The setup: This thread is the first of many that I'll be putting out over the next couple of years celebrating the films of the TPE 100, which I threw together back in February 2023 as a response to some terrible movie list, possibly by Rolling Stone, that we all hated. .
The whole conceit of this thread is a 99.9% ripoff of the marvelous Bill Simmons / The Ringer podcast series "The Rewatchables" in which Bill, guests, and friends sit around talking about a movie each week that they all love. I'm going to rip off a lot of Bill's categories and try to encourage as much fun discussion as possible.
A lot of these films are insanely stupid and illogical. I love them all. The aim is to do 1 a week. I'll kick off the new thread with my connection to the movie, some general information, categories to discuss, and we'll go from there. I hope you enjoy discussing these movies as much as I've enjoyed finally putting this thing together.
Note: This isn't the thread for telling everyone why you DON'T like this movie or why you don't like me. If you haven't seen the movie or thought it was stupid, there's literally no reason to be here, and even less reason to post here.
Film #1: Big Trouble in Little China
Released: July 4, 1986
Original Trailer:
My story
The year was 1986, and my best friend Trey (RIP) and I were at the movies with his dad watching Sylvester Stallone's "Cobra". My mom did not know I was at this movie, not surprising considering I was 12 and Trey 13. But Trey's parents were divorced, meaning his dad got the 1 weekend a month treatment and Trey had parlayed that into a lot of R-rated movies over the years, including seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was 10, which gave me nightmares, appropriately enough, for the next 6 months.
Before Stallone took to the screen however, a trailer came on featuring Kurt Russell doing his best John Wayne drawl alongside kung fu fighting, hot chicks, and a lot of laughs. When the title credit rolled, Trey turned to me and say, "WE HAVE GOT TO SEE THAT." and I replied "OPENING DAY."
We did go to opening day, and it was one of those things that ties you to a person for the rest of your lives. Trey tragically died of a heart attack at age 48 in 2021, and I was able to speak about it at his funeral, making mention of our greatest childhood day seeing Jack Burton in action.
More thoughts
Big Trouble in Little China is a movie out of time. If it had been made around the time that all of the Jackie Chan / Chris Tucker movies came out, you figure it could have made $200 million. Instead it crashed to $11 million at the box office, below its budget of $20 million and pissed off director John Carpenter to no end.
What makes it so fantastic, is that it's a traditional Kung Fu movie that takes its mythology, fight coordination, and plot lines seriously, and dumps an American truck driver who has no real idea what he's doing into the middle of it. And that's exactly how Kurt Russell plays it. He loses almost every fight he's in. He's completely out of the action by way of his own failures in two of the big set piece battles, and all of his bravado and threats usually come up well short. He's pretty much the wacky sidekick to the story's real hero, Wang Chi, who is on a quest to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend, the green-eyed Miao Yin - the uber-hot Suzee Pai, who has been taken to the villain of the movie, Mr. David Lo Pan. Along the way they cross paths with peak-level hotness Kim Cattrall, a clueless reporter named Margo, Cousin Eddie, the Three Storms, the Lords of Death, the Chang Sing, and the Wing Kong.
Roger Ebert's Review (2 stars out of 4) (abbreviated)
It seems at first like a great idea: a big-budget, high-tech Hollywood action picture that takes all the cliches of kung fu, Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, and does them right. "Big Trouble in Little China" begins with the notion that the visible part of Chinatown is just the tip of the iceberg - that once you penetrate the facade of chop-suey parlors and laundries, there is a vast subterranean network of temples and dungeons, caverns and throne rooms and torture chambers. "Big Trouble in Little China" takes its hero and his friend on a toboggan ride through one death-defying challenge after another, and throws in magicians, sorcerers, karate masters and a 2,000-year-old man.
It will be interesting to see how the Chinese stereotypes in "Big Trouble in Little China" are received by the Asian-American spokesmen who condemned last year's "Year of the Dragon." This movie is straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes. If they didn't like "Year of the Dragon," they're sure to hate this movie. And yet, as we unveil the rehabbed Statue of Liberty and warm up for the Fourth of July, it seems to me that "Big Trouble in Little China" is just one more example of the way every American ethnic group has been fodder for Hollywood's mill. It may not be true that Chinatowns are honeycombed with subterranean throne rooms, but isn't it kind of fun once in a while to pretend?
Box office: Massive tank Made $11 million domestically to finish 72nd on the year.
The Categories
Most Rewatchable Scene:
Alley fight between the Wing Kong and the Chang Sing: Goes from a funeral parade to an all-out kung-fu battle to a display of the mystic arts to Jack Burton running down Lo Pan with a truck and him not even suffering a scratch.
Wang and Jack meet decrepit Lo Pan and Jack talks **** to him.
The wedding battle with Jack out of the action the entire time
Jack kills Lo Pan
Best Quote (honestly, too many to mention but here are some)
Jack Burton: "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." - Jack Burton
Jack Burton:: Everybody relax, I'm here.
Jack Burton: You know what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like this?
Thunder: Who?
