Jump to content

Big Trouble in Little China: Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
Geoff B (talk | contribs)
22,247 edits
Reverted to revision 405696565 by Geoff B; unsourced POV. (TW)
Line 86: Line 86:
| accessdate = }}</ref> Richter realized that “what it needed wasn’t a rewrite but a complete overhaul. It was a dreadful screenplay. This happens often when scripts are bought and there’s no intention that the original writers will stay on”.<ref name= "Goldberg, Lee"/> Richter used ''[[Rosemary's Baby (film)|Rosemary's Baby]]'' as his template, presenting “the foreground story in a familiar context &ndash; rather than San Francisco at the turn-of-the-century, which distances the audience immediately &ndash; and just have one simple remove, the world underground, you have a much better chance of making direct contact with the audience”.<ref name= "Goldberg, Lee"/> He wrote his own draft in 10 weeks.<ref name= "Teitelbaum2"/> Goldman contacted Richter and suggested that he should not work on the project. Richter told him, "I'm sorry the studio doesn't want to go forward with you guys, but my turning it down is not going to get you the job. They'll just hire someone else".<ref name= "Teitelbaum2"/>
| accessdate = }}</ref> Richter realized that “what it needed wasn’t a rewrite but a complete overhaul. It was a dreadful screenplay. This happens often when scripts are bought and there’s no intention that the original writers will stay on”.<ref name= "Goldberg, Lee"/> Richter used ''[[Rosemary's Baby (film)|Rosemary's Baby]]'' as his template, presenting “the foreground story in a familiar context &ndash; rather than San Francisco at the turn-of-the-century, which distances the audience immediately &ndash; and just have one simple remove, the world underground, you have a much better chance of making direct contact with the audience”.<ref name= "Goldberg, Lee"/> He wrote his own draft in 10 weeks.<ref name= "Teitelbaum2"/> Goldman contacted Richter and suggested that he should not work on the project. Richter told him, "I'm sorry the studio doesn't want to go forward with you guys, but my turning it down is not going to get you the job. They'll just hire someone else".<ref name= "Teitelbaum2"/>


Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit, and eliminated their names from press releases.<ref name= "Teitelbaum3"/> They wanted only Richter to have credit.<ref name="Teitelbaum4">Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 58.</ref> In March 1986, the [[Writers Guild of America, west]] determined that Richter would not receive credit for his work on the script and it would go instead to Goldman and Weinstein, based on the [[WGA screenwriting credit system]] which protects original writers.<ref name= "Swires, Steve">{{cite news
Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit, and eliminated their names from press releases.<ref name= "Teitelbaum3"/> They wanted only Richter to have credit.<ref name="Teitelbaum4">Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 58.</ref> In March 1986, the [[Writers Guild of America, west]] determined that Richter would not receive credit for his work on the script and it would go instead to Goldman and Weinstein, based on the [[WGA screenwriting credit system]] which protects original writers.<ref name= "Swires, Steve">{{cite news Richter made no substantial contributions to the plot, characters or themes, only adapting in a hackneyed manner Goldman and Weinstein's original work.
| last = Swires
| last = Swires
| first = Steve
| first = Steve

Revision as of 17:23, 3 January 2011

Big Trouble in Little China
File:Big trouble in little china.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed byJohn Carpenter
Written byAdaptation:
W. D. Richter
Screenplay:
Gary Goldman
David Z. Weinstein
Produced byLarry J. Franco
StarringKurt Russell
Kim Cattrall
Dennis Dun
James Hong
Victor Wong
CinematographyDean Cundey
Edited bySteve Mirkovich
Mark Warner
Edward A. Warschilka
Music byJohn Carpenter
Alan Howarth
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release date
July 2, 1986
Running time
99 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$25,000,000 (est.)
Box office$11,100,000

Big Trouble in Little China (also known as John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China) is a 1986 American martial arts film directed by John Carpenter. It stars Kurt Russell as truck driver Jack Burton, who helps his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) rescue Wang's green-eyed girlfriend (Suzee Pai) from bandits in San Francisco's Chinatown. They go into the mysterious underworld beneath Chinatown, where they face an ancient sorcerer named Lo Pan (James Hong).

