Matthew: Hello and welcome to the, uh, welcome to the Inter Millennium Project. Ian: Uh, Matthew: welcome to the IMMP. Should we cut that and try again? Sure. Yeah. We okay? Yeah. Okay. Let's do that again. Lemme bring the music again. Ian: Hang on. Let Sounds good. Matthew: Hello and welcome to the IMMP, to the intermillennium media. What are you doing? Ian: I thought this was another takeover episode. Matthew: No, we're talking about Big Trouble in Little China. Ian: Exactly. Matthew: Yeah, a very important movie to me. Ian: And me. Oh, I know what it is. Matthew: Yeah. Ian: It's our hundred and fiftieth episode! Haha! Matthew: Yes it is. Ian: Oh my goodness, Matthew: you've been doing the podcast Ian: for this long. Usually Matthew: In case this is your first episode, my name is Matthew Porter. And I'm Ian Porter. I'm his dad, he's my son, and for most episodes I make him watch movies or television or other things from my youth. And occasionally, like last episode, Ian will take over. I take over. He'll introduce me to something that was important to him. Ian: Exactly! And This is a movie, though, that you introduced to me when I was very young, and it is my favorite movie of all time. Matthew: So, this counts as a movie for me and as one for you. Ian: Exactly. This movie is a wild ride. It is a confusing mess in the best of ways. And this is a perfect thing for a milestone such as this. Matthew: I think it is. I think it is. It's one of those movies we've kind of hesitated to do because it is so important to us. Will we do it justice? But we realized we'd wait forever if we just waited till we could be perfect about it. Ian: Absolutely. So you gotta do it when, you gotta do it when it's right. That's right. It's all in the reflexes. Matthew: And by now, you know, have we paid our dues? Yes. The check's in the mail. Ian: Oh, but yeah, John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China released in 1986. Yes. Matthew: And then is John Carpenter the director we've covered more than any other on this podcast? Ian: I think so. Matthew: I will, I'll find that out. I'll check that against our list of episodes, but I think we may have hit more of his specific movies than anybody else. Ian: We might have, Well, we, we do, and we do have interesting histories with him both on and off podcast. I mean, fan of his movies. Absolutely. It's something that you, as we've discussed, you've brought up more movies of his to the show. His work had a big influence on you. And for me, the pop culture legacy that John Carpenter left is the, the entire basis of large swaths of the pop culture I love. So much of other things I appreciate call back to John Carpenter as a reference. References to, Escape from New York, The Thing, Halloween. Some of these are extremely, extremely linchpin, too. Modern pop culture referencing and I also will note that this is one of his movies though that does not put me to sleep with the score As we've run into before. Matthew: And it is a score by John Carpenter So Ian: it is a score by John Carpenter, but usually as we've run into his synths are just ways to to knock me unconscious Yeah, not so with Big Trouble I will say Matthew: So much comes together very well. This is very much, a movie of its time. It's a, it is a late 80s movie. Ian: Yes. Matthew: But so much comes together so well that it is, I, it's probably my favorite John Carpenter movie, as good as some of his other movies are. This is the one I come back to and re watch more and more often. and there are a lot of reasons for that that we'll talk about. Ian: Yeah. And it is distinctly, I'd say, an action comedy. Matthew: Yes. Ian: But it is an action comedy whose comedy comes from how seriously everyone takes the action. Matthew: Yes, it is played very straight. Nobody knows they're making a joke. As funny as this movie can be, there's nobody in here who thinks anything that's happening is funny, which is important. The stakes. It's really important. It's high stakes within the movie, and that's what makes the, the adventure and action part compelling and interesting. If everybody's goofing around, then, well, how high are the stakes? The stakes are super high in this. Ian: Stakes are super high. Matthew: But it's still incredibly funny. Ian: And I don't even know where to start. Do we just give a summary? Do we break into this? And in some ways the summary can be very short, jack Burton, man out of his element and truck driver, is dragged into a battle of good and evil that is fueled and powered and perpetuated in the ancient magics of China that have taken root and been brought to little China in San Francisco. Yes. Matthew: Yes. The whole thing is set in and under. San Francisco's Chinatown. Yes. And it's very much, as you say, it's very much a fish out of water movie. Jack Burton is Well, let's let's say this up front. Jack Burton is not the hero of this movie. Ian: Jack Burton is not the hero. Matthew: Anybody who goes into this thinking that Jack Burton is the hero is not getting the movie or is not, doesn't really get the movie. Jack Burton is on the one hand, he's the, the audience surrogate because he is learning about This, this strange environment and history and things that he has having to deal with and magic, things that he knew nothing about. Therefore he learns about, the fact that he learns about it means that we can learn about it and be brought into this in a very organic way. There are, there are plenty of info dumps. In this movie, but they're never as you know Bob info dumps because Jack Burton is Bob and he doesn't know anything. So exactly because you don't know any of this stuff, Jack, I'm going to explain it to you and we get to listen. So it's it's constructed very well in that sense. Ian: And half the time Jack Burton's response to the new information is. What do you mean? What do you mean that's going on? What do you mean my truck's gone? Yeah, Matthew: in one breath it'll be Oh, what is that? No, don't tell me. Ian: Exactly. You ever seen an isekai story where no one actually leaves their own world? They just learned their world is wilder than they thought? That's big trouble in Little China. Matthew: And that's one of the reasons I love this movie because I love stories that involve a. A secret society, a secret history, a secret culture, secret conflicts happening right under , the surface of the world that we know. And that's what Jack Burton has to deal with. He's a truck driver. He delivers to restaurants and things in Chinatown. And his, might be his best friend is Wang Chi. Of course, Jack Burton is played by Kurt Russell. Wang Chi is played by Dennis Dunn. And Wang is, is Jack's best friend. But Jack really doesn't know that much about Wang. Ian: Yeah! Matthew: They meet whenever Jack comes into town to drop off deliveries, and they hang out and they gamble and they, they talk. And he knows that, that Wang owns a restaurant. But he doesn't know that Wang is saving up money to bring his fiancé over from Hong Kong. He does not know Wang's background in martial arts, and he doesn't know all of the stuff about what's happening in Chinatown and the different, the, the, the cultural environment that Wang Chi lives in. Ian: In some ways, Jack Burton, he starts out, radioing out to the void with his own little phrisms and discussions. He's kind of he's kind of running in a device radio show via his is a his in truck radio just to whoever is listening. Matthew: Yeah, I've got to think that everybody else with a CB knows what channel to avoid on what night, because the last thing they want to do is listen to Jack Burton ramble. And maybe there are others who say, Oh, let's go to let's go to, you know, channel 18, Jack's going to be on there again. Ian: Smokey's coming on through. Oh good, I can turn off of Jack Burton. That's a team up I wouldn't have expected, I can imagine in my brain. Matthew: And that's the comparison we made a few episodes ago when we were talking about Planet of the Apes of all things. Ian: Yes. Matthew: In that prologue, that piece at the beginning where, Commander Taylor, Charlton Heston, is just kind of rambling away with these weird philosophical ideas into the audio log that's presumably being beamed back to Earth. And, yeah, he's kind of a Jack Burton of space. Well, this is Jack Burton. Ian: This is Jack Burton. And Yeah, absolutely. Jack Burton, like, kind of doesn't care to know anything until he collides headfirst with the situation and has to work his way through. And I'm going to point out here, this might make it sound like this being an action comedy, being all these things, being these characters who are, you know, out of place and such, it might sound a little surface level. This movie, my goodness, it has. A lot of very clever theming and, visual and like language to it. Little things like, every single time, Someone goes down in a direction. They are moving into the unknown. Matthew: Right. Things are becoming more unreal, more supernatural, the