Big Trouble in Little China

A rollicking, colourful comic strip of a movie with bells on.

Carpenter and his lively cast seem to be having such a good time that the easiest thing to do is relax and enjoy the ride. In a way, this is the movie "Escape from New York" was trying to be but never quite managed to pull off.

Watching Kurt Russell display not only a set of bulging biceps, but also... easy-going self-confidence is admittedly fun at times, even if the movie is as impenetrable as chop suey.

Big Trouble in Little China is a failure, but it's a fascinating, atypical failure.

The result - suspense/action/comedy/kung fu/supernatural - defies categorization. Let's just call it a rousing good movie and proceed

A bad marriage of martial arts and action spoofery, bungled by director John Carpenter working from the world's worst screenplay.

Horror maestro John Carpenter is clearly in awe of Hong Kong movies, but this brave attempt to fuse martial arts action with a westernised adventure story sadly doesn't quite gel.

On many occasions I have the feeling that its recycling of genres with a B-series formula is hackneyed and terribly boring when Kurt Russell fights in a simple way in the bizarre alleys of Chinatown. [Full review in Spanish]

...it is certainly great fun—as deliberately absurd a contraption...

...Big Trouble in Little China rises to meet our elevated expectations; fast, chaotic and inventive, its yet another Carpenter film that really deserved more than it got from audiences at the time...