Although the film was originally envisioned as a Western set in the 1880s, screenwriter W. D. Richter was hired to rewrite the script extensively and modernize everything. The studio hired Carpenter to direct the film and rushed Big Trouble in Little China into production so that it would be released before a similarly themed Eddie Murphy film, The Golden Child, which was slated to come out around the same time. The project fulfilled Carpenter's long-standing desire to make a martial arts film. The film was a commercial failure, grossing $11.1 million in North America and well below its estimated $25 million budget. It received critically mixed reviews that left Carpenter disillusioned with Hollywood and influenced his decision to return to independent film-making. The film has since gone on to become a cult film due in large part to its success on home video.

Plot

Truck driver Jack Burton (Kurt Russell) and his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) go to the San Francisco International Airport to pick up Wang's fiancee Miao Yin (Suzee Pai). While at the airport, a Chinese street gang (the Lords of Death) kidnap Miao Yin and take her into Chinatown intent on selling her as a sex slave. Jack and Wang follow and in the back alleys of Chinatown they get caught in a gang battle when the Wing Kong interrupt a funeral procession the Chang Sing are having for their recently assassinated leader. During the street battle, powerful magicians in league with the Wing Kong, called "The Three Storms" (Thunder, Rain, and Lightning) use their supernatural powers to slaughter the Chang Sing. Trying to escape Jack runs over the Wing Kong's leader, the sorcerer Lo Pan (James Hong). However, Lo Pan is not harmed by this and Wang has to help Jack after he is temporarily blinded by Lo Pan's glowing eyes. Jack's truck is then stolen by the Lords of Death. Wang takes Jack to his restaurant 'The Dragon of the Black Pool', where they meet up with lawyer Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall), Wang's friend Eddie Lee (Donald Li) and Egg Shen (Victor Wong), a magician and local authority on Lo Pan who moonlights as a tour bus driver in Chinatown. They come up with a plan to infiltrate the brothel where they think Miao Yin is being held. Once inside Jack (in disguise), starts to question one of the girls, but is interrupted when the Storms crash in and make off with Miao Yin.

Back in Gracie's apartment, they find that Miao Yin was taken to a place called The Wing Kong Exchange, a front for Lo Pan's domain. With Wang's assistance, Jack infiltrates the place and the two get caught in a lift that fills with water. After making their way out, Wang claims they're in "The hell of the upside-down sinners," and they are taken to a cell by Rain, who grabs Wang by the neck, and sends rubber balls to Jack's stomach with force. Afterwards, they are taken in wheelchairs to see Lo Pan (now disguised as an old man), where he claims that Miao Yin is "Safer with me than any creature on this Earth", after telling them of his intent. Lo Pan catches Gracie, Eddie, and Gracie's journalist friend Margo entering the building on his security monitor, and sends Thunder to deal with them. Wang and Jack are taken back to their cell, still in the wheelchairs, when Wang tells Jack about the 2,000 year old legend of Lo Pan; that he was cursed to roam the Earth until he can marry a special kind of girl. They break free from the wheelchairs, but hearing Thunder return, they get back into the wheelchairs and put their blindfolds back on. Thunder hangs Eddie up by the collar of his jacket, and Jack jumps Thunder, who manages to push Jack off of him and into his wheelchair, sending him back down the ramp, and nearly into a deep well. Wang and Eddie make a diversion so Jack can rescue the imprisoned girls and get out safely. Upon reaching the front entrance, Gracie is caught by a monster, and taken to Lo Pan. Both Gracie and Miao Yin tame "The Burning Blade" and Lo Pan decides to marry both and sacrifice Gracie, and live out his 'Earthly Pleasures' with Miao Yin. Wang and Jack go to see Egg Shen, and, with the help of the Chang Sings, go into an underground cavern, and eventually into Lo Pan's offices.

Egg gives the group a potion that Jack says makes him feel 'kind of invincible', and when the group get to the ceremony, a huge fight ensues (which Jack inadvertently manages to miss, due to being knocked out with rubble when he fires his gun above his head), with Wang killing Rain in an elegant sword fight. Jack and Gracie head back to the offices to try and catch Lo Pan, the spell having been broken. Wang joins them, and takes on Thunder, while Jack takes on Lo Pan, throwing his knife at him, which embeds into his skull. Thunder sees this and starts to inflate to an enormous size without stopping, killing himself. Jack, Wang, Gracie and Miao Yin are cornered by Lightning in a corridor, which he makes collapse. Egg manages to rescue them by sending down a rope from a hole above them, which Lightning tries climb in order to follow, with Egg throwing down a statue which crushes him. They find Jack's truck and make their escape back to The Dragon of the Black Pearl restaurant. With Lo Pan defeated, Egg decides to go on vacation saying China is in the heart, and Jack hits the open road, with an unknown-to-him stowaway -- one of the remaining monsters.