lower down you go. Ian: And that starts from as early as driving down the hill into town. Jack Burton going from where he knows, which is out on the road, down into the town he doesn't. Right. And showing he's out of water there and then dragging him layers further, but it's like it's from step one There's these little tiny bits that just grow. Matthew: Let's talk about how Jack Burton gets into this Ian: Yes, Matthew: Jack Burton is self interested, he's a lot about what's in it for him, but he's not as tough as he thinks he is. He's not as self interested as he likes to, to portray. He has a sense of honor and duty. , and he's certainly not as tough as he thinks he is, he's not as, fearsome a person as he thinks he is. He's got a few particular skills, but he's so out of his depth in all ways. So, the whole story becomes driven by that initial self interest where he's gambling with Wang Chi. Wang Chi winds up owing him a lot of money, and he doesn't want to let Wang out of his sight. Ian: 1,148 times two, Matthew: . Yes, that's right. They do a double or nothing bet. Ian: Yes, exactly. Matthew: But Wang has to go to the airport and Jack does not wanna let him go to the airport when he owes him a whole bunch of money. So he drives Wang to the airport and that leads to the first conflict because, and he learns, he only learns on the way to the airport. That. Wang has a fiance who still has not come to the U. S. and finally arriving. And Wang is tremendously in love. He is so, looking forward to her finally being with him in San Francisco. But she's kidnapped. Ian: It is interesting to depict this friendship that feels deep, but you can't quite tell if it's because of Jack's personality or if it's because of Jack's career of only being in town for these little bits delivering pork. Matthew: And maybe this is a reflection of both of them. Wang is so busy running the restaurant and scraping together money. Mm-Hmm. and Jack is just moving from place to place. No real chance to build friendships , when they meet, it's the one time for the two of them to relax a little bit and chat and just have a friend. So maybe that's where this comes from. They're both too busy and distracted by what they're focused on and yet Wang does have a community and has kind of a family around the restaurant. There's, there's an older man who seems to be one of the, the fonts of, of information. And he, I don't know if he's Wang's uncle or who he is to Wang, but he's always there at the restaurant. And there's Eddie who works as the maitre d at the restaurant. There are people that Wang has and that Jack gets introduced to as the story goes on. Ian: But jack is here and Jack is just focusing on, okay, I'll help you. Oh, but the moment that there's a fight that breaks out at the airport, Jack's sense of, of duty and care for people does shine through. He's not the hero, but he's not a bad person. Matthew: Right, right. And so Jack sees himself as a man of action, so he wants to take action when he sees something bad going down. Ian: And in some ways he understands how that could be a good thing and it's needed and he doesn't understand he's not that or he or maybe he does, but he's clinging desperately to the idea that he has to be that. Matthew: Right. Ian: But he, gets in a fight, they drive towards the den of known gangsters to try to get back, Wang's fiancee, Miao Yin. Matthew: , they go to, the Lords of Death's hideout but they wind up in the middle of a standoff between two ancient, , clans, , for lack of a better term, in Chinatown. And here again, we're getting info dumps from Wang because he has to explain to Jack what's going on, and there are the good guys who are there for a funeral, dressed in white, and there are the bad guys dressed in black with red turbans who are attacking the funeral, and they're just in the truck trying not to get killed until the supernatural creatures, beings, Ian: Yeah, the three storms, thunder, rain, and lightning. Matthew: And this is where Jack really starts to freak out because this is the first he's seen of this outright supernatural stuff. But it's not the first we have seen of the outright supernatural stuff because this movie has a prologue. Ian: It has an entire little framing device that is just odd, but interesting. Matthew: We get Egg Shen played by Victor Wong talking to his lawyer and explaining, trying to explain what's happening and the lawyer just wants the facts and Egg keeps bringing up the magic and sorcery because apparently a whole city block blew up into green flame. Ian: A brilliant way to introduce it because you get this person saying an entire city block burst into green flame, green flame, and people say you have something to do with it. And you immediately think, Oh, I'm excited for that climax. Matthew: And Egg just matter of factly explains that, yeah, magic, sorcery, these things are real, and gives a little demonstration that freaks out the lawyer, yes, these things are real. And that tells us both we're in a supernatural story, and it sets us up for the idea that Egg Shen has some supernatural powers. Ian: Yes. He also, intriguingly enough, helps with the weird misdirection by insisting that Jack Burton be left alone and that he's a hero. Matthew: Right. We are in his debt. He is a hero to us. Ian: So what we wind up with is predisposed to knowing Jack Burton will be a hero and a place will blow up. Matthew: So we have had the supernatural parts of this kind of teased for us at the very beginning, but these storms are the first that Jack Burton is seeing of any of that. Ian: And they depict the supernatural with a fun mix of physical. Effects, and the right kind of extremely glowy, special effects. Matthew: Right. they used some animation and things. They used it very judiciously. That's something John Carpenter is good at. Yes. Just enough to make things look heightened and unreal. Ian: And you, you have people do some wire work stunts. You have people pull out some weird weapons and move. Just off enough with their acting and with that tiny bit of animation heightening and things just click into this bizarre bewildering kind of Supernatural fight. I'm just thinking of the motion where we watch the three storms pull out these curved knives Raise their hands, summon the knives up to their hands, and then move to throw, like they're going to throw, and front flip their entire selves before throwing. Matthew: It is both very effective and very theatrical, and already, we have already gotten this really impressive all out martial arts battle with all these fascinating, well choreographed duels within it. And then it jumps by two orders of magnitude when the storms come up and there are thunder, lightning and rain, each with magical powers related to their moniker. Ian: And I will also say it is a giant kung fu fight that happens there that started out with everyone getting ready and then gunfire. Matthew: Yes. So it's a combination of fists and blades and guns. Ian: In some ways, this is going to be a wild sentence, Big Trouble in Little China's combination of wire work, close quarters combat, and gunplay is very, very reminiscent of what The Matrix would later do, where cinema heightening for physical action to create something that looks very unreal. I think I got some very similar natures there. Matthew: Yeah, it looks very unreal. And yet at the same time, it somehow looks very concrete and tangible in context. I never thought about that comparison between the Matrix and Big Trouble in Little China, but you are right. It works perfectly. Ian: Yeah, they do similar things there where they're emphasizing and attempting to create that cohesive style. But having these large groups buy your guns at each other and. then have these massive kung fu fights. And if you notice, no bullets, like damage, the truck, things like that, that makes even the gunplay feel like something that is not separate. It is somehow just as skillful and tactical and powered. Yeah. Yeah, these people can fire a like a trained swordsman. Brandishes a blade kind of thing. Matthew: If a machine gunner or a revolver is one of your chosen weapons, it's still part of your kung fu. It's still something you're going to train in and be that good at. And of course, once the storms show up and they're in the middle of not just a giant kung fu battle, but a supernatural assault. Jack and Wang just try to get out of there first by driving the truck, and they wind up driving over this, like, nine foot ghostly creature who looks like he's from, ancient China. Ian: Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, he drives towards these three storms, these mystical things. Two of them step to the side in two different directions. The third one hops over the truck. The fourth guy, wait, there's a fourth guy, beckons him on and gets hit and goes under. They go in all four directions of the truck, above, below, and left and right. Matthew: And the guy who got hit is standing behind the truck just