Jack Burton: "Jack Burton. *Me*!
Jack Burton: I don't get this at all. I thought Lo Pan...
Lo Pan: Shut up, Mr. Burton! You are not brought upon this world to get it!
Jack Burton:[pointing to Chinese writing on elevator] What does that say?
Wang Chi: [speaks Chinese] Hell of Boiling Oil.
Jack Burton: You're kidding.
Wang Chi: Yeah, I am. It says Keep Out.
Jack Burton: All I know is, this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of a ******* 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!
Jack Burton: You can go off and rule the universe from beyond the grave.
Lo Pan: Indeed!
Jack Burton: Or check into a psycho ward, which ever comes first, huh?
Jack Burton: [speaking to Lo Pan] Are you crazy... Is that your problem?
The Tony Barone Overacting Award: Kate Burton as Margo, the wacky reporter who does basically nothing but getting kidnapped and ends up with Cousin Eddie. I have watched this movie 500 times and there is no point to her being in it.
The One-Night Stand Award (hottest chick): Suzee Pai was in Penthouse in the 1980s but Kim Cattrall is outrageously good looking here, making it even more sad that she got so plastic in the 2000s.
The That Guy Award (the actor in the movie that you've seen a bunch of places but you don't know who they are): Jeff Imada as a member of the Wing Kong. He's the guy with the crazy moustache and he's been in a billion movies and been the fight coordinator/choreographer for 100 more. And he was technical advisor for the best TV show in human history: Airwolf.
Half-Assed Internet Research:
What Happened the Next Day?
The movie ends with Jack refusing to keep seeing Gracie, and driving off into the rain with the monster from the Wing Kong exchange in the back of his truck. Assuming it doesn't kill him, I suspect Jack just keeps on living by the seat of his pants.
Unanswerable Questions:
[ol]
What happened every year when the San Francisco Board of Health came to do its inspection of the Wing Kong Exchange? Did they just hide all the decomposing bodies and trick elevators and massive underground lairs? Or bribe the inspector? How the hell did Lo Pan not find a green-eyed hottie in all these years? Cousin Eddie is described as a "successful businessman" yet he's surprised that Jack has never shot and killed anyone. What kind of business is Eddie in? Is there any better-named vehicle in movie history than the Porkchop Express? [/ol]
Who Won the Movie? I mean it's not really debatable that Kurt Russell is the best part of this movie. There has never been a better role of "guy pretending to know what he's doing" in my lifetime. Honorable mention to James Hong as David Lo Pan, menacing and hilarious.
The whole conceit of this thread is a 99.9% ripoff of the marvelous Bill Simmons / The Ringer podcast series "The Rewatchables" in which Bill, guests, and friends sit around talking about a movie each week that they all love. I'm going to rip off a lot of Bill's categories and try to encourage as much fun discussion as possible.
A lot of these films are insanely stupid and illogical. I love them all. The aim is to do 1 a week. I'll kick off the new thread with my connection to the movie, some general information, categories to discuss, and we'll go from there. I hope you enjoy discussing these movies as much as I've enjoyed finally putting this thing together.
Note: This isn't the thread for telling everyone why you DON'T like this movie or why you don't like me. If you haven't seen the movie or thought it was stupid, there's literally no reason to be here, and even less reason to post here.
Film #1: Big Trouble in Little China
Released: July 4, 1986
Original Trailer:
My story
The year was 1986, and my best friend Trey (RIP) and I were at the movies with his dad watching Sylvester Stallone's "Cobra". My mom did not know I was at this movie, not surprising considering I was 12 and Trey 13. But Trey's parents were divorced, meaning his dad got the 1 weekend a month treatment and Trey had parlayed that into a lot of R-rated movies over the years, including seeing A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was 10, which gave me nightmares, appropriately enough, for the next 6 months.
Before Stallone took to the screen however, a trailer came on featuring Kurt Russell doing his best John Wayne drawl alongside kung fu fighting, hot chicks, and a lot of laughs. When the title credit rolled, Trey turned to me and say, "WE HAVE GOT TO SEE THAT." and I replied "OPENING DAY."
We did go to opening day, and it was one of those things that ties you to a person for the rest of your lives. Trey tragically died of a heart attack at age 48 in 2021, and I was able to speak about it at his funeral, making mention of our greatest childhood day seeing Jack Burton in action.
More thoughts
Big Trouble in Little China is a movie out of time. If it had been made around the time that all of the Jackie Chan / Chris Tucker movies came out, you figure it could have made $200 million. Instead it crashed to $11 million at the box office, below its budget of $20 million and pissed off director John Carpenter to no end.
What makes it so fantastic, is that it's a traditional Kung Fu movie that takes its mythology, fight coordination, and plot lines seriously, and dumps an American truck driver who has no real idea what he's doing into the middle of it. And that's exactly how Kurt Russell plays it. He loses almost every fight he's in. He's completely out of the action by way of his own failures in two of the big set piece battles, and all of his bravado and threats usually come up well short. He's pretty much the wacky sidekick to the story's real hero, Wang Chi, who is on a quest to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend, the green-eyed Miao Yin - the uber-hot Suzee Pai, who has been taken to the villain of the movie, Mr. David Lo Pan. Along the way they cross paths with peak-level hotness Kim Cattrall, a clueless reporter named Margo, Cousin Eddie, the Three Storms, the Lords of Death, the Chang Sing, and the Wing Kong.