Main cast

Production

Screenplay

The first version of the screenplay was written by first-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Weinstein. Goldman had been inspired by a new wave of martial arts films that had "all sorts of weird actions and special effects, shot against this background of Oriental mysticism and modern sensibilities".[1] They had written a Western originally set in the 1880s with Jack Burton as a cowboy who rides into town.[2] Goldman and Weinstein envisioned combining Chinese fantasy elements with the western.[3] They submitted the script to producers Paul Monash and Keith Barish during the summer of 1982. Monash bought their script and had them do at least one rewrite but still did not like the results. He remembers, “The problems came largely from the fact it was set in turn-of-the-century San Francisco, which affected everything – style, dialogue, action”.[2] Goldman rejected a request by 20th Century Fox for a re-write that asked for major alterations. He was angered when the studio wanted to update it to a contemporary setting. The studio then removed the writers from the project. However, they still wanted credit for their contributions.[4]

The studio brought in screenwriter W. D. Richter, a veteran script doctor (and director of cult film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) to extensively rewrite the script, as he felt that the Wild West and fantasy elements didn’t work together. The screenwriter modernized everything. Almost everything in the original script was discarded except for Lo Pan’s story.[5] Richter realized that “what it needed wasn’t a rewrite but a complete overhaul. It was a dreadful screenplay. This happens often when scripts are bought and there’s no intention that the original writers will stay on”.[2] Richter used Rosemary's Baby as his template, presenting “the foreground story in a familiar context – rather than San Francisco at the turn-of-the-century, which distances the audience immediately – and just have one simple remove, the world underground, you have a much better chance of making direct contact with the audience”.[2] He wrote his own draft in 10 weeks.[3] Goldman contacted Richter and suggested that he should not work on the project. Richter told him, "I'm sorry the studio doesn't want to go forward with you guys, but my turning it down is not going to get you the job. They'll just hire someone else".[3]

Fox wanted to deny Goldman and Weinstein writing credit, and eliminated their names from press releases.[4] They wanted only Richter to have credit.[6] In March 1986, the Writers Guild of America, west determined that Richter would not receive credit for his work on the script and it would go instead to Goldman and Weinstein, based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which protects original writers.[7][4]. Director John Carpenter was disappointed that Richter did not get a proper screenwriting credit on the movie because of the ruling. Carpenter made his own additions to Richter’s rewrites, which included strengthening the Gracie Law role and linking her to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences due to budgetary restrictions and eliminating material deemed offensive to Chinese Americans. The characters in the film reminded Carpenter “of the characters in Bringing Up Baby or His Girl Friday. These are very 1930s, Howard Hawks people."[5] The rapid-fire delivery of dialogue, especially between Jack Burton and Gracie Law, is an example of what the director is referring to.[5]

Casting

File:Jackegg.jpg
Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, Victor Wong as Egg Shen and Kim Cattrall as Gracie Law.

Barish and Monash first offered the project to Carpenter in July 1985. He had read the Goldman/Weinstein script and deemed it “outrageously unreadable though it had many interesting elements”.[7] To compete with rival production The Golden Child’s casting of box office draw Eddie Murphy, Carpenter wanted a big star of his own and both Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson were considered but were busy.[7] The studio wanted to cast Kurt Russell because they felt that he was an up-and-coming star. Initially, Russell was not interested in the screenplay and the character of Jack Burton because he felt that there were “a number of different ways to approach Jack, but I didn’t know if there was a way that would be interesting enough for this movie”.[8] After talking to Carpenter and reading the script a couple more times, he gained insight into the character and liked the notion of playing “a hero who has so many faults. Jack is and isn’t the hero. He falls on his ass as much as he comes through. This guy is a real blowhard. He’s a lot of hot air, very self-assured, a screw-up”.[8] Furthermore, the actor felt that "at heart he thinks he's Indiana Jones but the circumstances are always too much for him".[9] Russell felt that the film would be a hard one to market. "This is a difficult picture to sell because it's hard to explain. It's a mixture of the real history of Chinatown in San Francisco blended with Chinese legend and lore. It's bizarre stuff. There are only a handful of non-Asian actors in the cast".[9]