fine afterwards. Ian: Blowing eyes, attacking back. Matthew: Blinding Jack with his glowing magic eyes. Ian: Don't look, Jack. I looked. Well, don't. Okay, I won't. Matthew: We learn later that is Lo Pan. He's played by James Hong, who is terrific. David Lo Pan. Ian: Amazingness. Matthew: And we saw Lo Pan lurking in that alley when Jack and Wang first Lo Pan was here waiting for something to happen. Knowing something was going to be going down and he needed to be involved in it. And, but we, but we saw him as this. kind of old man who would be easier to ignore, not as this giant regal supernatural being. Ian: Because Lopan is our big bad. Yes. For the story. He is a cursed sorcerer who has been forced to, live as this ancient old man. Or, have his power, but as this incorporeal, ghost. He cannot have both at the same time. Matthew: And one other little detailed note. About Wang and Jack running away from this fight, especially after Lopan blinds Jack temporarily. Is as they are running away from this and from the Lords of Death, because they're crawling through tunnels, Jack ditches I believe it was a scarf he was wearing. Ditches the jacket he was wearing. He strips off more and more of what was his image and what was between him and the world. Ian: Yes, he does. Matthew: That's him finally entering this new world and being fully exposed to it. I love that little detail. Ian: That's another thing like Jack's outfit and the way Wang is positioned in the room and in everything else keeps shifting as another one of those like there's this deep visual that John Carpenter is using every bit of his skill making this film. And maybe it's just because I love but there's all the things I notice in every rewatch of future references or through lines of visual storytelling that emphasize the actual dialogue and everything else. Matthew: I've got to say I really like the saddlebag style satchel that Jack has got. Ian: Yes. Matthew: If I ever have to replace my leather satchel, I want something like that, because it looks cool, and it looks easy to carry, so. Ian: You kidding me? What I want are Jack's ridiculously good boots. Matthew: Oh, yes. Ian: got these tall, leather boots, like these custom moccasin boots, and you've got to imagine, a guy for whom he's driving his truck all the time. But can also do all this running around and fighting that's a useful thing a good pair of shoes is important But these boots are like up his calves and have this wide pocket where he stores a gigantic knife Matthew: Those are cool boots. Ian: Those are cool boots. I'm like, this is some pretty interesting stuff Matthew: But so Wang and Jack make it out with their lives Just barely. Ian: But they didn't save Miao Yin. Matthew: They didn't save Miao Yin, and now they've lost Jack's truck. So they go back to the restaurant to regroup, and also to learn more. And this is where we get more info dumps. From Uncle Chu. And I think we also get some information from, no, I think it's later. We get more information from, uh, egg Shen, but yeah, eggshen comes later, but this is when Gracie law shows up. Yes. We get Gracie law and Margo Litzenberger shows up soon after that. And Gracie law, we had met briefly at the airport. She is a, an activist lawyer helping people who are immigrating into the U S and making sure people are not exploited. Gracie law is played by. Kim Cattrall, and Margo is played by Kate Burton, no relation to Jack Burton, and, a p Reporter with a small newspaper who is desperate for a story and, Gracie Law has been desperate to get anybody in the press interested in what she's doing, so they're working together. They're good with info dumps, too. It's not just the people in the Chinese American community who are into the info dumps, because Gracie, and especially Margot, they speak in full expository paragraphs. Ian: They are shown to be part of the community. They are the law helping people come here. They are the news helping facilitate the communication. They are part of the Chinatown and its little environment. It keeps Jack Burton the outsider. Matthew: And yet Wang, when he tells Jack who Gracie is, tells her, you know, Don't mess with her. She's trouble. She's always stirring things up. So, it's not like she is totally understood and welcomed and considered a positive in this community by everybody. But it's, but that Ian: seems to be for what she does, not who she is. True. And that's an important part. I'd like to point out Matthew: that that is a good point. She's just an annoying person. It's not doesn't mean that she does is invaluable. But exactly. But the way that she and Margo talk, especially Margo, it that's something else that I find so funny because it is it's so artificial. It is so we need to dump this information on the audience. So here this person is going to speak for two paragraphs. And yet it comes across as this character's personality. It doesn't come across as the writer reaching through to. Throw information at us. It's oh now I see why they're kind of annoyed by her because when she gets started She gives you half of the history of this part of Chinatown Whether you want it or not, and then she takes a breath and we can get on with what we were doing Ian: And I will say I call this out for a lot of action movies. I think are good. This is so much like a good tabletop role playing game campaign. Oh, it's with our main characters here going from fight to fight and literally in between everyone sits around a table and plans out what to do next and gives the exposition. It lands so well, but we wind up with this crew of six characters. And I can imagine the people playing them on a tabletop game with Jack and Gracie, Wang, Egg, Marco, and Eddie as this crew of six. playing, their characters and going through the story. Matthew: I'm starting to think maybe that what we think of as a really good tabletop role playing game is something that has all the hallmarks of a good action adventure movie. Ian: Yes, Matthew: which is how I've approached RPGs for so long, but you're right, it has that and it's a great setting in which you could tell a lot of stories beyond the one that we get here. And yeah, it's it allows a bunch of characters with different characteristics, with different specialties, with different things to contribute to work together And what we learn from Gracie and Margo is that the Lords of Death probably took. Miao Yin to the white tiger is Chinatown brothel for a quick sale as Margo puts it and And this is where we have to acknowledge that there are some things that do not age Well that weren't great in the first place about this movie. Yeah way that human trafficking and slavery prostitution are plot points And story beats and kind of just treated as MacGuffins. I recoil when I see that in this movie now. But yeah, they are used as things to drive the story. And while we're talking about that. There's always this concern when, non Chinese American writers and filmmakers are making a story like this. But from everything I have read, and when I say a story like this, a story that is set in a Chinese or Chinese American culture, from everything that I have read, that was recognized as an issue by the people behind this movie, and they took it. Did everything they could, or they took steps at least, to try to make sure that they represented this well and properly. There had been a movie, a while before called Year of the Dragon, which got a lot of criticism for the way it. Portrayed the Chinese American community and they didn't want to do that when they were making big trouble in Little China Even though it was non chinese people who are writing in it was John Carpenter directing it they met with leaders in that community They worked with agents who specifically represented Asian American actors and worked with the actors to make sure these were characters They could understand and respect and and be be happy about playing. So Uh, it's, it's worth mentioning given who, all the people who were behind this movie and the storyline of this movie and the, the setting of this movie that, yeah, they were, they were taking a lot of steps to get that right. But we still get things like human trafficking as MacGuffin. Which yeah, that's that has more to do with lack of sensitivity about some of these things in the 80s than it does with these filmmakers creating something in this setting, I think, but, but that leads us to another confrontation because they have this goofy, plan to infiltrate the white tiger and send Jack in there in the guise of some out of town yokel to try to find out what's happening and where Miao Yin is And spring her Ian: before any of that plan can really get get far. Uh huh. The storms break in and steal Malian. Matthew: Yes, because the Lords of Death did not kidnap Miao Yin on behalf of of Lo Pan. But apparently Lo Pan wants Miao Yin. So he sent the storms to get her Ian: because she has green eyes and it is part of a. Uh huh. A magic ritual and spell that