Big Trouble in Little China

Big Trouble in Little China
Directed by John Carpenter
Produced by Larry J. Franco
Written by Gary Goldman
David Z. Weinstein
Adaptation:
W. D. Richter
Starring
Music by John Carpenter
Alan Howarth
Cinematography Dean Cundey
Edited by Steve Mirkovich
Mark Warner
Edward A. Warschilka
Production
company
TAFT Entertainment Pictures
SLM Production Group
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • July 1, 1986 (1986-07-01)
Running time
 99 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $20 million[1]
Box office $11.1 million

Big Trouble in Little China is a 1986 American fantasy action comedy film directed by John Carpenter. It stars Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun and James Hong. The film tells the story of Jack Burton, who helps his friend Wang Chi rescue Wang's green-eyed fiancee from bandits in San Francisco's Chinatown. They go into the mysterious underworld beneath Chinatown, where they face an ancient sorcerer named David Lo Pan.

Although the original screenplay by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein was envisioned as a Western set in the 1880s, screenwriter W. D. Richter was hired to rewrite the script extensively and modernize it. The studio hired Carpenter to direct the film and rushed Big Trouble in Little China into production so that it would be released before a similarly themed Eddie Murphy film, The Golden Child, which was slated to come out around the same time. The project fulfilled Carpenter's long-standing desire to make a martial arts film.

The film was a commercial failure, grossing $11.1 million in North America, below its estimated $20 million budget. It received mixed reviews that left Carpenter disillusioned with Hollywood and influenced his decision to return to independent film-making. It has since become a cult classic, with an 83% average rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a steady audience on home video.

Plot

Truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) and his friend, restaurant owner Wang Chi (Dennis Dun), go to the airport to pick up Wang's fiancée Miao Yin (Suzee Pai), who is arriving from China. A Chinese street gang, the Lords of Death, tries to kidnap another Chinese girl at the airport who is being met by her friend Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall), intending to sell her as a sex slave. After Jack intervenes, they take Miao Yin instead. In Jack's big-rig truck, he and Wang track the Lords of Death to the back alleys of Chinatown, where they find a funeral procession that quickly erupts into a street fight between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong, two ancient Chinese societies. When "The Three Storms" (Thunder, Rain, and Lightning) appear, slaughtering the Chang Sing, Jack tries to escape but runs over Lo Pan (James Hong), a powerful and legendary sorcerer, as well as the leader of the Wing Kong. Horrified, Jack exits his truck, only to find Lo Pan, who is merely annoyed. Wang hurriedly guides Jack through the alleys, escaping the carnage and mayhem, but Jack's truck is stolen.

Wang takes Jack to his restaurant, where they meet up with Gracie, Wang's friend Eddie Lee (Donald Li), and magician Egg Shen (Victor Wong), a local authority on Lo Pan. They try to explain to an incredulous Jack some of the ancient knowledge and sorcery the Chinese brought with them to America, eventually devising a plan to infiltrate a brothel, where they think Miao Yin is being held. However, the Storms make off with Miao Yin, bringing her to a front owned by Lo Pan. Trying to rescue her, Jack and Wang are quickly subdued by Rain and taken to see Lo Pan, now in the form of a crippled, old man. Wang tells Jack that Lo Pan needs a special green-eyed girl to break an ancient curse, and he intends to sacrifice Miao Yin. Centuries ago, Lo Pan, a great warrior, but most of all a powerful wizard, was defeated in battle by the first sovereign emperor Qin Shi Huang. The Emperor placed upon Lo Pan the curse of No Flesh. Although Lo Pan can be temporarily granted a decrepit body by supplication to the gods, in order for him to permanently break the curse and regain his human form, he must marry a woman with green eyes. This simple act will appease Ching Dai, the God of the East. But to satisfy the Emperor, he must sacrifice her. When Jack and Wang's friends attempt to save them, they are also captured, and Lo Pan notes that Gracie has green eyes, too. Lo Pan decides to sacrifice Gracie, while making Miao Yin his unwilling wife.

After getting the drop on Thunder, Jack and Wang escape, also freeing many women kept in holding cells. Wang and Jack go to see Egg Shen, and with the help of the Chang Sing, they enter an underground cavern to return to Lo Pan's headquarters. Egg pours each of the group a potent potion that Jack says makes him feel "kind of invincible." During the wedding ceremony, a huge fight ensues, which Jack misses due to accidentally knocking himself out. Wang kills Rain in a sword duel, while Jack and Gracie try to catch Lo Pan. Wang joins them, and just when all seems lost, Jack kills Lo Pan with a skillful knife throw. Thunder, who was in the midst of a battle with Wang, becomes enraged and feels dishonored at his failure to protect his master. He inflates to an enormous size, exploding and killing himself. Jack, Wang, Gracie, and Miao Yin are cornered by Lightning in a corridor, which he makes collapse. Egg rescues them with a rope and kills Lightning by dropping a stone Buddha statue on him when he tries to follow. After finding Jack's truck, they escape back to Wang's restaurant.