John Carpenter had seen Dennis Dun in Year of the Dragon and liked his work in that film. He met the actor twice before casting him in the role of Wang Chi only a few days before principal photography.[10] The martial arts sequences were not hard for Dun who had “dabbled” in training as a kid and done Chinese opera as an adult.[10] He was drawn to the portrayal of Asian characters in the movie as he said, “I’m seeing Chinese actors getting to do stuff that American movies usually don’t let them do. I’ve never seen this type of role for an Asian in an American film”.[2]

The studio pressured Carpenter to cast a rock star in the role of Gracie Law, Jack Burton's love interest and constant source of aggravation. For Carpenter there was no question, he wanted Kim Cattrall. The studio was not keen on the idea because at the time Cattrall was primarily known for raunchy comedies like Porky's and Police Academy. She was drawn to the movie because of the way her character was portrayed. “I’m not screaming for help the whole time. I think the humor comes out of the situations and my relationship with Jack Burton. I’m the brains and he’s the brawn”.[2]

Principal photography

Kurt Russell lifted weights and began running two months before production began in order to get ready for the physical demands of principal photography. In addition, Carpenter and his cast and crew did a week's rehearsals that mainly involved choreographing the martial arts scenes.[11] 20th Century Fox was afraid that the production would create major overruns and hired Carpenter to direct because he could work fast. He was given only 10 weeks of pre-production.[4]

Problems began to arise when Carpenter learned that the next Eddie Murphy vehicle, The Golden Child, featured a similar theme and was going to be released around the same time as Big Trouble in Little China. (As it happened, Carpenter was asked by Paramount Pictures to direct The Golden Child). He remarked in an interview, “How many adventure pictures dealing with Chinese mysticism have been released by the major studios in the past 20 years? For two of them to come along at the exact same time is more than mere coincidence”.[7] To beat the rival production at being released in theaters, Big Trouble went into production in October 1985 so that it could open in July 1986, five months before The Golden Child’s Christmas release.

Production designer John Lloyd designed the elaborate underground sets and re-created Chinatown with three-story buildings, roads, streetlights, sewers and so on. This was necessary for the staging of complicated special effects and kung fu fight sequences that would have been very hard to do on location.[2] This forced the filmmaker to shoot the film in 15 weeks with a $25 million budget. For the film’s many fight scenes Carpenter worked with martial arts choreographer James Lew, who planned out every move in advance. Says Carpenter, "I used every cheap gag – trampolines, wires, reverse movements and upside down sets. It was much like photographing a dance”.[7]

Carpenter envisioned the film as an inverse of traditional scenarios in action films with a Caucasian protagonist helped by a minority sidekick. In Big Trouble in Little China, Jack Burton, despite his bravado, is constantly portrayed as rather bumbling; in one fight sequence he even knocks himself unconscious before the fight begins. Wang Chi, on the other hand, is constantly portrayed as highly skilled and competent. On a commentary track for the DVD release, Carpenter commented that the film is really about a sidekick (Burton) who thinks he is a leading man. According to Carpenter, the studio "didn't get [his film]"[12] and made him write something that would explain the character of Jack Burton. Carpenter came up with the prologue scene between Egg Shen and the lawyer.[13]

Visual effects

Carpenter was not entirely satisfied with Boss Films, the company in charge of the film's visual effects.[6] According to the director, they took on more projects than they could handle and some effects for the film had to be cut down. Richard Edlund, head of Boss Films, said that there were no difficulties with the company's workload and that Big Trouble was probably its favorite film at the time, with the exception of Ghostbusters.[6] The effects budget for the film was just under $2 million, which Edlund said was barely adequate. One of the more difficult effects was the floating eyeball, a spy for Lo-Pan. It was powered by several puppeteers and dozens of cables to control its facial expressions. It was shot with a special matting system especially designed for it.[6]

Soundtrack

Main article: Big Trouble in Little China (soundtrack)

With the soundtrack, Carpenter wanted to avoid the usual clichés as he found that “other scores for American movies about Chinese characters are basically rinky tink, chop suey music. I didn’t want that for Big Trouble”.[7] Carpenter instead opted for his trademark synthesizer score mixed with rock ‘n’ roll music.[7]

