“Okay, you people sit tight, hold the fort, and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn… call the president.” — Jack Burton on his way to battle the Chinese sorcerer David Lo Pan.
Big Trouble in Little China is a perfect example of a movie that has aged better than any fine wine currently available on planet Earth. To make a totally relevant comparison, a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée—a fine vintage Burgundy—will retail for $72,000, while a ticket to watch Big Trouble with RVA Mag at the Byrd will only cost you a mere $9. That’s a cost savings of $71,991.
Think about that as you decide what to do next Tuesday night in Richmond. Or you can get your tickets right now HERE
For those familiar with John Carpenter’s 1986 exploitation masterpiece, we’ll just simply say, “You know what Jack Burton always says at a time like this?” But for those considering watching Big Trouble for the first time, the plot breaks down something like this: After a long night of drinking with his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun), a long haul truck driver named Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) finds himself embroiled in a centuries-old battle between wizards in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
Let me repeat this for those in the back: This is a movie about wizards fighting in the alleyways of Chinatown in 1986. Some other stuff obviously happens, but you get the idea.
Armed with semi-competence, clueless charm, and an arsenal of epic one-liners, Jack Burton helps Wang Chi rescue his fiancée from the insidious sorcerer David Lo Pan and his army of kung-fu henchmen hell-bent on world domination. Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. The rescue spirals completely out of control, descending into a chaotic urban adventure filled with paranormal creatures, ancient magic, and larger-than-life martial-arts action sequences. When you stack these things together, a perfect blend of 1960s spaghetti western and Shaw Brothers’ Hong Kong features from the 1970s emerges. The result is a neon-lit epic that’s part comedy, part fantasy, and completely irreverent. So much so, that Big Trouble was a huge flop on release, grossing only $11 million on a $19 million budget—which is hard to imagine, given its current cult phenomenon status.
While Big Trouble masquerades as an action-comedy, it offers multiple layers of subversive storytelling, least of which is its satire of 1980s Reagan-era bravado. In a cinematic era dominated by heroes bound to traditions of honor and duty—think Rambo II and Top Gun—Jack Burton presents an alternative image; a bumbling knucklehead who is entirely out of his depth, unable to grasp any aspects of a foreign culture, and has to be constantly rescued by a crew of Chinese immigrants who outperform him in every scenario. The only person who thinks Jack Burton is a hero is Jack Burton, making him perhaps the most realistic American hero ever committed to celluloid—or at least one of the best metaphors for the gap between how Americans see themselves and how they really are.
Join RVA Mag on May 14th at 7pm for a one-night-only screening of Big Trouble in Little China. Bring 317 of your friends, drink multiple beers, and help us preserve one of the last remaining Grand Cinema Palaces in the US. All ticket proceeds are going to support the ongoing preservation of the Byrd Theatre.
“I’m a reasonable guy. But, I’ve just experienced some very unreasonable things.” See you there.
