And let's be clear, Big Trouble In Little China is a fun movie — it's not the gut-busting laughter of Airplane! or the straight satire of True Lies, but it is fun in the improvisational, casual zaniness of a night out at the local dive with a gang of pals. A big part of the movie's appeal is watching Kurt Russell's Jack Burton roll through the plot with his Fearless Fool flippancy, where even repeatedly being the Butt-Monkey target doesn't deter him for a moment. James Hong is a perfect antagonist here, deftly balancing Lo Pan's hammy villainy and creepy old man tendencies without being a Yellow Peril caricature. The rest of the movie is serviceable but unremarkable, being background for these two to flaunt their hamhocks all over the place.
Big Trouble In Little China is the epitome of the MST3K Mantra: don't ask about the details of Lo Pan's machinations or why the police are oblivious to gang shootouts in the streets of San Francisco, just grab a cold beer and remember what ol' Jack Burton says at a time like this — "What the hell?"
Film Big Dumb Fun
The most important thing to know about Big Trouble in Little China is that this is a movie that isn't supposed to be taken seriously. Like The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, this movie takes place in a Denser and Wackier world that's almost, but not quite, like our own.
This note is very important because the movie doesn't telegraph to its audience that it's out to take a big ol' piss on action movie tropes. An inattentive viewer could easily spent the first twenty minutes thinking it's a straightforward action movie, in the vein of Indiana Jones or Clash of the Titans (1981)... and promptly get confused by the film's barrage of unexplained references, subverted behavior, and other twists driven by the Rule of Funny.
And let's be clear, Big Trouble In Little China is a fun movie — it's not the gut-busting laughter of Airplane! or the straight satire of True Lies, but it is fun in the improvisational, casual zaniness of a night out at the local dive with a gang of pals. A big part of the movie's appeal is watching Kurt Russell's Jack Burton roll through the plot with his Fearless Fool flippancy, where even repeatedly being the Butt-Monkey target doesn't deter him for a moment. James Hong is a perfect antagonist here, deftly balancing Lo Pan's hammy villainy and creepy old man tendencies without being a Yellow Peril caricature. The rest of the movie is serviceable but unremarkable, being background for these two to flaunt their hamhocks all over the place.
Big Trouble In Little China is the epitome of the MST3K Mantra: don't ask about the details of Lo Pan's machinations or why the police are oblivious to gang shootouts in the streets of San Francisco, just grab a cold beer and remember what ol' Jack Burton says at a time like this — "What the hell?"