References to Chinese mysticism

Some of the Chinese mythology in the film is based on actual history. Lo Pan is a famous legend in Chinese history. He was a "shadow emperor"[7] appointed by the First Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Lo Pan was put on the throne as an impersonator because the Emperor was afraid of being assassinated. However, Lo Pan tried to take over and was cursed by the Emperor to exist without flesh for 2,000 years until he could marry a girl with green eyes.[7]

Themes

In a 2008 article on The Huffington Post, David Sirota analyzed the movie in terms of the United States' role in the world, and argues that the film was a warning more relevant today than when it first came out.[14] He argues that the film casts Jack Burton as the United States while Lo Pan and his gang are "the Rest of the World, and more specifically, the Non-Aligned Countries, otherwise known as the Axis of Evil".[14] Sirota suggests that "the tongue-in-cheek flavor of the film suggests Carpenter is using the Burton character to deliberately ridicule American hubris" and that the ending shot of the monster coming out of hiding in the back of Jack's truck "could be the world taking revenge on that hubris."[14]

Reaction

Box office

Opening in 1,053 theaters on July 4, 1986, Big Trouble in Little China grossed $2.7 million in its opening weekend and went on to gross $11.1 million in North America, well below its estimated budget of $25 million. The film was released in the midst of the hype for James Cameron's blockbuster Aliens, which was released a mere sixteen days after. On the DVD commentary for "Big Trouble in Little China", Carpenter and Russell discuss this amongst possible reasons for the film's disappointing box office gross.[15]

Critical reception

The film received critically mixed reviews when it was first released but has since enjoyed a reappraisal. It currently has an 82% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Ron Base, in his review for the Toronto Star, praised Russell's performance. "He does a great John Wayne imitation. But he's not just mimicking these heroes, he is using them to give his own character a broad, satiric edge".[16] Walter Goodman in the New York Times wrote, "In kidding the flavorsome proceedings even as he gets the juice out of them, the director, John Carpenter, is conspicuously with it".[17] Harlan Ellison praised the film, writing that it had "some of the funniest lines spoken by any actor this year to produce a cheerfully blathering live-action cartoon that will give you release from the real pressures of your basically dreary lives".[18] In his review for Time, Richard Corliss wrote, "Little China offers dollops of entertainment, but it is so stocked with canny references to other pictures that it suggests a master's thesis that moves".[19]

However, in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert wrote, "special effects don't mean much unless we care about the characters who are surrounded by them, and in this movie the characters often seem to exist only to fill up the foregrounds", and felt that it was "straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes".[20] Paul Attanasio, in the Washington Post, criticized the screenwriters for being "much better at introducing a character than they are at developing one".[21] David Ansen wrote, in his review for Newsweek, "though it is action packed, spectacularly edited and often quite funny, one can't help feeling that Carpenter is squeezing the last drops out of a fatigued genre".[22] In his review for The Times, David Robinson felt that Carpenter was, "overwhelmed by his own special effects, without a strong enough script to guide him".[23]

After the commercial and critical failure of the film, Carpenter became very disillusioned with Hollywood and became an independent filmmaker.[24] He said in an interview, “The experience [of Big Trouble] was the reason I stopped making movies for the Hollywood studios. I won’t work for them again. I think Big Trouble is a wonderful film, and I’m very proud of it. But the reception it received, and the reasons for that reception, were too much for me to deal with. I’m too old for that sort of bullshit”. Since its initial release it has developed a cult following and is now well received by critics.[25] Empire magazine voted Big Trouble in Little China the 430th greatest film in their "500 Greatest Movies of All Time" list.[26]

Merchandise

A tie-in video game of the same name was published in 1987 by Electric Dreams Software for the ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Amstrad CPC. Critical reception was mixed.[27]

Big Trouble in Little China was released on a two-disc special edition DVD set on May 22, 2001. Entertainment Weekly gave the DVD a "B+" rating and wrote, "The highlight of this two disc set – which also features deleted scenes, an extended ending, trailers, and a 1986 featurette – is the pitch perfect Russell and Carpenter commentary, which delves into Fox's marketing mishaps, Chinese history, and how Russell's son did in his hockey game".[28] In his review for the Onion A.V. Club, Noel Murray wrote, "If nothing else, this is a DVD designed for Big Trouble cultists; it's packed with articles from Cinefex and American Cinematographer that only a genre geek would appreciate".[29]

A Blu-ray Disc edition of the film was released on August 4, 2009. It contains the same film and features as the DVD.

