Big Trouble in Little China
(20th Century Fox, 1986)
Tonight's movie, Big Trouble in Little China, is one of my all-time favorites. There are just so many things about this movie that make it great. This is also one of the most quotable movies out there.
The movie starts out with Egg Shen (Victor Wong) being questioned by his attorney about some of the events that take place during the movie, Jack Burton's location, and how he can show him that sorcery is real. Egg decides to prove this by using a little Force Lighting between his hands.
Then, we get to meet Jack Burton (Kurt Russell), a truck driver who's rig is named the Pork Chop Express. His favorite thing to do while driving is spouting off about random things over his CB radio. While listening to him ramble, we get our first exposure to some of the great lines included in this movie. "Like I told my last wife, I says, Honey, I never drive faster than I can see. Besides that, it's all in the reflexes."
"When some wild-eyed, eight-foot-tall maniac grabs your neck, taps the back of your favorite head up against the barroom wall, and he looks you crooked in the eye and he asks you if ya paid your dues, you just stare that big sucker right back in the eye, and you remember what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like that: Have ya paid your dues, Jack? Yessir, the check is in the mail." Great stuff.
Jack drives to Chinatown and wins a bunch of money gambling, most of it from his friend Wang. On the way to Wang's restaurant, they stop by the airport to pick up Wang's fiancee. While they are there, his fiancee gets kidnapped by some Chinese thugs from the Lords of Death gang, one of whom is sporting the best shades ever.
Jack agrees to help Wang rescue her, and that's when things start to get really strange. It turns out that his fiancee has green eyes, which is extremely rare in Chinese people, and the 2000 year old sorcerer Lo Pan needs to marry then kill her to become human again. Nice huh?
There are lots of memorable scenes in this movie, including a street fight between two rival gangs that Jack and Wang get caught in the middle of. Or the Three Storms kicking ass. Flying sword fights. Or Jack getting pelted with NERFballs of DOOM.
This movie is a classic film by John Carpenter, and holds up very well still to this day. In fact, this is the second movie by John Carpenter to be included in Halloween Movie Madness. Anyway. this movie just has a great feeling to it that I can't properly describe. If you have never seen it before, do yourself a favor and watch it. Then, make your friends who haven't seen it watch it.
Just remember what ol' Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol' storm right square in the eye and he says, "Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it."
Also, because I just saw this and thought it was funny:
