Recent Reviews for Big Trouble in Little China
Recent Reviews
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MCT:July 20, 2008This movie was B-Grade-like. . . I simply did not understand it! BUT. That does not mean I did not like it. I think they intentionally made this movie the way they did because they knew this movie would be liked so well by people.
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MCT:July 18, 2008Aaaah - for some bizarre reason I enjoyed this and still do. Not a good film classically - but this works.
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MCT:July 16, 2008
Jack Burton is my hero, along with Phillip Marlowe and FBI Special Agents Dale Cooper, Fox Mulder and Regional Bureau Chief Gordon Cole. I can watch this one over and over. It's hillarious and so cool.
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MCT:July 15, 2008I just love Kurt Russell's character in this. Mostly the movie is utterly ridiculous, but it clearly doesn't take itself seriously. So i consider it a classic. ;P
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MCT:July 10, 2008
The masterpiece that was way ahead of it's time. Before Mortal Kombat, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, The Matrix, and Jackie Chan, there was....Jack Burton. Kurt Russell is in full John Wayne mode as the truck driver with a mouth bigger than the open road. Jack gets caught up in a gang war in San Francisco's Chinatown that leads to all manner of ghosts, demons, and bizzare creatures. John Carpenter's visuals are unparalleled. As are his visionary martial arts fights, that would go on to be copied in movies, tv shows, and endless video games. Before wire-fu became the norm in martial arts movies, Carpenter did it first. Wall to wall fights back up a fast moving, and freewheeling story that never stops to catch it's breath. Kurt Russell is on a whole new level of cool in this one. Never at a loss for words, he's a guy that's not quite as sharp as he thinks he is. He's got an able sidekick in Wang Chi, played by Dennis Dun. Wang has a girl to rescue, and is Hell with a sword. James Wong is the 2000 year old Lo Pan, a man cursed to live a life of no flesh until he finds a prophesized girl to marry. One of the potential girls comes in the form of Kim Cattrall, who is the pushy lawyer Gracie Law. (clever, right?) Backed up by another classic Carpenter musical score, this is a film that set the stage for the world's facination with high flying martial arts, even if they didn't know it at the time.
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MCT:July 8, 2008
A fun romp through the fantasy underbelly of San Francisco's China Town. Kurt Russel is really funny, delivering great one liners through the entire film.
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MCT:July 8, 2008
WOW... this was the last of the Carpenter-Russel match ups I had left to see, and I can safely say it was one of the best. This movie was hilarious, and Kurt Russel as always is one of the best 80's B-Movie actors. As well you gotta love the bad guy Lo-Pan with his crazy Asian-ness and his overall stunning good looks, this movie is for anyone wanting a good laugh mixed with some kick ass martial arts. I love this movie, its hard not to, if you have a night off I strongly recommend.
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MCT:July 4, 2008
The 80's. When Kurt Russell was funny and John Carpenter could direct. The movie is just a blast from start to finish with so many unexpected turns along the way.
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MCT:June 23, 2008
Kurt Russell stars as Jack Burton, a truck driver who is stranded in the middle of Chinatown and thrown into the underworld of magic and mysticism.
Also stars Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dunn, Victor Wong and James Hong.
Directed by John Carpenter. -
MCT:June 22, 2008
Kurt Russell is the man. Add to that the soothing sounds of another shitty John Carpenter soundtrack and you get a winner. Bonus points for the employment of Al Leong, otherwise known as "that asian guy", or more specifically "that asian guy who has the facial hair of an asshole"
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MCT:June 22, 2008Watched couple of parts from this flick today.. it sucked BIG TIME! If I remember correctly I've seen this flick before on the TV....
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MCT:June 16, 2008
Somewhere in the 80s, trucker Jack Burton arrives in a small town to deliver his cargo and win a few bucks playing cards with the locals down at the Chinese market. Practically bankrupting nearly all of his opponents, his friend Wang bets him a game
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MCT:June 14, 2008
This is Jack Burton on the Pork Chop Express and I'm talking to who ever is listening. What can I about this movie. I saw this on HBO when it first hit cable. I loved it than and I love in even more now. This is like a bottle of wine. it only gets better with age.
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MCT:June 13, 2008
A classic with some great one liners. Kurt Russel just had the voice to pull those off. Putting an everyday truck driver in a fantasy type story was crazy, but it grows on you and the movie fits together very well.