he can use to regain his full power. Matthew: And it's after this that we get the big supernatural info dump. Ian: Yes. Matthew: From Egg Shen about Luo Pan. How he was an ancient figure an evil sorcerer in ancient China and a thousand, two thousand years ago he was cursed by the first sovereign emperor with the curse of no flesh. So essentially he was a living ghost. But there is a ritual that he can perform to gain his power back, to gain flesh and blood back, and to rule for eternity. And, yeah, he has to marry a girl with green eyes to appease one of the gods who's responsible for this curse. And then he has to sacrifice her to appease the first sovereign emperor in his spirit. So he has to find a girl with green eyes, marry her, and then sacrifice her. And he has tried this apparently several times over the last thousand years or so, but there is a ritual that the girls he's done this with in the past have not survived. So, either way, things are not good for Miao Yin unless she is rescued. Ian: Yeah, I will say that, Miao Yin becomes so much more MacGuffin in there and it's not good, but. The threat and danger to her is made very real and there is a, a ticking clock of a narrative that is very well established in that. Matthew: And it also gives us some escalation. from the confrontation at the airport. We've got this young woman who needs to be rescued, and that's one of the stakes. And now we learn it's not just that, but it's also like the fate of the world, and maybe the universe, if Lopan regains his power. So it's not just rescuing her, as important as that is, but it's also preventing Lopan from, from rising again to do evil. Ian: Yeah, because a powered low pen is a danger to everyone and everything Matthew: and in addition to that history Just as we've raised the stakes We raise the weirdness and the depth of the setting from that speech and from that discussion we get from egg because he talks about the rich combination of influences Chinese culture has when you've got You Confucianism and Taoism and Taoist alchemy, as he puts it and, uh, and Buddhism and all this ancient history and all of these come together and all of them go with the Chinese people. So they are as real here in San Francisco as they are anywhere in Asia. Ian: Yeah, China is here, Jack. Matthew: Yes, China is here. It comes with us. It's more of that sense of there are things we cannot even imagine right under our feet, right under our noses. I love that. Ian: And it all, Egg has this interesting kind of presentation of this. Chaotic wild man who spends his whose day job is doing tour guide Matthew: Yeah, he drives a tour bus and this is what Victor Wong is so good at he's just this little Schlubby kind of guy, and yet he can have this intensity and you can tell from the way the other characters respond to him. He is the person with the power and the lore. He is a white magician. A white sourcer, a good magician who they have to rely upon to keep these forces of evil at bay. Ian: Mm-Hmm. and him just like eating at the restaurant, explaining all this like, , well, this is, this is how it is. Right. He sets that tone so perfectly. Matthew: Right. He's like, he's saying these things, he doesn't care that much if you believe them. Because he knows they're true. Ian: Yeah. It's like, whether or not you believe doesn't change it. This is it. And, they know now that it's somewhere in Lopan's, warehouse, because he runs this giant shipping company. Matthew: Right. We learned from one of these info dumps from Gracie and Margo that, he's this reclusive multi millionaire who runs an import export business and nobody ever sees him. Ian: I wonder why. Matthew: So we have another infiltration operation where, Wang and Jack are going in as, telephone repair people and blowing past the guards with a line of fast talk and infiltrating the place and thinking that they're succeeding for far too long. Ian: Yeah. But as they go in and go down, Matthew: yes, Ian: the place gets weirder. And suddenly this supernatural stuff, which is already there, comes to more fruition as we learn that underneath this, business front is this giant palace of, winding rooms and ancient magical, artifacts and everything else. This giant dungeon And they fight their way through to some extent. But not very successfully, Matthew: They are captured. They escape. And again, I watch this now and I think there's so many places where, okay, he needs to make a strength roll, not to die here. Does he do? Yes, he does. All these very clever traps and tricks and chambers and prisons and things that they have to deal with. They are so rich. And so So evocative, even if we see them for just a few seconds at a time, it's good design and it's good pacing of the story that you can see how complex and weird this world is, even without dragging it down to, to a slow pace so we can see everything. Ian: And there's a whole lot of stuff that implies that they are constantly defeating invasions and attacks. Be that the simple ones where there are two security guards out front, or The trapped elevators that flood the place and deposit our hero and his sidekick that doesn't know he's the sidekick, Jack Burton, deposit them into flooded rooms full of corpses. Matthew: Yes. Ian: It's like, they are not the first to try, but maybe they're the first to succeed. Matthew: And some of these places are explained as they go along to Jack as, well, this is the hell of the upside down people and this says you're going to be put into the, the hell of being skinned alive. But I think it's Eddie who says at some point, yeah, Chinese got a lot of hells. Ian: Yes. That's one of those lines that comes back a couple of times . There's oddly specific and varied ones to send someone to. Matthew: And as part of this infiltration effort, when they are captured, Jack and Wang meet David Lopan. Ian: Yes! Matthew: But he's not the nine foot tall ghostly sorcerer they drove over with the truck earlier. He's this ancient seeming old man in a wheelchair. Mentally sharp, but absolutely Physically decrepit, but he's cackling and he gives them another info dump about the fact that he needs to marry the girl with green eyes and sacrifice her and that's where they get a lot of the detail about what Lo Pan needs and why he kidnapped, Miao Yin, but they are captured , they're put in these prisons and things, but eventually, Eddie comes in, and Gracie and the bunch of them managed to escape and to free all the other girls who are held prisoner. I'm not entirely sure why, but have been held prisoner in Lo Pan's place. Yeah. Unless he is. Involved in international human trafficking as well. Ian: Kind of imply he's involved in everything shady and unshady possible, Matthew: I guess so Yeah, and maybe he's part of what's supplying the the white tiger in which case why did he have to break through their roof with the storms to get Miao Yin, but They they're there. This is one detail they're light on but he's a enough of a bad guy. It's not at all Surprising Ian: Yeah, and I will say that the storms are depicted more as blunt objects than they are as, as the clever things. There is definitely an element of like, throw the storms at something and it will get done, but it's going to be a ball of green flame. That thing talked about in the beginning. That was the white tiger's facility exploding. All of the rest of this infiltration and such is after what the movie hinted and faked you out in thinking would be the grand climax. Matthew: Right, right. And so much more after that. Ian: So much more after that. Over 50 percent of the movie, I'd say, is after that point. So, if you hear that beginning and go, Oh, I can't wait. They are absolutely catching you with the next part. Matthew: So they managed to escape. They managed to free all of these women who have been held prisoner here and drive away in Egg's tour bus. But they don't rescue Miao Yin. Yeah. Because she is still in some inner chamber. Imprisoned by, Lo Pan. And Gracie is captured as well. At the very last moment, as everybody is making their escape, this door opens. Monstrous hand comes out and grabs Gracie and they realize as they're driving away. We survived. We freed all these people, but where's Miao Yin? Where's Gracie? And we learn from scenes with Lo Pan in his inner sanctum. He realizes, Oh, there's another girl here and she's got green eyes as well. I'll marry them both. That way I can sacrifice one and still have the other. And then back on the outside, , they plan, not this weird infiltration mission, which has now failed twice, but they plan to do things Egg Shen's way. And he is now the leader. Ian: He is the leader. And his answer is to go the furthest down they ever have, and then come up, kind of catch Lopan from the other direction. And this results in this. moment where we see Egg Shen's, giant alchemical warehouse full of his magical tools and artifacts, which he loads up a bag of. Matthew: And they've got a whole bunch of, um, a whole bunch