Year: 1986
Director: John Carpenter
Country: US
Language: English
Big Trouble in Little China was a box office bomb, earning back a meager $11 million of its $20 million budget. The original script was written by Gary Goldman and David Weinstei, but director John Carpenter didn't think it was very good. After a poor re-write by W.D Richter, Carpenter decided to take the script into his own hands. Unfortunately, the studio execs at 20th Century Fox didn't really "get" the picture and would cause a lot of creative problems during production.
In this, an All-American trucker named Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) gets dragged into a centuries-old mystical battle in Chinatown
The advertising and promotional material at the time proves the studio really didn't "get" Carpenter's vision. The film's trailer is intentionally misleading, completely downplaying the satire of the film. Fox spent $3 MILLION dollars on posters asking "Who is Jack Burton?" to where Carpenter would reply (on the dvd commentary) "Who gives a shit?". Fox thought Burton was a John Wayne-esque character, the kind of "man's man" who would ride in and save the day, whereas Burton was written more like a parody of John Wayne.
The film plays as a satire of the typical Hollywood action genre. It has all the usual tropes and cliches, but with many twists to make it fairly unique. In most American pictures centered around Asia (especially in the 80's), the white American is the "hero" of the story, but Russell's Burton is a bumbling fool who makes the plot more chaotic with his presence alone. Carpenter is intent on displaying the West's messiah complex for the world to see.
Of course Big Trouble in Little China is larger than one character. It features a cast of expressive actors, bizarre and memorable dialogue, entertaining special effects and some pretty good choreography. It's a very weird picture that, if it doesn't impress you, will at least make for a memorable time.
Your review misspelled the name of writer David Weinstein in a strange way to make it read Asian. He may get a kick out of that.
ReplyDelete