As an older film lover, it’s a little surreal to see younger audiences fall in love with older media, like my crime-loving kid mainlining stuff like Goodfellas. That, at least, is a timeless classic, one that could quite easily be made today. Some movies are so wonderfully weird and offensive they could never be made today, including Big Trouble in Little China, an ‘80s cult classic now streaming for free on Tubi.
A Cast Filled With Screen Icons
The plot of Big Trouble in Little China starts with a charming but cantankerous truck driver just trying to collect on a bet when he sees a woman kidnapped by violent gang members. When he tries to track the gang down and save her, he ends up deeper and deeper in a world of martial artists and magical powers. Our tenacious trucker must eventually take on an evil wizard, but even with the help of some newfound friends, he may not be able to prevail over the forces of darkness.
The cast of Big Trouble in Little China includes Kim Cattrall (best known for Sex and the City and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) as a lawyer who gets into far more than legal trouble when she joins forces with our heroes. The movie also stars Dennis Dun (known best outside this movie for Prince of Darkness) as a man whose fiancée is kidnapped by a sorcerer with dark magical powers. That sorcerer is played by genre legend James Hong, somebody best known to Westerners for Everything Everywhere All At Once and his voice work in Kung-Fu Panda.
A Sidekick Who Doesn’t Know He’s A Sidekick
The best part of this quirky cast is Kurt Russell (best known for Escape From New York, another John Carpenter film), whose truck driver is all crass jokes and cocky bravado. He’s never willing to admit that he’s in over his head, which is why this talented trucker doesn’t hesitate to throw down with a powerful sorcerer who even an ancient curse could not take out. The character’s raw charisma helps him become a natural leader, even though he’s not actually the main character of the story.
Part of what makes Big Trouble In Little China is the fact that Kurt Russell’s character is a sidekick who doesn’t realize he’s the sidekick. He’s an ‘80s action hero who accidentally wandered into a ’70s-style kung fu film.
The film’s East meets West humor is a large part of what makes it so memorably funny. It helps that Russell is so charismatic in this role, serving as an audience surrogate who reacts to the utterly insane events around him just like we would in his place (though we might not be as good with the knife-throwing).
How Aliens Kneecapped Big Trouble In Little China
Sadly, audiences at the time didn’t know what to make of Big Trouble in Little China, and the film only earned $11.1 million at the box office against a budget estimated somewhere between $19 to $25 million. That box office suffered because the movie had to compete with James Cameron’s Aliens, and John Carpenter got so fed up with the movie’s poor reception that he became an independent filmmaker.
Fortunately, the movie soon became a cult classic, one enjoyed by everyone from the film snobs who recognized Carpenter’s keen satire to those who just wanted to see martial arts and monsters.
Offending Modern Audiences
Over on Rotten Tomatoes, the bizarre adventures of Jack Burton won over the critics despite some modern offense over the portrayals of Chinese-Americans and far East mythology. Big Trouble in Little China has a score of 73 percent, with critics praising the unique brand of off-kilter energy this movie packs into virtually every frame. They also praised this film for being a passionate love letter to kung-fu B movies that manages to deliver all of the high-kicking goods while subverting audience expectations in the best possible way.
Will you agree that Big Trouble Little China is the most ambitious movie ever made by John Carpenter, or will you end up wishing that he’d stuck with slashers like Halloween? You won’t know until you stream this ‘80s cult classic in all its problematic glory on Tubi. It’s a movie that could never be made today, and there’s no time like the present to celebrate the most over-the-top epic in action movie history.
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