"It's all in the reflexes"....HAHA -
MCT:June 11, 2008
this movie helps prove why the "kurt russell and john carpenter" duo works! though the least serious of their teamups, it is quite possible their most entertaing one! come on! who doesn't want to be "jack burton"?
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MCT:June 9, 2008
it great together with john carpenter side with starring kurt russell.
kurt russell who play as jack burton the truck driver(one with "pork-chop express")and his friend wang(james dun)to stop the wedding with the "villian" lo pan's(james hong who reuntion with kurt russell in 3 years of "tango & cash")both brides. -
MCT:June 4, 2008
Jack Burton: "All I know is, this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of a goddamn alley while his buddies are flying around on wires cutting everybody to shreds, and he just stands there waiting for me to drive my truck straight through him with *light* coming out of his mouth!"
Truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) is a hard living, hard drinking, hard talking son-of-a-bitch who thinks he is not only God's gift to the female sex, but also a pretty tough hombre. As the man behind the wheel of the "Pork Chop Express," Burton has seen most of what this great country of ours has to offer, and he now finds himself in San Francisco dropping off his payload. Finding the time for an all-night game of dominoes on the wharfs of the City by the Bay, Burton ends up winning big. Unfortunately, the man who owes Jack his money can't pay right at that moment. Not being the kind of man who lets friendship stand in the way of money, Burton escorts Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) to the airport where he is to meet his beautiful, green eyed bride-to-be from China, and from there the plan is to go back to the city where Burton will be paid. Things are looking good for Jack when he also meets a tough talking girl named Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall). Gracie is also at the airport to pick up a girl from China, but this hardly stops Burton from turning on his special "charm." Needless to say, things do not go as planned. Chi's fiancée is kidnapped by a band of local hoodlums after they make a failed attempt to kidnap the girl Gracie had come to meet. Leaping into action, Burton and Chi make a mad rush into the streets of Chinatown where the doo-doo starts to hit the fan pretty quickly and in unbelievable ways. In a back alley, Burton witnesses the power of the walking ghost, Lo Pan, and his elemental minions. The number one thing the film had going for it was a quirky sense of humor that takes the conventions of the typical Hollywood action epic and twists them on their ear. The screenplay of Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein was originally conceived and written as a western, but it was in the adaptation of the script by writer/director W.D. Richter that the movie really took flight. Russell is the film's stone-jawed John Wayne type, then Dennis Dun has the earnest nature he needs down pat. To spice things up, Carpenter throws into the mix Kim Cattrall as Gracie Law. Cattrall gives a performance that appears as if it stepped off the soundstage of some 1940s screwball comedy. More Rosalind Russell then screaming damsel in distress, Cattrall delivers the goods. Her work adds zip and sexuality to the proceedings that the movie is not afraid to take advantage of. Veteran character actor James Hong turns up as David Lo Pan, the walking ghost who needs the bride with the green eyes to become human once more. If you are looking for a bright, funny, exciting and inventive movie stew, Big Trouble in Little China is just what the doctor ordered. -
MCT:June 4, 2008
Jack Burton is a trucker in San Fransisco whose friend Wang Chi's girlfriend Miao Yin is kidnapped by a streetgang called the Lords of Death. It transpires she has been chosen as the bride for David Lo Pan, an evil sorcerer who must marry a woman with green eyes to rid himself of an ancient curse. Jack and Wang, with the help of some friends, delve into the underworld of Chinatown to try and rescue her and defeat this evil menace.