Roger Ebert's Review (2 stars out of 4) (abbreviated)
It seems at first like a great idea: a big-budget, high-tech Hollywood action picture that takes all the cliches of kung fu, Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan, and does them right. "Big Trouble in Little China" begins with the notion that the visible part of Chinatown is just the tip of the iceberg - that once you penetrate the facade of chop-suey parlors and laundries, there is a vast subterranean network of temples and dungeons, caverns and throne rooms and torture chambers. "Big Trouble in Little China" takes its hero and his friend on a toboggan ride through one death-defying challenge after another, and throws in magicians, sorcerers, karate masters and a 2,000-year-old man.
It will be interesting to see how the Chinese stereotypes in "Big Trouble in Little China" are received by the Asian-American spokesmen who condemned last year's "Year of the Dragon." This movie is straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes. If they didn't like "Year of the Dragon," they're sure to hate this movie. And yet, as we unveil the rehabbed Statue of Liberty and warm up for the Fourth of July, it seems to me that "Big Trouble in Little China" is just one more example of the way every American ethnic group has been fodder for Hollywood's mill. It may not be true that Chinatowns are honeycombed with subterranean throne rooms, but isn't it kind of fun once in a while to pretend?
Box office: Massive tank Made $11 million domestically to finish 72nd on the year.
The Categories
Most Rewatchable Scene:
Alley fight between the Wing Kong and the Chang Sing: Goes from a funeral parade to an all-out kung-fu battle to a display of the mystic arts to Jack Burton running down Lo Pan with a truck and him not even suffering a scratch.
Wang and Jack meet decrepit Lo Pan and Jack talks **** to him.
The wedding battle with Jack out of the action the entire time
Jack kills Lo Pan
Best Quote (honestly, too many to mention but here are some)
Jack Burton: "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." - Jack Burton
Jack Burton:: Everybody relax, I'm here.
Jack Burton: You know what ol' Jack Burton always says at a time like this?
Thunder: Who?
Jack Burton: "Jack Burton. *Me*!
Jack Burton: I don't get this at all. I thought Lo Pan...
Lo Pan: Shut up, Mr. Burton! You are not brought upon this world to get it!
Jack Burton:[pointing to Chinese writing on elevator] What does that say?
Wang Chi: [speaks Chinese] Hell of Boiling Oil.
Jack Burton: You're kidding.
Wang Chi: Yeah, I am. It says Keep Out.
Jack Burton: All I know is, this Lo Pan character comes out of thin air in the middle of a ******* 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!
Jack Burton: You can go off and rule the universe from beyond the grave.
Lo Pan: Indeed!
Jack Burton: Or check into a psycho ward, which ever comes first, huh?
Jack Burton: [speaking to Lo Pan] Are you crazy... Is that your problem?
The Tony Barone Overacting Award: Kate Burton as Margo, the wacky reporter who does basically nothing but getting kidnapped and ends up with Cousin Eddie. I have watched this movie 500 times and there is no point to her being in it.
The One-Night Stand Award (hottest chick): Suzee Pai was in Penthouse in the 1980s but Kim Cattrall is outrageously good looking here, making it even more sad that she got so plastic in the 2000s.
The That Guy Award (the actor in the movie that you've seen a bunch of places but you don't know who they are): Jeff Imada as a member of the Wing Kong. He's the guy with the crazy moustache and he's been in a billion movies and been the fight coordinator/choreographer for 100 more. And he was technical advisor for the best TV show in human history: Airwolf.
Half-Assed Internet Research:
- Jackie Chan was John Carpenter's #1 choice to play Wang Chi, but his English was too terrible at the time.
- Fox thought so little of the movie that they barely promoted it and released it 16 days before Aliens, which made $187 million.
- Dennis Dun (Wang Chi) did all of his own stunts.
- Carter Wong, who played Thunder, was the martial arts instructor for the Hong Kong Police Force.
- Kurt Russell turned down the lead role in Highlander to be in this.
- Russell wears the same godawful yellow/brown suit in this movie that he wore in Used Cars.
- Body count: 46
- In Brazil the movie's title translates to "Adventures of the Forbidden Neighborhood"
What Happened the Next Day?
The movie ends with Jack refusing to keep seeing Gracie, and driving off into the rain with the monster from the Wing Kong exchange in the back of his truck. Assuming it doesn't kill him, I suspect Jack just keeps on living by the seat of his pants.
Unanswerable Questions:
[ol]
Who Won the Movie? I mean it's not really debatable that Kurt Russell is the best part of this movie. There has never been a better role of "guy pretending to know what he's doing" in my lifetime. Honorable mention to James Hong as David Lo Pan, menacing and hilarious.
