yet he still has the nerve to believe that as he crawls deeper into this bizarre and supernatural underworld, that he is still on the top of things.
However, a cool thing is, if Hollywood usually tried to use this idea, such a useless beaten-up figure would basically be a pathetic target of cheap jokes within the picture. Instead, Carpenter and script doctor W.D. Richter proceeded to give Kurt Russell’s character to be one that in spirit is the first to fight, and the last to leave. He’s got the heart and guts; its just too bad he can’t even beat up bread dough.
Really, W.D. Richter’s gleeful dialogue is a wonder to behold, with the cast willing to play along with it (besides of course Russell, James Hong is game as the entertaining villain) to its essential restrained nature of campy-ness. Quite possibly one of the best dialogue-penned scripts I’ve seen in terms of intentions succeeding expectations. In the timeframe before the CGI-aided days of “The Matrix,” Carpenter’s film displayed his talent at directing action, and the master spectacle is a major brawl within the villain’s lair, with sword fights between flying warriors, and other insane stuff.
Besides the fact that several people didn’t catch the “joke,” I think another strong possibility was that “Big Trouble in Little China” came at a time when in between the kung fu dominance of Hollywood in the 1970s and the Jackie Chan and Jet Li of the 1990s and past 2000, martial arts cinema was at a low point in Hollywood. Either such films were B-garbage pictures like “Bloodsport” or silly box-office hit pictures like “The Karate Kid”. How could this picture make it in such a lousy slump?
Quite unsurprisingly that with such a film, it has quite a sizeable and fiercely loyal cult following. However, “Big Trouble in Little China” is not just a great cult movie, but a honored member of the grand cinematic tradition of pure successful entertainment of “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Warriors,” “The Great Escape,” “Gunga Din,” “King Kong,” (the 1933 original, not Peter Jackson’s recent mediocre remake) and “The Road Warrior”. It just needs to be accepted by people and movie buffs in general to make its membership publicly official.
Film Rating - ****
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA
United States, 1986
U.S. Release Date: 7/2/1986
Running Length: 99 minutes
MPAA Classification: PG-13
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Starring: Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dunn, James Hong, Victor Wong, Kate Burton, Donald Li, Carter Wong, Peter Kwong, Jeff Imada, Suzee Pai
Directed by – John Carpenter
Written by – Gary Goldman & David Z. Weinstein and W.D. Richter
Cinematography: Dean Cundey
Original Score: John Carpenter & Alan Howarth
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Film Rating - ****/5 – 4/5
This summer of 2006 really sucks so far in cinemas. From Tom Cruise to CGI non-PIXAR animals to that horrid 3rd movie of a franchise that was carefully crafted by Bryan Singer before Brett Ratner carefully crashed and burned to the ground, this summer from Hollywood has been quite lacking in the two most important departments of such blockbuster fare: quality and entertainment.
In Troy Anderson’s already legendary citation of the term “Idiot Bait” against Tom Hanks’ ugly mullet and “The Da Vinci Code,” he was quite correct in his list of movies that truly do deserve the term of “popcorn” cinema, of which the cinemas in the summer are supposed to deliver.
One such film named is easily my personal favorite movie from the career of cult filmmaker John Carpenter. Sure “Halloween” and “The Thing” are easily his most important and best movies, but the one that always and reliably delivered a fresh can of jaw-fist connecting entertainment is a picture that actually flopped in theaters during the summer of 1986, despite being packaged by 20th Century Fox along with successes like David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” and James Cameron’s “Aliens”.
Perhaps the reason why I love “Big Trouble in Little China” is the same reason why it laid a financial egg roll. While it is an enjoyable popcorn-munching excursion, it is also quite a brilliant joke of sorts towards the whole action/adventure staple of pictures from American cinema, though I wonder how many actually catch it in between the martial arts and magic.
In the decade of Rambo, the film starts off with this would-be ominous sequence where the wise Egg Shen (Victor Wong) starts a tale of where he talks of the very brave and mighty “warrior” that is Jack Burton (Kurt Russell). We then cut to Burton and his truck-driving machine that is the “Pork Chop Express” while he spouts witty lines into his radio dispatch on his way to San Francisco. The Hollywood assembly plant has made the audience quite expected to see a smart-ass of a tough American Caucasian man, and we expect to see him flex his muscles immediately.
The plot goes full-steam ahead, with Burton in Chinatown, meeting up with his pal Wang Chi (Dun), who unfortunately owes him money. Anyway, the two then proceed to pick up Chi’s fiancée at the airport, who’s just arrived to America from China, but she gets abducted by the forces of the elderly and feeble gangster David Lo Pan (Hong), who is later revealed to be an evil immortal sorcerer of a demon spirit. He wants to be flesh and mortal again, so he plans to sacrifice her because she’s got green eyes. Apparently, emerald eyes are as rare to find in China as blonde-haired black people. Teaming up with Egg Shen and his gang, Burton and Wang then ride off to save the day. Ready? They were BORN ready!
Unless the audience catches the joke of the movie itself, they probably will think of the movie as average, if not mediocre fare. I mean in the same time frame when Stallone and Schwarzenegger were using their muscles to save democracy and America by killing thousands of people in their pictures, you have a “hero” in Jack Burton who, save for an impressive knife trick in the film’s finale, doesn’t do jack what so ever to validate his claim as the action hero.
If anything, the John Wayne-wannabe redneck truck driving, mullet-wearing, All-American big mouth that is Jack Burton is actually the glorified sidekick of Wang Chi, for he actually uses his street martial arts, along with knowledge of Chinese black magic and Chinatown, to save the day and rescue his babe. Each time Burton tries to match his witty one-liners with his fists, he gets his ass knocked down to the ground, and yet he still has the nerve to believe that as he crawls deeper into this bizarre and supernatural underworld, that he is still on the top of things.
However, a cool thing is, if Hollywood usually tried to use this idea, such a useless beaten-up figure would basically be a pathetic target of cheap jokes within the picture. Instead, Carpenter and script doctor W.D. Richter proceeded to give Kurt Russell’s character to be one that in spirit is the first to fight, and the last to leave. He’s got the heart and guts; its just too bad he can’t even beat up bread dough.
Really, W.D. Richter’s gleeful dialogue is a wonder to behold, with the cast willing to play along with it (besides of course Russell, James Hong is game as the entertaining villain) to its essential restrained nature of campy-ness. Quite possibly one of the best dialogue-penned scripts I’ve seen in terms of intentions succeeding expectations. In the timeframe before the CGI-aided days of “The Matrix,” Carpenter’s film displayed his talent at directing action, and the master spectacle is a major brawl within the villain’s lair, with sword fights between flying warriors, and other insane stuff.
Besides the fact that several people didn’t catch the “joke,” I think another strong possibility was that “Big Trouble in Little China” came at a time when in between the kung fu dominance of Hollywood in the 1970s and the Jackie Chan and Jet Li of the 1990s and past 2000, martial arts cinema was at a low point in Hollywood. Either such films were B-garbage pictures like “Bloodsport” or silly box-office hit pictures like “The Karate Kid”. How could this picture make it in such a lousy slump?
Quite unsurprisingly that with such a film, it has quite a sizeable and fiercely loyal cult following. However, “Big Trouble in Little China” is not just a great cult movie, but a honored member of the grand cinematic tradition of pure successful entertainment of “Star Wars,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “The Warriors,” “The Great Escape,” “Gunga Din,” “King Kong,” (the 1933 original, not Peter Jackson’s recent mediocre remake) and “The Road Warrior”. It just needs to be accepted by people and movie buffs in general to make its membership publicly official.
Film Rating - ****