of good guy warriors from one of the groups who we saw in the fight earlier. Yes. And they have this trek through the depths underneath Chinatown. Ian: Yes, which is this wild, like, almost, almost painterly, mystical place at times. Matthew: Right, there's no question now, you are in another world here. And here, again, Egg is explaining to Jack that, Thousand years ago, great earthquakes stirred up the earth and, many good souls were lost and many evil things came to the surface and they have to, like, deal with dragons and skirt around pools filled full of the black blood of the earth. What's that? What's the black blood of the earth? Ian: You mean oil? No, I mean black blood of the earth. I think that the best moment of all of that is the, it'll come out. No more . A giant thing. A giant thing comes outta a cave. Grabs one of the warriors. Egg throws magic powder. Something causes a little explosion. It'll come out no more. Everyone else keeps moving. Jack is freaking out. What? What'll come out? No, like, like the level of out he is of from his depth is at its maximum. He cannot go further from his own depth at this point. Yeah. Matthew: Until now, he has still been in denial. About all of the supernatural stuff. It's been yes. Well, yeah, of course this you might have the same name and you might be saying this is David Lo Pan, but I know this is not the same guy as the guy drove over in my truck because this guy is in a wheelchair. He saw the storms attack, the white tiger, but he still figured it was some kind of weaponry or something. It seems like those last defenses are finally broken down during this trek when he's confronted with dragons and things like that. Ian: Yes, finally gets through to him. Matthew: And it works in that they end up in the, basement storage room in Lopan's, citadel underneath his import export business. So they've successfully infiltrated while everything in the hidden palace is being prepared for the wedding. Ian: And now time to work, work his way up and get ready for the fight. Matthew: Right, because they have to find Lopan and rescue the ladies. Ian: And we've seen Jack not really be great in a fight multiple times. Matthew: When he and Wang and Eddie were fighting their way out of Lopan's place in the first instance. Wang has amazing Kung Fu. Ian: Yes! Matthew: He is incredibly skilled, and he takes out a dozen guys all on his own, while Jack is just, Dropping his knife and going to try to grab it and and and coming back to fight when everybody's already down And this is where if you had didn't know and before then that Jack is not the hero of this story That should make it very clear. Ian: He is not the hero. Matthew: Jack is the witness Jack Jack contributes, but Jack is not a determining factor in most of this but If you Ian: really didn't know that, after the entire thing, getting all ready, they drink their magic potion and go up to the final fight. Jack, I mean, this is a wonderful, a spoiler for a wonderful scene, I will say, Jack is out of commission. Matthew: I love the magic potion though, by the way, it's one of the things that there's so much stuff that egg. Brought with him and explains to Jack when Jack asks and Jack increasingly is just sure. Great. You know, we've got the magic potion. What do we do? Drink it? Yeah. Oh, good. That's a six demon bag. Oh, the six demon bags sensational. What's that? Wind, fire, all that kind of thing. Ian: Cool. Honestly, like that, that's a moment of like, perfect. Like they are a team now. It's like what's in the bottle magic potion. Good. Thought so. What do we do? Drink it? Thought so. Good. Yes! Matthew: But yeah, the magic potion, the six demon bag, and the fact that the magic potion just seems to give everybody a huge buzz. Ian: Huge buzz. That's one of those things, like, We've been increasingly getting more and more fantastical. And what is the magic potion at the end? It's something that is absolutely understandable in our real world. Like, it's all like, see things no one else can see, do things no one else can do. Huge buzz. Matthew: That's what it is. Right. Like, and it makes everybody super confident. Ian: It takes this wild, magical world that we're being constantly told is part of our world and re sandwiches it, reattaches it to reality in that sense. Matthew: Right. All this supernatural stuff is just as concrete as any other part of your world. This is just the world that these folks live. So, Ian: the magic potion has some effects, but one of its things is just That confident huge buzz that Matthew: I feel kind of invincible Ian: It's grounding, and it sounds weird to say that this fantasy action thing pulls more of its grand and wild energy with a moment of severe grounding like that. But it makes every other fantastical thing that's happened kind of understandable. It's no longer separate, it's just part of reality. And so going into this massive fight with that baseline reset is so perfect. Matthew: You're right. It gives us a reset, gives us a status, and there is actual fighting that needs to happen. You know, that's why we brought all these warriors as well as, uh, Eggshan and his magic. Ian: And then the first thing Jack does is fire his gun in the air, yell a battle cry, and get knocked unconscious. Matthew: Between that and the one guard that he takes out falls on top of him. And that knocks him out of commission. So the whole battle is, is Ian: Everybody else. Matthew: Everybody else. All the other fighters they brought. And, Wang spends most of the fight in a duel against lightning, one of the storms. And it's Egg Shen versus Lo Pan, the good and evil sorcerers with this very cool kind of video game y sorcerer battle where their beams of light represent, swordsmen who are fighting one another. Very cool. Ian: And we get, like, every single one of these fights are interesting combat things, but Egg Shen! Obviously puts Lopan on the ropes and Lopan runs from him. Shen is a danger to Lopan. Matthew: Lopan is very confident at first, but that confidence is shaken very quickly and he runs away and he runs away with Miao Yin. Jack finally, gets free of his various impediments and manages to save Gracie. But we also have to back up and acknowledge the most D& D thing in this entire movie, which is the fact there is a beholder. Ian: Yes, there is. It is just a beholder. I don't know. Matthew: I kind of don't know how they got away with this. It is practically based on the The illustration from the Monster Manual with this little floating orb with all the covered in eyes and Egg Shen explains that what it sees, Lopan knows like, yeah, okay, I've read that. I think I've had a character who cast that spell. Ian: I also do like the fact that the thing apparently acts as a two way radio. Matthew: Yes, that's right. Lopan talks to Egg Shen through that early on and says, you can't stop me and gives his various bad guy gloating. Ian: Which I will say, another funny thing is, it means that you get to see Lo Pan, in his little philosophical musings, open up a call in a way that is a little bit similar to the way we see Jack Burton calling out on his radio in his truck. Calling out to whoever is listening, and then giving his little philosophical things. It ties them together. Lo Pan uses his beholder the same way Jack uses his radio. And we get to see that, which kind of makes them parallel. Matthew: Yeah, overconfident, but doomed not to be the decisive people. Yeah, interesting. And I always thought of Egg Shen and Lo Pan being the, the parallel characters. But yeah, there's some of Jack Burton and Lo Pan. Ian: Well, Lo Pan is what happens if you put. Egg Shen's abilities into a Jack Burton like mind. But, this all comes together with a final battle between the now, revived Lopan. Matthew: Yes, because he got through enough of the ceremony to have flesh and blood. And that was one of the problems, you couldn't just shoot him because he was a ghost. Ian: You could hit him with a truck and nothing happens. Matthew: Right. But now he's got flesh and blood, which he needs to begin his reign again, but it also makes him vulnerable Ian: the bet from the very beginning becomes the final moment for low pan as the exact same reflex trick that Jack Burton was able to, use during his bet With Wang comes into play and defeats Lopan. Matthew: Yeah, that was a nice little bit of foreshadowing where the one thing Jack has said and sort of proven was it's all in the reflexes. Ian: But that kind of ties it all together, right? Matthew: And he catches a knife that that Lo Pan throws at him and throws it back instantly, Ian: which is his own knife, actually, because he failed to throw it before. Matthew: Yeah, his first attempt to throw the knife at Lo Pan was kind of lame. And, and even in that scene, they make it so clear that Jack is not supposed to be the hero. Jack He may do something heroic at the end, but he's still the buffoon when he rescues Gracie, and she is still under the influence of the magic