Lo Pan having been defeated, the group celebrates in a warm and family-like way: Wang and Miao are obviously about to marry; Margo, Gracie's journalist friend, seems to be about to pair-up with Eddie; and Egg decides to go on a prolonged vacation, saying China is in the heart. Jack, instead of starting up a new life with Gracie (as everyone was expecting up to that point), bids farewell to the group and hits the open road, with an unknown-to-him stowaway – one of the remaining monsters from Lo Pan's labyrinth.

Main cast

Production

Screenplay

The first version of the screenplay was written by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein. Goldman had been inspired by a new wave of martial arts films that had "all sorts of weird actions and special effects, shot against this background of Oriental mysticism and modern sensibilities".[2] They had written a Western originally set in the 1880s with Jack Burton as a cowboy who rides into town.[3] Goldman and Weinstein envisioned combining Chinese fantasy elements with the western.[4] They submitted the script to TAFT Entertainment Pictures executive producers Paul Monash and Keith Barish during the summer of 1982. Monash bought their script and had them do at least one rewrite, but still did not like the results. He remembers, "The problems came largely from the fact it was set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, which affected everything—style, dialogue, action".[3] Goldman rejected a request by 20th Century Fox for a re-write that asked for major alterations. He was angered when the studio wanted to update it to a contemporary setting. The studio then removed the writers from the project. However, they still wanted credit for their contributions.[5]

The studio brought in screenwriter W. D. Richter, a veteran script doctor (and director of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) to extensively rewrite the script, as he felt that the Wild West and fantasy elements didn’t work together. The screenwriter modernized everything. Almost everything in the original script was discarded except for Lo Pan’s story.[6] Richter realized that "what it needed wasn’t a rewrite but a complete overhaul. It was a dreadful screenplay. This happens often when scripts are bought and there’s no intention that the original writers will stay on".[3] Richter used Rosemary's Baby as his template, presenting "the foreground story in a familiar context – rather than San Francisco at the turn-of-the-century, which distances the audience immediately – and just have one simple remove, the world underground, you have a much better chance of making direct contact with the audience".[3] He wrote his own draft in 10 weeks.[4] Goldman contacted Richter and suggested that he should not work on the project. Richter told him, "I'm sorry the studio doesn't want to go forward with you guys, but my turning it down is not going to get you the job. They'll just hire someone else".[4]

Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit, and eliminated their names from press releases.[5] They wanted only Richter to have credit.[7] In March 1986, the Writers Guild of America, west determined that "written by" credit would go to Goldman and Weinstein, based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which protects original writers.[5][8] However, Richter did get an "adaptation by" credit for his work on the script. Director John Carpenter was disappointed that Richter did not get a proper screenwriting credit because of the ruling. Carpenter made his own additions to Richter’s rewrites, which included strengthening the Gracie Law role and linking her to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences due to budgetary restrictions and eliminating material deemed offensive to Chinese Americans. The characters in the film reminded Carpenter "of the characters in Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday. These are very 1930s, Howard Hawks people."[6] The rapid-fire delivery of dialogue, especially between Jack Burton and Gracie Law, is an example of what the director is referring to.[6]

Casting

Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, Victor Wong as Egg Shen and Kim Cattrall as Gracie Law.

Barish and Monash first offered the project to Carpenter in July 1985. He had read the Goldman/Weinstein script and deemed it "outrageously unreadable though it had many interesting elements".[8] To compete with rival production The Golden Child’s casting of box office draw Eddie Murphy, Carpenter wanted a big star of his own and both Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson were considered but were busy.[8]

The studio felt Kurt Russell was an up-and-coming star. Russell was initially not interested because he felt there were "a number of different ways to approach Jack, but I didn’t know if there was a way that would be interesting enough for this movie".[9] After talking to Carpenter and reading the script a couple more times, he gained insight into the character and liked the notion of playing "a hero who has so many faults. Jack is and isn’t the hero. He falls on his ass as much as he comes through. This guy is a real blowhard. He’s a lot of hot air, very self-assured, a screw-up".[9] Furthermore, the actor felt that "at heart he thinks he's Indiana Jones but the circumstances are always too much for him".[10] Russell felt that the film would be a hard one to market. "This is a difficult picture to sell because it's hard to explain. It's a mixture of the real history of Chinatown in San Francisco blended with Chinese legend and lore. It's bizarre stuff. There are only a handful of non-Asian actors in the cast".[10]