John Carpenter's name is hardly synonymous with comedy, but this charming, amusing, silly, action-packed, deliriously goofy movie belies that fact. It's great strength is in never taking itself too seriously but always striving to entertain, through great performances, a wild story, terrific martial arts sequences, gorgeous fantasy sets and costumes, and great characters. Jack Burton is beautifully out of whack; he's completely out of his depth, stumbling around, trying to maintain his facade of bravado, but he's totally lovable because of these faults, so he really is the hero in the end, even if his friends do all the hard work. Russell gives a fearless, hilarious performance in the lead, but the whole cast leap into the lunacy feet first and the result is magical. Wong and Hong in particular have a whale of time as the kindly old sorcerer Egg Shen and his fearsome nemesis Lo Pan respectively. W.D. Richter's script absolutely rockets along, giving the movie a giddying, agreeably disorienting pace, but in Carpenter's skilled hands it flows along evenly, with the fights and the gags timed to perfection. It's full of terrific moments and lines ("A man'd have to be some kind of fool to think we're all alone in this universe !") and I love the way it literally dips gently from present-day San Fransisco to the magical underworld of Lo Pan's domain. It also contains one of Carpenter's richest scores, a wailing, mystical-acoustical electronic tempest which buoys up all the mythic elements and races around the action; the whole wedding / final fight / escaping sequence is just awash in fantastic music, and Carpenter even sings (he's the bass voice) on the end credits ! Sadly, this movie was not a hit on its release - it was much too satirical and wild for mainstream audiences - and was one factor which prompted Carpenter to return to low-budget independent work. However, like so many of his films, it was a big success on video and has become a cult classic. I love its sense of daring by having a goofball of a hero and mixing every genre it can think of into the same movie. It looks fabulous, and it's just so much fun to watch. If you ever need cheering up, and you have an open mind, this picture will do the trick every time. Featuring terrific visual effects by Richard Edlund, and fabulous choreography by Jim Lau and James Lew (who both play Chang Sings). Trivia - after meeting on this film, stuntman/actor Jeff Imada (who plays Needles, the hood with the knives at the airport) has been the stunt co-ordinator on every subsequent picture Carpenter has made. If movies are fundamentally meant to entertain - and make no mistake, they are - this is what so many should aspire to. Check it out. -
MCT:June 1, 2008
My all time favorite John Carpenter film. Kurt Russell plays one of my favorite heroes, Jack Burton with so many great one-liners.The movie is a fun ride from beginning to finish. Even though its underrated like all the John Carpenter films, this is a great cult classic.
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MCT:May 25, 2008It made me remember how much I like Kurt Russell. Typical John Carpenter. Ridiculous, but entertaining. Pretty good.
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MCT:May 20, 2008
toda pelicula de carpenter tendra un minimo de 4 estrellas. esta tiene a uno de los mejores personajes existentes.
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MCT:May 18, 2008
Perhaps Carpenter's last good film....
Lighter in tone and more slapstick than anything else he has ever done, this is a lot of fun to watch. The story is very silly but that doesn't matter at all when you have Kurt playing the fool and looking like he is having an absolute blast. The flick has clearly dated and its really cool that it has a pleasing 80's feel that you just don't get now.
Kurt is very funny here. Jack Burton is a fun guy to hang around with and his dumbness makes him very endearing. The rest of the cast back him up. This has 80's Cattrall before she became immensely annoying and a stream of familair faces from 80's action movies.
Yes, it has dated but it's a lot of nostalgic fun with Kurt on top form. -
MCT:May 14, 2008BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986)
diected by John Carpenter
starring Kurt Russell, Dennis Dun, Kim Cattrall«All I know is that this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of a goddamn alley while his buddies are flying around on wires cutting everybody to shreds while he just stands there waiting for me to drive my truck straight through him with light coming out of his mouth!»
Trucker-philosopher-adventurer Jack Burton finds himself at the wrong place at the wrong moment when his truck is stolen by the same people who kidnapped his Chinese pal's newly arrived girlfriend. It gives him two good reasons to go fight some type of immortal ghostly man and his three supernatural fighters. With his Harley Davidson baseball cap, a white tank top and a mullet, Jack Burton was born ready for that kind of action.Big Trouble in Little China is one of my childhood classics. The plot is preposterous but the acting is done in the right tone and the visual effects were quite good for 1986. John Carpenter's rocking score helps the campy effect some decades later.
Kurt Russell is Jack Burton, a memorable character who speaks only in one-liners, and Russell, delivers them perfectly, hilarious everytime. The rest of the cast need not to be mentionned cause, they are all stuck in Russell's shadow.
Big Trouble ... looks like a videogames sometimes, and its similarities with the Mortal Kombat game is sometimes surprising, though this film was obviously made before.
Not the best of films but I cant really help liking it, its entertaining as hell and those one-liners are hilarious. That film actually scared me as a kid because of the many weird creatures.
«Like I told my last wife, I said, "Honey, I never drive faster than I can see, and besides... it's all in the reflexes."»
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MCT:May 12, 2008
as a child, i was brought up on this film, at 16 years of age now, i still love it. a random, but fun plot to follow, and characters that make you wonder why they are there in the 1st place, this film is still great to watch, a classic film.
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MCT:April 30, 2008
Yes it has a completley ridiculous, silly plot about black magic and a 200 year old sorceror ghost needing a green eyed chinese woman to become flesh and blood, but it's just so damn entertaining. Kurt Russell is good as the passing through trucker who gets caught up in the madness and a pre Sex and the City Kim Cattrall plays the love interest. The movies full of action, the effects are a little dated but its great fun.