spell that had her hypnotized for the wedding, and he's still under the influence of the magic potion. They wind up riding in this elevator as they're chasing Lo Pan, and next thing you know, they're making out. Yes. But that means that for the, he's got this messy lipstick all over his face during this, all these important final scenes here, it, they just point out, you know, he's a goofball. He thinks he's everything that all heroes expect themselves to be. And no, he's very human and very goofy. Ian: Yeah. Oh goodness. I'm just remembering that and just seeing it every time where he's like, got the lipstick all over himself and it has to be wiped off. So excellent. So with Lopan dead, thunder blew himself up out of, distress for Lopan's death. Running from lightning, and, Escaping out of the entirety of, grand warehouses. I will say, one of the fun moments, and it's something I did have to look up to know, when they do finally drop a Buddha statue on Lightning's head and defeat him, his lightning flares into the air for one little moment, and if you watch for the last frames, makes a Chinese character. And the character it makes is Carpenter. Matthew: Oh, nice. Ian: A little signature from John Carpenter. Matthew: That's cool. I like the visuals of that, where as he is hit in the head by the statue and falls through the hole, his, the lightning is kind of scattered around and it drains down through that hole like a pool. The way it's physically connected to him and his body. I love the way that's presented in the animation. Ian: Once again, even for the death scenes, the physicality of all of the magic is important. Magic is not just animation. It is always things being done. Emphasized with animation and the so important Matthew: the one place where that is a little bit distracting is in the death of thunder because we've seen before he has the ability to like inflate himself to huge muscular size and once his master is dead he commits suicide by inflating himself and not stopping until he blows up and that we get a few shots of a Of a rubber doll being inflated. And it works, but it's a little distracting only because it's the most unnatural we've seen any of the human characters of the humanoid characters. But, uh, but it's still pretty impressive, and the other character's reaction to it still sells it. Ian: It does. There's so much of this, like, this escape back up, which drags on everything. As they go layer by layer, it just becomes people running. Matthew: Right, and as you were pointing out, now they're going up. So they're returning, they're re emerging into the real world, and the final piece of the real world, what really cements it, is they find Jack's truck. Apparently that was stolen by Lo Pan, and that's been in a Lo Pan garage, so they're able to use that to load everybody up and drive away. Ian: Yeah, they drive away, and they escape back to Wang's Restaurant, and they're all there celebrating a party. They've defeated the sorcerer Lo Pan. Matthew: And Miao Yin and Wang are reunited, Margo and Eddie appear to be together, or, or soon to be, because Eddie's had a crush on Margo forever, and Margo's kind of noticing that. Ian: Wang and Miao Yin are getting ready to be married, Eddie and Margo seem to do a thing, Egg goes off on vacation. Yes. Because he finally deserves it. You kind of get the feeling Egg's been there, like, keeping Lo Pan in check for a long while. Matthew: Right he was the local magician. advisor, cleric for this community, but his real post there was to keep tabs on low pan and to fight him when the day comes and now it's come and gone. So he's going to go for on a vacation like you say, but not back to China. Ian: No, Matthew: because he reemphasizes China is in the heart China's with me wherever I go. Ian: And Gracie. offers to join Jack. Matthew: Yeah, she is definitely taken with Jack and he's kind of taken with her but he doesn't bring her with him and he doesn't stick around. Ian: Yeah, he kind of says, I don't know, my place is out there on the road. Yeah, and pretty, Matthew: sooner or later I rub everybody the wrong way. Ian: Yeah, and he sets off, and it ends with Jack in possibly a similar place to where he started, but we can hope a little bit more understanding and a little bit, little bit broader perspective. Matthew: And and yeah, Jack has been changed by what he's been through. He's part of a bigger world now. And we get a concrete symbol of that, that he could not leave all of this behind. The very final tag, we see the giant hairy monster who kidnapped Gracie in the earlier infiltration. He's apparently grabbed onto Jack's truck and is hiding in the hitch in the back. Ian: Come with him. Matthew: Yeah, Jack has brought some of this supernatural world and some of this supernatural peril out with him and he can't really escape it. Ian: And it's also interesting to just note something. Jack's initial story out to the people, his initial po, his initial, like a radio message. He has this very comedic bit about, if a man is threatening you. Have you paid your dues, Jack? It's, uh, yes, sir. The check is in the mail. It's this bravado, in this grandeur of trying to be this man of action, but his actual advice is this. Don't fight it acquiesce back away. Yeah, and as he's leaving his responses when the lightnings flashing and the thunders coming at you You know fight it off like you can handle it. He kind of becomes the man He wanted to be in the end a little he's ready to die Take on the fight. Matthew: Yeah, he's just a little more. Ian: He's kind of grown to be able to deal with what's coming at him instead of just putting on a front. He's become the man he wanted to be in that sense. And I think that's a good sign. Matthew: He's still not matured enough to deal with an actual grownup relationship. So he runs away from Gracie. But, but there is something that has grown about him and something that where he has taken that step forward. Ian: Exactly. Matthew: And that leaves us with the question of, well, who is Jack now and where is he headed? But I think that is going to be something that we have to address in final questions Ian: Correct Matthew: as well as a question about is this movie a revival of something else But we'll come back to those questions. But first A brief message that if you are enjoying the Intermillennium Media Project podcast, and you want to support the podcast, there are a few ways to do that. You can go to our Patreon and you can join there to get additional bonus audio content. Or you can join at the Movie Club level and get the occasional special surprise DVD in the mail. So you can watch along. Ian: Want to experience what I do? Get a movie. That we'll be watching something that you might not have seen or maybe something that like my dad you know from when you were growing up and Experience it again and watch it with us. Matthew: So you can join the movie club You can just join as a content companion to get bonus content for three dollars a month Or you can just follow us on patreon at no charge. Just keep track of what it is We're doing and if you want even more of the IMMP, you can go to imm project.com where you will get all of our back episodes and also a link to that Patreon. And, and that's, Ian: that's 149. And bonus episodes on our website. That's true. Matthew: That is true. We've got some bonuses there as well. And you'll also find there a link to our Discord. We'd love to hear from you there or from you on the contact page where you can email us or send us honest to goodness physical mail by the U. S. Postal Service. And you will also there find a link to our shop if you like things like groovy coffee mugs or t shirts. Not just with the IMMP logo, but also celebrating, Kosho, our favorite sport for ex spies. Ian: Yes. Matthew: Or if you want to ask the ever popular question from Space 1999 episode, who cares about Phobos? Ian: Phobos? Matthew: And there are more designs coming there as well. Ian: Absolutely. Matthew: But the best thing you can do to support the podcast is tell people about it. Keep subscribing, keep listening, give us five star ratings wherever you can and let your friends know about it so they'll listen as well. And Ian, where can people find you online? I Ian: can be found as ItemCraftingMostPlaces, be that ItemCrafting. com or ItemCraftingLive on Twitch. Come see me play Myst and Riven, come chat with me about movies that we've watched on the podcast. I'm always happy to, to discuss. Matthew: And you can find me at ByMatthewPorter. com. You'll find links to anything I'm doing online, like this podcast, or like the Drafthouse Diaries and other things on my YouTube channel, where I review movies and travel destinations and, and other strange things that find their way into my life. And one final special announcement for the Intermillennium Media Project, we have another live show coming up. Yes! At this year's Nan Desu Kan in Aurora, Colorado, on Saturday, August 31st. It's going to be at 11 