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Big Trouble in Little China
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Big Trouble in Little China (also known as John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China) is a 1986 comedy/action film, directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell and Kim Cattrall, set in San Francisco's Chinatown.
Contents
- 1 Plot
- 2 Cast
- 3 Production history
- 4 References to Chinese mysticism
- 5 Other media
- 6 Trivia
- 7 References
- 8 External links
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Plot
A roguish long-haul truck driver named Jack Burton (Russell) has his rig, The Pork Chop Express, stolen in the course of the kidnapping of his friend Wang Chi's (Dennis Dun) fiancée – the lovely and green-eyed Miao Yin (Suzee Pai) – by the ancient and evil Chinese sorcerer, David Lo Pan (James Hong).
Centuries ago, Lo Pan, a great warrior, 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 to permanently break the curse and regain his human form he must marry a woman with green eyes, who must also be a daughter of a holy man (a fact not explicity explored in the movie). Simply marrying her will please the God of the East; but to satisfy the Emperor, he must sacrifice her. Lo Pan is served by a ruthless street gang, the Wing Kong, and the Three Storms – three mystical
henchmen named Thunder, Lightning and Rain.
Jack and Wang – aided by lawyer Gracie Law (Cattrall), a tour bus-driving sorcerer named Egg Shen (Victor Wong), Wang's friend Eddie Lee (Donald Li), and a rival street gang to the Wing Kong known as the Chang Sing – fight many battles as they venture into the mysterious depths of Lo Pan's lair to save the girl and get Jack's truck back.
Cast
Production history
Big Trouble in Little China was originally written as a period Western set in the 1880s with Jack Burton as a cowboy who rides into town. Producer Paul Monash bought Gary Goldman and David Weinstein's screenplay, but after a reading he found that it was virtually unfilmable due to the bizarre mix of Chinese mythology and the Wild West setting. He had the two first-time screenwriters do a rewrite, but Monash still didn't like it.
The producer decided against having Goldman and Weinstein do additional rewrites because they didn't want to upgrade the story to a contemporary setting and felt that they had done their best. Keith Barish and Monash brought in W. D. Richter, a veteran script doctor (and director of cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) to extensively rewrite the script. Almost everything in the original screenplay was discarded except for Lo Pan's story. Barish and Monash offered Carpenter the movie in July of 1985. After reading Richter's script he decided to direct.
Carpenter made his own additions to Richter's screenplay which included strengthening Gracie Law's role and linking her to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences (due to budgetary restrictions), and eliminating material deemed offensive to Chinese Americans. Carpenter was disappointed that Richter didn't receive a proper screenwriting credit on the movie for all of his hard work. A ruling by the
Writer's Guild of America gave Goldman and Weinstein sole credit.
Problems began to arise when Carpenter learned that the next Eddie Murphy vehicle, The Golden Child (1986), 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). To avoid being wiped out by the bigger star's film (something that had happened before with The Thing being released two weeks after E.T. in 1982), Carpenter began shooting Big Trouble in Little China in October 1985 so that 20th Century Fox could open the film in July 1986 - a full five months before The Golden Child's release. This forced the filmmaker to shoot the film in 15 weeks with a $25 million budget.
Carpenter surrounded himself with a seasoned crew from his previous films. He reunited with three long-time collaborators, line producer Larry J. Franco (Starman), production designer John Lloyd (The Thing), and cinematographer Dean Cundey. Big Trouble in Little China also saw Carpenter work again with his old friend, actor Kurt Russell, who has appeared in several of the director's films, most notably Escape From New York and The Thing. Carpenter saw only Russell as Jack Burton and could think of nobody better to play him, but 20th Century Fox wanted to cast a big star like Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson to compete with Golden Child's casting of Eddie Murphy. However, both Eastwood and Nicholson were busy, and Carpenter suggested his first and only choice, convincing 20th Century Fox that Russell was an up-and-coming star.
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 wasn't keen on the idea because at the time Cattrall was primarily known for raunchy comedies like Porky's (1981) and Police Academy (1984).
References to Chinese mysticism
- Lo Pan is the name of the compass used for geomancy or feng shui. It literally means everything bowl - the device that reveals the secrets of the universe.
Other media
- In the film, Egg Shen arms himself for the climactic battle with Lo Pan with what he refers to as a Six-Demon Bag. When Jack asks what it contains, Egg Shen answers, "Wind, fire, all that kind of thing." In the online computer game World of Warcraft, a Six-Demon Bag appears as a rare item whose powers are described with a phrase using those words in its description. Similarly: in the film, Eddie Lee explains to Jack that "the Chinese have many Hells". Later, Jack and Wang Chi find themselves trapped in the Hell of Upside-Down Sinners – an underwater area with upside-down chained corpses. In World of Warcraft, before the dungeon Kharazan was opened to the players, one could view it in an external map viewer and see an area of the dungeon called "The-Upside Down Sinners" containing such corpses.
- Many fans of the video game Mortal Kombat that came of age in the 1990s notice a similarity between Raiden and the Storm "Lightning" in the film. Raiden and Shang Tsung were inspired by "Lightning" and "Lo Pan". John Tobias has confirmed this.[citation needed]
- A fan site, The Wing Kong Exchange, features a South Park version of Big Trouble in Little China.
- "In Chicago's Chinatown there is a being of great power and unspeakable evil. He is called the Jade Demon... known as... "Lo Pan"... The Jade Demon has two basic forms. On Earth, he is a feeble, nearly bald Chinese man who looks at least 100. In his Horizon Realm, he resembles a Chinese mandarin in the prime of life... Sometimes he grows his fingernails to extreme lengths..."
- The 1994 PC game Master of Magic lets the player portray a wizard attempting to dominate a fantasy world; the player can customize and name their own wizard, or use one of the "pre-generated" wizards, one of whom is an Asian wizard named Lo Pan.
Trivia
- The final storm Lightning dies when Egg Shen drops a stone Buddha sculpture on him. Upon Lightning's death, bolts of electricity surge through the air. On close examination, the last few lightning bolts form Chinese characters. These characters read "carpenter" – presumably a reference to John Carpenter, the director of the film.[6]
- One of the film's Associate Producers, James Lew, is also listed as "Chang Sing #1" in the cast credits.[8]
- Egg Shen's bus tour agency is named Egg Foo Young Tours, presumably a reference to the well-known Chinese dish.
- The gun used by Jack Burton and shown on the movie poster is a Intratec TEC-DC9.
- The weapons Lightning uses in the street fight are called emi piercers.
- Kim Cattrall was surprised when she got to the set for the prison scene one morning, as no one told her she would be hogtied for the entire scene. She endured it like a professional, occasionally having her gag removed so she could drink water. When asked by John Carpenter whether or not she was uncomfortable, she simply replied 'I've been in tighter situations than this!'
- VIZ Media made a reference to this film's title when they released the first Ranma ½ film, Ranma ½: Big Trouble in Nekonron, China.
- Kurt Russell's Chinatown T-shirt was declared one of the funniest--and most appropriate--movie T-shirts of all time.[9]
- Proffessor Frank from Brad Neely's Proffessor Brothers' "Substitute" cartoon mentions he is needed at the Wing-Kung exchange immediately.
References