At the 2009 San Diego Comic-Con, Top Cow Productions revealed previews of an upcoming Big Trouble in Little China comic book series. The series will be written by Evan Bleiweiss and pencilled by Jason Badower.[30]

In 2010, CrankLeft released the first issue of a comic book sequel to the film called Jack Burton Adventures. CrankLeft released the book to the public for the first time at the Emerald City ComiCon in Seattle the same year. The series is written by Ben Hodson and Brad Hodson, pencilled and inked by Chad Bever, and color by Bryant Hodson. Jack Burton Adventures is an ongoing series.[31]

References

  1. ^ Teitelbaum, Sheldon (July 1986). "Big Trouble in Little China". Cinefantastique. pp. 4–5. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Goldberg, Lee (June 1986). "W.D. Richter Writes Again". Starlog. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  3. ^ a b c Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 5.
  4. ^ a b c d Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 4.
  5. ^ a b c Goldberg, Lee (May 1986). "Big Trouble in Little China". Starlog. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  6. ^ a b c d Teitelbaum July 1986, p. 58.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Template:Cite news Richter made no substantial contributions to the plot, characters or themes, only adapting in a hackneyed manner Goldman and Weinstein's original work.
  8. ^ a b Goldberg, Lee (July 1986). "Kurt Russell: Two-Fisted Hero". Starlog. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  9. ^ a b Scott, Vernon (July 9, 1986). "Kurt as Klutz". United Press International. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  10. ^ a b Dickholtz, Daniel (September 1986). "Dennis Dun, Kung Fu Hero". Starlog. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  11. ^ Steranko, Jim (August 1986). "The Trouble with Kurt". Prevue. p. 73. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ Nichols, Peter M (May 25, 2001). "Big Trouble: Big Comeback". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  13. ^ "INTERVIEW: MORIARTY and JOHN CARPENTER Get Into Some BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA!!". Ain't It Cool News. April 23, 2001. Retrieved 2008-12-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  14. ^ a b c Sirota, David (November 30, 2008). "Big Trouble in Little America". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 2008-12-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  15. ^ "Big Trouble in Little China". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved 2007-07-12. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  16. ^ Base, Ron (July 1, 1986). "Muscle-Laden Hero Kurt Russell Delivers Big Action and Little Trouble". Toronto Star. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  17. ^ Goodman, Walter (July 2, 1986). "Big Trouble, Wild Stunts". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  18. ^ Ellison, Harlan (1989). "Harlan Ellison's Watching". Underwood-Miller. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  19. ^ Corliss, Richard (July 14, 1986). "Everything New Is Old Again". Time. Retrieved 2008-08-20. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  20. ^ Ebert, Roger (July 2, 1986). "Big Trouble in Little China". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2008-01-18. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  21. ^ Attanasio, Paul (July 2, 1986). "Choppy Little China". Washington Post. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  22. ^ Ansen, David (July 14, 1986). "Wild and Crazy in Chinatown". Newsweek. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  23. ^ Robinson, David (November 14, 1986). "More agonies of the awkward age". The Times. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  24. ^ Swires, Steve (February 1987). "John Carpenter's Terror Tales from Tinseltown". Starlog. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  25. ^ Swires, Steve (December 1987). "John Carpenter's Guerrilla Guide to Hollywood Survival". Starlog. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  26. ^ "500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Empire. Retrieved 2008-09-29. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  27. ^ "Big Trouble in Little China". World of Spectrum. Retrieved 2009-04-29.
  28. ^ Bernardin, Marc (May 22, 2001). "Big Trouble in Little China". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-12-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  29. ^ Murray, Noel (April 19, 2002). "Big Trouble in Little China DVD". Onion A.V. Club. Retrieved 2008-12-02. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  30. ^ "TOP COW AT SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON 2009". Topcow.com. July 20, 2009. Retrieved July 20, 2009. [dead link]
  31. ^ "Come See us at Emerald City Comic Con 2010". CrankLeft.com. February 25, 2010. Retrieved February 25, 2010.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Big Trouble in Little China.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Big_Trouble_in_Little_China&oldid=405715208"