John Carpenter had seen Dennis Dun in Year of the Dragon and liked his work in that film. He met the actor twice before casting him in the role of Wang Chi only a few days before principal photography.[11] The martial arts sequences were not hard for Dun who had "dabbled" in training as a kid and done Chinese opera as an adult.[11] He was drawn to the portrayal of Asian characters in the movie as he said, "I’m seeing Chinese actors getting to do stuff that American movies usually don’t let them do. I’ve never seen this type of role for an Asian in an American film".[3] Jackie Chan was at one point considered for the role of Wang Chi but decided after the box office disasters of The Big Brawl & The Protector he should put more time and effort into his career in Hong Kong's film industry with Police Story instead.

The studio pressured Carpenter to cast a rock star in the role of Gracie Law, Jack Burton's love interest and constant source of aggravation. For Carpenter there was no question, he wanted Kim Cattrall. The studio was not keen on the idea because at the time Cattrall was primarily known for raunchy comedies like Porky's and Police Academy. She was drawn to the movie because of the way her character was portrayed. "I’m not screaming for help the whole time. I think the humor comes out of the situations and my relationship with Jack Burton. I’m the brains and he’s the brawn".[3]

Principal photography

Kurt Russell lifted weights and began running two months before production began in order to get ready for the physical demands of principal photography. In addition, Carpenter and his cast and crew did a week's rehearsals that mainly involved choreographing the martial arts scenes.[12] 20th Century Fox was afraid that the production would create major overruns and hired Carpenter to direct because he could work fast. He was given only 10 weeks of pre-production.[5]

Problems began to arise when Carpenter learned that the next Eddie Murphy vehicle, The Golden Child, featured a similar theme and was going to be released around the same time as Big Trouble in Little China. (As it happened, Carpenter was asked by Paramount Pictures to direct The Golden Child). He remarked in an interview, "How many adventure pictures dealing with Chinese mysticism have been released by the major studios in the past 20 years? For two of them to come along at the exact same time is more than mere coincidence."[8] To beat the rival production at being released in theaters, Big Trouble went into production in October 1985 so that it could open in July 1986, five months before The Golden Child’s Christmas release.

Production designer John Lloyd designed the elaborate underground sets and re-created Chinatown with three-story buildings, roads, streetlights, sewers and so on. This was necessary for the staging of complicated special effects and kung fu fight sequences that would have been very hard to do on location.[3] This forced the filmmaker to shoot the film in 15 weeks with a $25 million budget. For the film’s many fight scenes Carpenter worked with martial arts choreographer James Lew, who planned out every move in advance. Says Carpenter, "I used every cheap gag – trampolines, wires, reverse movements and upside down sets. It was much like photographing a dance."[8]

Carpenter envisioned the film as an inverse of traditional scenarios in action films with a Caucasian protagonist helped by a minority sidekick. In Big Trouble in Little China, Jack Burton, despite his bravado, is constantly portrayed as rather bumbling; in one fight sequence he even knocks himself unconscious before the fight begins. Wang Chi, on the other hand, is constantly portrayed as highly skilled and competent. On a commentary track for the DVD release, Carpenter commented that the film is really about a sidekick (Burton) who thinks he is a leading man. According to Carpenter, the studio "didn't get [his film]"[13] and made him write something that would explain the character of Jack Burton. Carpenter came up with the prologue scene between Egg Shen and the lawyer.[14]

Visual effects

Carpenter was not entirely satisfied with Boss Film Studios, the company in charge of the film's visual effects.[7] According to the director, they took on more projects than they could handle and some effects for the film had to be cut down. Richard Edlund, head of Boss Film Studios, said that there were no difficulties with the company's workload and that Big Trouble was probably its favorite film at the time, with the exception of Ghostbusters.[7] The effects budget for the film was just under $2 million, which Edlund said was barely adequate. One of the more difficult effects was the floating eyeball, a spy for Lo-Pan. It was powered by several puppeteers and dozens of cables to control its facial expressions. It was shot with a special matting system specially designed for it.[7]

Soundtrack

John Carpenter received a Saturn Award Best Music nomination for this film.[15] With the soundtrack, Carpenter wanted to avoid the usual clichés as he found that "other scores for American movies about Chinese characters are basically rinky tink, chop suey music. I didn’t want that for Big Trouble".[8] Carpenter instead opted for his trademark synthesizer score mixed with rock ‘n’ roll music.[8]

