Big Trouble in Little China (1986) Revisited: John Carpenter Movie Review

1986’s John Carpenter action-extravaganza, Big Trouble in Little China, is among the eighties’ most beloved and celebrated movies. If you’ve seen the recent Thor: Love and Thunder trailer, Chris Hemsworth is wearing the same shirt Kurt Russell’s Jack Burton wore throughout his adventure underneath San Francisco’s Chinatown. Yet, the film itself was not a hit back in 1986. It was a box office disaster, grossing only $11 million domestically. The film owes its cult following to the fact that it made its debut just as the VHS boom was in full swing. While it may have bombed in theaters, cassettes flew off the rental aisles at video stores, and the movie also became a perennial favorite on cable. This was when its reputation started to grow, and in the early days of the internet, some of the first fan pages ever were for this Kurt Russell classic.

In this episode of Revisited, we dig into the film’s roots, which began with a screenplay set in the Wild West. We explore Russell’s casting and that his character, Jack Burton, is far from the Indiana Jones clone the studio marketed him as. We discuss the fantastic cast, including a young Kim Cattrall, Dennis Dun, Victor Wong, and the iconic and seemingly immortal James Hong, who plays the villain, Lo Pan!

Check out Big Trouble in Little China and let us know in the comments how you feel this movie holds up thirty-six years later.