a. m. You do need a badge for the convention to attend. So if you're in the Colorado area, you're interested in anime, you're interested in cartoons, by all means, come to see us at Nan Desu Kan. And if you can't make it to the convention, you're not in Colorado, that content will be on the podcast in short order. But we hope to see you there. Ian: We hope to see you there. Come say hi, get a sticker, tell us what episode was your favorite. Matthew: Should we tell them what the, uh, the live show is about? Ian: I think we can. I think we can do it. Matthew: Well, get your engine started, because this is going to be the IMMP vs. Speed Racer. Ian: Speed Racer! The Racer of Speed! Yes! I'm excited. That should be fun. That's gonna be excellent. Matthew: So, so big trouble in little China. Now our first, our first question, of course, is screen or no screen. Yeah. Ian: Screen. Matthew: Absolutely. Ian: Screen it. Matthew: Why, why are you, why are you not screening now? Why are you listening to us? Screen this movie. Watch this movie. Ian: Okay. You're gonna finish listening to the episode. Then you're gonna screen the movie. Then you're gonna come back and re listen to the episode. Because you'll wanna hear all of our discussion and such after you've watched it so it's fresh and then you might want to go back to see the movie because hopefully we've sold it on you twice. Matthew: And then you're going to let us know on our discord or you're going to send us an email. Let us know what do you think of the movie? Did we miss something about the movie that we should have talked about? This is one of those movies we could have spent hours and hours talking about this movie. We're trying to keep it to a normal podcast length. But we'd love to hear what you folks take from it. And, do you like this movie? What do you like about it? Mm hmm. So this is definitely a screen. Ian: This is definitely a screen. The next bits are interesting. Matthew: They are. Because our usual question is Revive, Reboot, or Rest in Peace? And in our terms, revival means another story in the same continuity. It can be a prequel, it can be a sequel. Do we want more of this? And a reboot is a remake. It's starting fresh with the same ideas. And Rest in Peace, of course, is, no, let it be what it is. But in talking about the idea of revival, We have to address something, this idea that's out there, an incorrect idea, but it's an interesting one. And that is that some people thinking that this movie was originally intended to be a sequel of another movie. Ian: What? Matthew: Another movie that's very important to you and me, but we have not yet talked about on the podcast. Ian: Oh, is this a movie from about two years earlier? Matthew: Yes. Ian: Oh, I see what you mean. Matthew: There are people who look at this movie and, and there are some reasons why, but they, they think that this movie began, the idea for this movie began life as a sequel to The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai. Ian: Yes. Matthew: And I can understand why, there's a few reasons, one is just tone and style, Buckaroo Banzai not involving John Carpenter, but it, there, there is a style, there is a tone, there is a. Concrete weirdness sort of vibe to this movie that is shared with Buckaroo Banzai. And there is also the fact that W. D. Richter who has the adaptation by writing credit for Big Trouble in Little China was the director and producer of The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension. So people see that connection and they think, Oh, These movies go together, and somehow the story began that this was originally intended as a sequel to Buckaroo Banzai was not popular enough, so they reworked it to make it a standalone movie. The actual story is more interesting, I think. And that is that this movie, the screenplay, was originally written by a guy named Gary Goldman and his partner in writing David Z. Weinstein. And it was originally written to be set in, like, the 1880s in San Francisco. Ian: Oh my goodness, that would have been different. Matthew: It was a Weird West movie. Before that was as big a thing as it is today. I think you could make that movie. You could make this movie set in 1880s San Francisco. Ian: Oh, you could. Matthew: But in the 80s, in the 1980s, it was a little bit too much The way Richter put it in an interview is that you were essentially you were asking The audience to take two steps removal you were asking them to deal with a world that was set a hundred years But in the past and that's one step and then you were asking them to take a further step into this supernatural world Which was another and it disconnected the audience from their experience a little too much. So let's just take one of those steps today I think you get get away with it. You've got Red Dead Redemption. You've got things like cowboys and aliens I think people are more More accepting of that kind of genre blending, but I can understand the resistance to that in the 1980s, but that would have been fascinating. Ian: It would have been, that would, oh. Matthew: And Richter came in, and uh, the studio brought him in to rewrite it, and the studio actually wanted him to get the writing credit, but it went to WGA, Writers Guilt of America Arbitration, and there was still enough of the original script in there that the original screenwriters got the writing credit, and Richter got the adaptation by credit. Which is odd, it was an adaptation, but it was an adaptation of a screenplay by the writers who got the writing credit. Ian: And it's interesting to know why they were in such a hurry and trying to do what they were doing to some extent. Matthew: Yes. Ian: Because 20th Century Fox was trying to, and they succeeded in getting this out before, they got this out in July, but they were trying to compete with Paramount's The Golden Child, released in December of that year. Matthew: And that's another movie we haven't talked about, but I think we will in the near future. Ian: Yeah. Both of those films, it's like, this movie is so good. It's caught in this weird web between the two, these two other films, right? Matthew: And the Golden Child, another movie that involves real world activity driven by the needs of a Chinese mysticism. So I can see where these were taken as competitors to one another. And it's one of the reasons why the studio hired John Carpenter, where he's, he was known for working fast and effectively. Yeah. Absolutely. So this movie could have been so different if they had gone with the original screenplay, if they, if they had hired some other director than John Carpenter, it would have had a very different tone. I don't know that anybody else would have been able to, to put together this exact combination of style that Carpenter could. And the casting could have been very different. The Golden Child, which they saw as their competition, had an Eddie Murphy, top of Hollywood, movie star at the time. So they were looking for movie stars to star in Big Trouble in Little China. They considered people like Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson. Ian: What in the world? Matthew: And this would have been so different. They're so much older. Clint Eastwood could have pulled this off, but it would have been a very different movie. And I'm thinking about some of the other things that Clint Eastwood had been in. Especially some of those 80s weird comedies like, Every Which Way But Loose. A Clint Eastwood version of Big Trouble in Little China would have been very different, but could have been interesting. Especially if it was directed by John Carpenter. But Jack Nicholson, I don't see that working. Ian: I don't quite see it working, yeah. Matthew: But, but Kurt Russell had worked with John Carpenter before. He was seen as kind of an up and coming movie star. They decided to go with him, and He's the one who realized that Jack Burton is not the hero, but thinks he is, and he plays that so well throughout the movie. Ian: It feels like everyone on set understood the actual dynamic between Jack and the rest of the crew in terms of, who is what and and what the skills are. And I have seen plenty of posts that do not get that online. And that's where I like the reinforcement of he is not the hero. Matthew: No, he is not. And that's what's great about this movie. One of the things that's great is that it subverts that whole white savior idea. If you could do with the same exact screenplay and a different actor and different direction, you could have this as the movie of, yeah, there's, there's this problem. And there's this supernatural crisis in Chinatown. And then there's this, Strong, tough, confident white guy who drives his truck in and sorts it out for everybody else. And that's not what we get, because that would have been boring. It would have been done a million times before. It would have been, it would have been Just it would not have contributed anything, but instead we get the the audience surrogate fish