Big Trouble in Little China (Blu-ray) (1986)

"A misunderstood, underrated blast of a movie from genre king John Carpenter. As imaginitive and fun as anything he's done.  Blake Davis, KFOR Channel 4 News
"Kung fu, monsters, sorcery, 18-wheelers, swordfights and world-saving heroics against impossible odds: What more could you want?  James Rocchi, Netflix
"Loads of fun from the usually strained John Carpenter.  Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress
"The high-octane action comedy takes all that was worthwhile from decades of B-flicks and distills it into a maximum-concentration explosion of cinematic TNT.  Phil Villarreal, Arizona Daily Star
"A wholly enjoyable mixture of action, comedy, romance, and horror.  Scott Weinberg, eFilmCritic.com

Editor's Note A cult favorite (and one of director John Carpenter's personal favorites), BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA is a fantasy-action film that is brilliantly imaginative, funny, and absorbing. Kurt Russell plays hard-boiled truck driver Jack Burton, who gets caught in a bizarre conflict within, and underneath, San Francisco's Chinatown. An ancient Chinese prince and Chinatown crimelord has kidnapped a beautiful green-eyed woman, who is the fiancee to Jack's best friend. Jack must help his friend rescue the girl before the evil Lo Pan uses her to break the ancient curse that keeps him a fleshless and immortal spirit. Carpenter uses all the best elements of martial arts films, 1940s old action serials, Chinese mythology and straight-forward American adventure to make up a tale wild with imagination. Kurt Russell is wonderful as the brash, brave, and reluctant hero Jack Burton, who is hysterically out of place in this world of magic potions, goblins and curses. A visually stunning work that ranks as one of Carpenter's best films.

	Kate Burton
	Dennis Dun
	Kurt Russell
	James Pax
	Kim Cattrall
	Peter Kwong
	James Hong
	Victor Wong
	Carter Wong
	Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa
	Keith Barish - Executive Producer
	W.D. Richter - Screenwriter
	Gary Goldman - Screenwriter
	Paul Monash - Executive Producer
	John Carpenter - Composer
	Alan Howarth - Composer
	David Z. Weinstein - Screenwriter
	Larry J. Franco - Producer
	Dean Cundey - Director of Photography
	Richard Edlund - Visual Effects Supervisor
	John Carpenter - Director

Kurt Russell stars in this action fantasy about a wisecracking trucker who attempts to rescue his friend's fiancee from a 2,000-year-old magician who lives beneath San Francisco's Chinatown. He must battle demons, goblins and other terrors as he makes his way through the magician's dark domain.

"Hey, I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things."----Jack Burton (Kurt Russell)

"Now I'm not saying that I've been everywhere and I've done everything, but I do know it's a pretty amazing planet we live on, and a man would have to be some kind of fool to think we're alone in this universe."----Jack Burton

"Next time some eight foot tall, wild--eyed maniac taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall and asks you if you've paid your dues, well, you just do what ol' Jack Burton always does at a time like that. You stare that sucker right back in the eye. 'Have you paid your dues, Jack?' 'Yes sir, the check is in the mail.'"----Jack Burton

"Oh, my God...what is that?"----Jack Burton

New York Times
"...Carpenter is conspicuously with it....An upscale send-up..." 07/02/1986 p.C29

Variety
"...[The] costuming, sets, stunts and special visual effects by Richard Edlund are particularly lavish..." 07/02/1986

PopMatters 7 of 10
Like anyone in the film industry, director John Carpenter has had his professional ups and downs. His first feature, Dark Star (1974), progressed from a USC student project to a drive-in attraction. His breakthrough release, Halloween (1978), remains one of the most ruthlessly efficient genre exercises ever made, as well as one of the most financially lucrative independent features of all time. However, on more than one occasion, Carpenter has suffered from the collision between his creative instincts and whims of the movie-going audience. He either misread the public consciousness or attempted to lead it into territories it was unable or unwilling to explore...This was most notably the case with Carpenter's version of the science fiction classic, The Thing (1982)...The other occasion on which Carpenter was inadvertently out of step with the public taste involved the 1986 feature Big Trouble in Little China. An elaborate, effects-laden studio release, it was a commercial bomb...More than likely, it was this implicit critique of cinematic conventions of masculinity that turned off much of the audience when the film was originally released. The mid-1980s was the heyday of Rambo and the Terminator, characters rooted in certitude and absent even the slightest taint of irony. Carpenter's films have often incorporated a political dimension, obviously an implicit matter in this deliberately adolescent free-for-all. Jack Burton is the anti hunk, the inverse of the pectorally endowed fighting machines typified by Stallone and Schwarzenegger. The Occidental characters in Big Trouble in Little China are typically two steps behind, while the Asian Americans are three steps ahead. There are not many films that engage in a debate over Orientalism while incorporating a character who shoots lightning bolts from his fingers. - David Sanjek

Chicago Sun-Times 6 of 10
It seems at first like a great idea: a big-budget, high-tech Hollywood action picture that takes all the cliches of kung fu, Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, and does them right. "Big Trouble in Little China" begins with the notion that the visible part of Chinatown is just the tip of the iceberg - that once you penetrate the facade of chop-suey parlors and laundries, there is a vast subterranean network of temples and dungeons, caverns and throne rooms and torture chambers. "Big Trouble in Little China" takes its hero and his friend on a toboggan ride through one death-defying challenge after another, and throws in magicians, sorcerers, karate masters and a 2,000-year-old man...Like I say, it must have seemed like a great idea. And the first 30 minutes of the movie gave me lots of room for hope. It was fast-moving, it was visually spectacular, it was exotic and lighthearted and filled with a spirit of adventure. But then, gradually, the movie began to recycle itself. It began to feel as if I was seeing the same thing more than once. After one amazing subterranean chamber had been survived and conquered, everybody fell down a chute into another one. By the end of the movie, I was just plain weary..."Big Trouble in Little China" was directed by John Carpenter, who has specialized in special-effects movies. He made "The Thing," "Escape from New York" and "Christine," but his best movie in recent years has been "Starman," the one with Jeff Bridges as the outer-space alien learning to be a human being. "Starman" was so good because it told a story that involved interesting characters. Special effects all by themselves aren't enough. - Roger Ebert