Reaction

Box office

Opening in 1,053 theaters on July 2, 1986, Big Trouble in Little China grossed $2.7 million in its opening weekend and went on to gross $11.1 million in North America, well below its estimated budget of $25 million. The film was released in the midst of the hype for James Cameron's blockbuster Aliens, which was released sixteen days after. On the DVD commentary for Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter and Russell discuss this amongst possible reasons for the film's disappointing box office gross.[16]

Critical reception

The film received mixed reviews from critics when it was first released but has since enjoyed a reappraisal. It currently has an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Ron Base, in his review for the Toronto Star, praised Russell's performance. "He does a great John Wayne imitation. But he's not just mimicking these heroes, he is using them to give his own character a broad, satiric edge."[17] Walter Goodman in the New York Times wrote, "In kidding the flavorsome proceedings even as he gets the juice out of them, the director, John Carpenter, is conspicuously with it."[18] Writer Harlan Ellison, widely known in Hollywood for his brutally honest critiques, praised the film, writing that it had "some of the funniest lines spoken by any actor this year to produce a cheerfully blathering live-action cartoon that will give you release from the real pressures of your basically dreary lives."[19] In his review for Time, Richard Corliss wrote, "Little China offers dollops of entertainment, but it is so stocked with canny references to other pictures that it suggests a master's thesis that moves."[20]

However, in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote, "special effects don't mean much unless we care about the characters who are surrounded by them, and in this movie the characters often seem to exist only to fill up the foregrounds," and felt that it was "straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes."[21] Paul Attanasio, in the Washington Post, criticized the screenwriters for being "much better at introducing a character than they are at developing one".[22] David Ansen wrote, in his review for Newsweek, "though it is action packed, spectacularly edited and often quite funny, one can't help feeling that Carpenter is squeezing the last drops out of a fatigued genre."[23] In his review for The Times, David Robinson felt that Carpenter was, "overwhelmed by his own special effects, without a strong enough script to guide him."[24]

After the commercial and critical failure of the film, Carpenter became very disillusioned with Hollywood and became an independent filmmaker.[25] He said in an interview, "The experience [of Big Trouble] was the reason I stopped making movies for the Hollywood studios. I won’t work for them again. I think Big Trouble is a wonderful film, and I’m very proud of it. But the reception it received, and the reasons for that reception, were too much for me to deal with. I’m too old for that sort of bullshit."

It has since enjoyed a resurgence on television and home video, and has received a good deal of retroactive positive press. Empire magazine voted Big Trouble in Little China the 430th greatest film in their "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list.[26]

Merchandise

A tie-in video game of the same name was published in 1986 by Electric Dreams Software for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Critical reception was mixed.[27]

Big Trouble in Little China was released on a two-disc special edition DVD set on May 22, 2001. Entertainment Weekly gave the DVD a "B+" rating and wrote, "The highlight of this two disc set – which also features deleted scenes, an extended ending, trailers, and a 1986 featurette – is the pitch perfect Russell and Carpenter commentary, which delves into Fox's marketing mishaps, Chinese history, and how Russell's son did in his hockey game."[28] In his review for the Onion A.V. Club, Noel Murray wrote, "If nothing else, this is a DVD designed for Big Trouble cultists; it's packed with articles from Cinefex and American Cinematographer that only a genre geek would appreciate."[29]

A single disc movie only DVD version was later released with the only special features being the Carpenter / Russell commentary and the theatrical trailer.

A Blu-ray Disc edition of the film was released on August 4, 2009. It contains the same content as the double disc DVD release.

At the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, Top Cow Productions revealed previews of an upcoming Big Trouble in Little China comic book series. The series will be written by Evan Bleiweiss and pencilled by Jason Badower.[30] No further announcements about the project have been made.

On February 27, 2014, BOOM! Studios announced they're working on a comic book series.[31] The comic book is written by Eric Powell and John Carpenter with artwork by Brian Churilla. The series began in June 2014.[32]

In February 2015, Funko released a line of ReAction and Pop! vinyl figures based on Big Trouble In Little China.[33]

Influence

The film's portrayal of the lightning sorcerer/demigod character has been occasionally noted as an inspiration for the character of Raiden from Mortal Kombat, introducing the archetype of a straw hat–wearing monk able to control lightning with his hands to Western audiences. (In traditional Chinese and Japanese culture, the lightning god is represented more akin to a traditional Asian demon.)

The twenty-third episode of the second season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, called "A Chinatown Ghost Story," uses concepts from the film, but renames the antagonist Lo Pan to Ho Chan, and the Storm figure Rain is replaced by Wind. In addition, James Hong (Lo Pan) reprises his Little China performance as the principal villain character.