out of water Who's barely competent enough to survive all of this who contributes in the clutch? After he's learned a tremendous amount from the people around him. That is such a better movie than they could have made Ian: This is about, this is about a, a push and pull that has been happening for centuries. And if Jack is anything, he's the man who is too unaware to realize that he has just tipped the scales and caused a thousands of years of tension to finally come to fruition. Matthew: Yes. Ian: And everyone else is cleaning up the The break in the balance that he has caused. Matthew: So, so yeah, this movie stands alone. It is not a sequel to anything else. But that still leaves us with the question of what we would like to see. Do we want a sequel or a prequel? Ian: And it leaves us with acknowledging the attempt at doing so already. Matthew: Yes. Ian: Big Trouble in Little China did not do well in the box office, but it has been a cult classic. Since release on video and it has been one of these films that has grown over the years in its popularity as more and more people have found it well after its original airing. Yeah. But it has grown large enough that it has gotten multiple comic book series continuing the stories. And these are comic books with John Carpenter's approval. Matthew: Yep. And I've read at least a few issues of one of those. And. And it was pretty good. Ian: Uh, yeah. Matthew: It was a little more tied into the original story than I kind of expected or necessarily would have looked for. I'd be interested in just the other adventures. Of Jack Burton or the other egg adventures of um, Wang Chen. Ian: Yeah, and if you really wanted more story this has gotten a full board game. Which is like, The further adventures of other fights they might have had, other stories, other little narratives. I've heard so wild, weird, mixed things about the board game, but it's there? It exists? Matthew: Board games based on movies were kind of a thing in the 80s. It's like any movie that they expected to make a splash got a board game. Be it Dune or Big Trouble in Little China or Michael Mann's The Keep. So many weird movie board games at the time. Ian: Absolutely, but I need to point out This board game came out in, let me see, 2018. Matthew: Okay, so they were reaching back into the 80s trend for the 80s movie. Ian: This is the Boom Studios, the movie has gotten so big and popular. That it now has a market for an entire miniatures extravaganza Kickstarter board game. Matthew: Okay, I don't necessarily stand corrected. I just stand weirded out because it's still a board game for an 80s movie. It just took them a few decades to get there. Ian: Yeah, I like what you're talking about. Like, it looks like a Dungeons and Dragons thing. There's a little tiny miniature of their beholder. Matthew: Oh, great. Great. I love Ian: that. And just the fact that this board game exists is wild and bewildering to me and I kind of wish I'd bought a copy back in the day. Matthew: But yeah, when it comes to revive, reboot or rest in peace and the comic books are worth taking a look at. If you like this movie, I, I might've been really interested in a sequel to this in around 1990. It was early enough soon enough after the movie early enough that Kurt Russell could still play that young Jack Burton. I don't know that I want anything like that now. I mean, I suppose there could be an interesting story around an older Jack Burton still played by Kurt Russell when, I mean, the Lo Pan story went back thousands of years. Maybe there's some new dimension of it a few decades later and Jack Burton and his friends are involved. Ian: I also, though, there has been talk and every time the talk comes up a bit, there was a, there was discussion of, uh. sequel or remake being made with, Dwayne Johnson? Matthew: Yes, there's talk of a, remake. I don't know. What was that considered, uh, as a possible sequel earlier? Ian: It was done as everything. And I, it's weird that I'm saying I feel glad that the acquisition of Fox by Disney put it on the back burner. Because that's the sort of like, my response is honestly concern. I'm worried that if you poke this too much or if you don't understand how to approach it right, you can mess this so much in the wrong way. Absolutely. It's a careful balance. Matthew: Especially if the idea is to have Johnson play Jack Burton. Because I can't see, I can't see Johnson being willing to or being good at playing the non hero buffoon, the overconfident goofball that makes Jack Burton who Jack Burton is. I, I, I keep thinking that a, a Dwayne Johnson version of this would be what this avoided being, which is just another movie in which a strong guy comes in and sorts things out for other people. So yeah, I'm not, I am not disappointed that the Dwayne Johnson version has not been made and is not currently looking like it's active. I, eventually I could see the right actor and the right director making an interesting remake of this, but it's not something I need. I'd rather go back and watch this. Ian: I think that the answer for me is rest in peace because of that. Yes. I love this things, I love this style. And I think that if something wants to do more of that kind of style, it should do it all on its own. Matthew: Right, right. Ian: Don't tie it back, but make more of these kind of movies and learn from this and use this as a, a basis for your cinema. Which is what so many things I love do. So many creators who cite this in their list of favorite movies are people who make things I like, so. Yeah. That's, that's wonderful. Let this be that. But otherwise, this needs to rest in peace. Matthew: I agree. In my opinion. I agree. Rest in peace for this. Ian: To put it away from this movie. It'll come out. No more Matthew: Well, I think that's where we have to leave this then. I think we do. But this was fun to talk about and, uh, I, Ian: it's just delightful. Matthew: This movie is so important to me, and I know it is to you. I don't know that we've done it justice, but I have enjoyed talking about it. Ian: Usually we talk about this at the beginning, but I wanna know, when is the first time you saw this film? Matthew: Oh, I saw this film probably on. I know it was not in theaters because it didn't stay in theaters very long Okay, so I saw this on tv probably it was on hbo or something like that It wasn't part of the hbo midnight film festival where I saw so many movies That the rest of my family didn't want to see but uh, so I it's funny I don't really remember my first exposure to this movie. I just remember it being Starting at a certain point in history, like 1986, 87, it was a thing, and it was always there, and I always watched it at least once a year, if not more. Ian: Ah, I remember your excitement when we got the cardboard box DVD copy, and showed it to me, and I was so loving it, and I remember turning around, and I was in high school, And we had a, I forget what it was. I think it was my, for like photography class I took, but it was like \ the end of the semester. And it was just going to be me and my friend Tony. And I think one other person and I asked the teacher if I could bring stuff in. And one of the DVDs I brought in was Big Trouble, Little China, and I played this for other people. And it was just the, me going, I love this film and other people looking at me like. What in the world? What is it you're showing me? And that's part of what I realized that I had been exposed to all sorts of media. No one else was being shown that this wasn't standard and that I, that my taste in media had been irrevocably altered by your odd tastes in media too. That was one of those early moments of the, oh. Matthew: And somehow it seems like you have turned this into a way to expand your influence upon the people around you rather than something that. Just isolates you from them because that's a fine line. I'm glad that went the way it Ian: did. The fact, I'm so glad, but now it's set the precedent that like Ian knows weird films as a thing and I'm all for it because if weird films means I watch more Big Trouble in Little China, I will do it. And I have watched this film so many times. Watching it again for the podcast just two days ago. I realized that I was saying every line as it was coming. I was literally following beat for beat the entire film. Just doing the dishes watching this movie. Just like every, every single moment. It's yeah. Oh, Lords of Death, Jack. Matthew: Well then, as we go into the next 150 episodes of this podcast, I will continue to find weird movies to show you. Ian: I am very excited for that, and thank you, Dad. Thank you for doing this with me for all these episodes, and thank you for showing me all these films. Matthew: That has been such a joy. And thank you folks, online for listening. We hope you'll join us again. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with more Tales of Media from the 20th century. Ian: And in the meantime, go find something new to watch.