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Films: B is for...

Big Trouble In Little China

Jack Burton and the Pork Chop Express roll out once again in this cracking little piece of drivel with Pat Morita, James Hong, Kurt Russell and Kim ‘Pontins’ Cattrall reminded once again that it hasn’t always been acerbic put downs and witty rejoinders over Cosmos.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Ken Shinn

    August 14, 2012 at 2:24 am

    Pat Morita? He’s nowhere to be seen in Big Trouble. Perhaps you’re confusing him with Vincent Wong, another great Oriental character actor who turned up in just about everything, including much loved children’s television programme Doctor Who? Although only Pat got to do SpongeBob SquarePants.

  2. George White

    December 1, 2015 at 11:45 am

    Actually, that’s Victor Wong.
    Vincent Wong was in Who, Victor Wong was in Big Trouble.

  3. Sidney Balmoral James

    August 5, 2021 at 7:53 pm

    So did John Carpenter’s career begin its nose dive in 1983 with Christine, or with this in 1986? Probably depends on how much you love Starman (and Jeff Bridges). Suspect it’s more loved than this charmless dross, which is arguably one of a number of racist films of the mid 80s (see also Temple of Doom, King Solomon’s Mines etc.) Hard to fathom how the stuff that followed could be the work of the same man who made Dark Star, or The Thing.

  4. Richardpd

    August 5, 2021 at 10:45 pm

    This is a bit of an oddball film, like Fu-Manchu blended with a typical 80s mulleted sweaty guy kicking ass action film.

    Supposedly it was written as a western but later updated to a present day setting. Kurt’s truck was originally a horse.

    James Hong is another Chinese American actor in this who has been in lots of different films & TV shows playing Far Eastern roles.

    The kidnapping at the airport certainly dates it.

  5. THX 1139

    August 6, 2021 at 1:25 am

    Say what you like, in school we thought the bit where Jack knocks himself out with rubble dislodged from putting bullets in the ceiling to be absolute comedy gold.

    Christine was a job for hire for Carpenter, and it’s not Stephen King’s best book at all, but I really like the film, it goes like a rocket.

    He still had Prince of Darkness, They Live and In the Mouth of Madness to come after this, all good stuff.

    • Sidney Balmoral James

      August 6, 2021 at 7:37 pm

      Prince of Darkness I find a very frustrating film – could have been made by anyone, apart from that great motif of the fuzzy video tape premonition – would have been better if they’ve made more of idea of the impending release of titular royal, rather than the ‘unholy water makes people kill each other or themselves in an old building’ set up which seems like it’s just catering to the slasher market (wastes Alice Cooper as well, although doesn’t he get to stab someone with a bike frame?). In the Mouth of Madness is diverting, but doesn’t make very good use of a good cast (Jurgen Prochnow, Charlton Heston, David Warner etc.), unlike say Escape from LA – it has some cheap special effects (that shark!) but a good cast working well (Bruce Campbell, Peter Fonda, Stacey Keach, Steve Buscemi). And Vampires would surely have been a superior film if James Woods had been a sarcastic vampire, rather than a bad-ass vampire hunter, another tired concept.

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