Synopsis
Kurt Russell stars as Jack Burton, a big-talking, wisecracking truck driver who’s suddenly hurled into a wild adventure even he could never invent. At the root of it all is Lo Pan, a 2,000-year-old evil magician who rules an empire of spirits beneath San Francisco’s Chinatown. Doomed to a fleshless existence, he can only be saved by a green-eyed Asian beauty. When the fiancée of Jack’s friend is kidnapped by Lo Pan’s minions, Jack goes to the rescue, dodging demons, grappling with goblins, and facing baffling terrors like the Room of the Upside-Down Hell as he battles his way through the labyrinth of Lo Pan’s dark domain. In a nutshell, it’s a little Flash Gordon meets Goonies meets Dark Crystal vibes.
Actors & Crew
- Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton. He began his career as a child actor in 1963 before transitioning to leading roles as an adult across action, sci-fi, western, romance, comedy, and family films. He’s known for collaborating with filmmakers John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino, and has received award nominations including a Primetime Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination for Silkwood. He has been married to Goldie Hawn since 1983.
- Kim Cattrall plays Gracie Law. A British and Canadian actress best known for playing Samantha Jones on HBO’s Sex and the City (1998–2004), for which she received five Primetime Emmy nominations and won a Golden Globe. She made her film debut in Rosebud (1975) and appeared in Porky’s (1982), Police Academy (1984), and Mannequin (1987).
- Dennis Dun plays Wang Chi. Of Chinese Jamaican descent, he trained in martial arts and Chinese opera growing up and made his film debut in Michael Cimino’s Year of the Dragon (1985), later working with Carpenter again on Prince of Darkness (1987).
- James Hong plays Lo Pan. One of the most prolific character actors in Hollywood history, he has worked in over 600 productions across American and Chinese-language film and television spanning from the 1950s into the 2020s.
- Directed by John Carpenter, whose early films included Halloween (1978), The Fog (1980), Escape from New York (1981), and Starman (1984); many of his other 1970s and ’80s productions, including this film, only later came to be regarded as cult classics. Carpenter usually composes or co-composes the music for his films and won a Saturn Award for Best Music for the Vampires soundtrack.
Budget & Shooting Locations
- Released July 2, 1986; rated PG-13.
- Budget: $25 million.
- Box office: $11.1 million — a notable box-office flop on release, though it has since become a cult favorite.
- While the early exterior establishing shots were filmed on location in Chinatown, San Francisco, most of the film was shot on sets built on the Fox lot in Los Angeles.
Rewatch verdict and Cringe Meter
Big Trouble in Little China has aged into a beloved cult classic, even if critics were divided at the time. It holds a 64% Tomatometer score from 156 reviews and an 82% Popcornmeter score from over 100,000 audience ratings. Metacritic gives it a Metascore of 53 (“Mixed or Average”) based on 15 critic reviews, while its User Score sits at a much warmer 7.2 based on 125 ratings. Roger Ebert, reviewing it for the Chicago Sun-Times, wrote: “The first 30 minutes of the movie gave me lots of room for hope. It was fast-moving, it was visually spectacular, it was exotic and lighthearted and filled with a spirit of adventure. But then, gradually, the movie began to recycle itself.”