Remake

In June 2015 TheWrap reported that Dwayne Johnson was developing a remake to star as Jack Burton and produce with his Seven Bucks Productions partners Dany and Hiram Garcia. Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were to write the new script.[34] In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Johnson expressed interest in having Carpenter involved in the remake.[35]

"It's very early in the process. I haven't spoken to Dwayne Johnson about any of this," Carpenter said later. "I'm ambivalent about a remake."[36]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Aubrey Solomon, Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History, Scarecrow Press, 1989 p260
  2. ↑ Teitelbaum, Sheldon (July 1986). "Big Trouble in Little China". Cinefantastique. pp. 4–5.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Goldberg, Lee (June 1986). "W.D. Richter Writes Again". Starlog.
  4. 1 2 3 Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 5.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 4.
  6. 1 2 3 Goldberg, Lee (May 1986). "Big Trouble in Little China". Starlog.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 58.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Swires, Steve (August 1986). "John Carpenter: Kung Fu, Hollywood Style". Starlog.
  9. 1 2 Goldberg, Lee (July 1986). "Kurt Russell: Two-Fisted Hero". Starlog.
  10. 1 2 Scott, Vernon (July 9, 1986). "Kurt as Klutz". United Press International.
  11. 1 2 Dickholtz, Daniel (September 1986). "Dennis Dun, Kung Fu Hero". Starlog.
  12. ↑ Steranko, Jim (August 1986). "The Trouble with Kurt". Prevue. p. 73.
  13. ↑ Nichols, Peter M (May 25, 2001). "Big Trouble: Big Comeback". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
  14. ↑ "INTERVIEW: MORIARTY and JOHN CARPENTER Get Into Some BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA!!". Ain't It Cool News. April 23, 2001. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
  15. ↑ Awards for Big Trouble in Little China at the Internet Movie Database
  16. ↑ "Big Trouble in Little China". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 10 July 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-12.
  17. ↑ Base, Ron (July 1, 1986). "Muscle-Laden Hero Kurt Russell Delivers Big Action and Little Trouble". Toronto Star.
  18. ↑ Goodman, Walter (July 2, 1986). "Big Trouble, Wild Stunts". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
  19. ↑ Ellison, Harlan (1989). "Harlan Ellison's Watching". Underwood-Miller.
  20. ↑ Corliss, Richard (July 14, 1986). "Everything New Is Old Again". Time. Retrieved 2008-08-20.
  21. ↑ Ebert, Roger (July 2, 1986). "Big Trouble in Little China". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-01-18.
  22. ↑ Attanasio, Paul (July 2, 1986). "Choppy Little China". Washington Post.
  23. ↑ Ansen, David (July 14, 1986). "Wild and Crazy in Chinatown". Newsweek.
  24. ↑ Robinson, David (November 14, 1986). "More agonies of the awkward age". The Times.
  25. ↑ Swires, Steve (February 1987). "John Carpenter’s Terror Tales from Tinseltown". Starlog.
  26. ↑ "500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Empire. Retrieved 2008-09-29.
  27. ↑ "Big Trouble in Little China". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 2009-04-29.
  28. ↑ Bernardin, Marc (May 22, 2001). "Big Trouble in Little China". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
  29. ↑ Murray, Noel (April 19, 2002). "Big Trouble in Little China DVD". Onion A.V. Club. Retrieved 2008-12-02.
  30. ↑ "TOP COW AT SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON 2009". Topcow.com. July 20, 2009. Archived from the original on July 28, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2009.
  31. ↑ "Boom! Studios Is Bringing ‘Big Trouble In Little China’ Back In Comic Form And More". Uproxx. February 27, 2014. Retrieved February 27, 2014.
  32. ↑ "Jack Burton finds 'Big Trouble' again in new comic". USA Today. May 9, 2014. Retrieved May 9, 2014.
  33. ↑ "Funko Reveals Big Trouble in Little China ReAction Figures". Toyark.com. January 15, 2015. Retrieved January 15, 2015.
  34. ↑ Sneider, Jeff (June 1, 2015). "Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson to Star in 'Big Trouble In Little China' Remake (Exclusive)". TheWrap.
  35. ↑ Rosen, Christopher (June 8, 2015). "Dwayne Johnson Wants John Carpenter Involved In Big Trouble In Little China Remake". Entertainment Weekly.
  36. ↑ Calia, Michael (June 11, 2015). "John Carpenter Hasn't Talked to Dwayne Johnson about 'Big Trouble in Little China.'" Blogs.WSJ.com. Retrieved October 4, 2015.

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