BIG TROUBLE in little china: C/D?

I think I've gone through life with this impression that Kurt Russell is some kind of generic tough guy actor (like a Seagal or a Van Damme),

I envy your being disabused of this notion

Have we done a Kurt Russell poll? Dude is solid IMO

ah search function

Kurt Russell

WD Richter is some kind of genius.

Stealth was on TV at one point over the weekend too. I caught about 20 minutes of it.

he's pretty fun in Sky High

Russell that is

I even watched Tango and Cash this weekend because meh Kurt Russell is still better than anything else on tv.

Plus, Teri Hatcher's crazy dancing (and hair).

BIG HOOS in little china

http://io9.com/5953874/big-trouble-in-little-china-%252B-gangnam-style-john-carpenter-approves

Nerd nirvana! Loved it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvYEdmW47gQ

Also, there's a Big Trouble in Little China comic coming out, with input from Carpenter. First issue comes out next week:

http://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3292934/big-trouble-little-china-returns-john-carpenter-eric-powell/

Don't think I liked that particularly much. The art is incredibly cheesy and the pacing was very whiz-bang without a the tension and atmosphere that made the movie great. I plan on keeping up with the issues to see where it goes, but I'll be surprised if I end up enjoying it.

So racist, this movie

one of the few American movies of the 1980s overtly influenced by Hong Kong -- I think a major reference point is Tsui Hark's "Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain." I don't that exactly mitigates what you might feel is the film's "racism," but I think it explains a lot of Carpenter's film's zaniness and outrageousness. of course the movie kind of pales in comparison to Tsui's, and I think there's a tendency to overrate the movie (at least by people who give a shit) because of today's pervasive "LOL randomness" taste culture. but it's a pretty fun movie, russell is fantastic as always, it's never boring....

Compared with a lot of other movies from this era, I'll take it xp

i liked this movie a lot from the moment i saw it in 1986 or 1987 (on VHS)

when I caught up with "Zu Warriors" (and other '80s Tsui Hark + Hong Kong ghost movies) around 2000 a lightbulb went off

that didn't really diminish my appreciation of Carpenter's film but it suddenly seems pretty clear where it's coming from.

aside from parts of they live, did carpenter ever return to the tone of this film again?

For a while Carpenter had the kind of golden b-movie writer's touch I would kill for. Some of his movies are One-Liner Paradise. I loved this movie so much as a kid because every character has great lines, and it helps the whole film be so memorable. Plus the special effects/post-Ghostbusters mysticism (which is probably a main reason why I also liked Mortal Kombat the first time I saw it).

"Zu Warriors" is AMAZING but yeah two totally different movies. Love the pervading sense of fantasy in that one.

well overall two different movies, but you can't see the connection in terms of the zany humor, the overall manner of plot construction, the nature of the fights and their use of wires and FX etc.?

i mean big trouble is like strong doses of HK fantasy/mythology/martial arts self-consciously filtered through wisecracking '80s american action cinema.

did carpenter ever return to the tone of this film again?

not really, unfortunately

william friedkin was a huge fan of asian genre cinema, including HK martial arts and Japanese yakuza films. but with a few exception moments or set pieces I don't see much of that fandom in his films. esp. not the HK-style action aesthetics.

american genre cinema of the 70s and 80s might have been more interesting had more directors taken cues from HK cinema.

Big Trouble harkens back to the good old days when John Carpenter movies were fun

sometimes parts of the movie blend with Golden Child in my head which makes a p awesome mashup

Big Trouble in Little Golden Child

Golden Child has been sitting on our shelf for ages, tempting us but never looking THAT good. Should we watch it?

i am kinda partial to it, but that is fuelled by childhood nostalgia so ymmv :)

Huh.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/06/01/the-rock-to-star-in-big-trouble-in-little-china-remake

I just don't understand why. This film isn't even that good.

after three or so viewings i feel comfortable reiterating that this film is pretty awesome but not in a single way that any remake would possibly capture. i mean this is true of most remakes but this one in particular is just baffling.

Yeah, it's a good film but I agree just not worth remaking. Also without Russell's humour I just don't see any point.

(that's what I meant by 'not that good', not that its shit, just not really great)

yeah i imagine they would retain the plot, but who cares about the plot?

not really a "good movie" IMO but interesting as a suggestion of where US genre cinema might have gone had it borrowed more heavily from contemporaneous HK stuff.

Awesome? That seems to be rating it on the high side. Obviously, the film is about as deep as a saucer and not meant as anything more than a good way to waste a couple of hours. It certainly succeeds on those terms.

What the fuck? I watch this film every night. FPd all of you.

the remake of btilc was p much "the mummy" tbh

Russell was great at balancing dumb action movie swagger with self-aware dorkiness. I like the Rock as a choice, but it will be a totally different film.

I thought it was really great because it was a post-Ghostbusters/Star Wars take on b-movies, with all the special effects and cool supernatural stuff. It was like a Kung Fu mix of Indiana Jones and Rambo.

So much of what's lovable about the film is Russell's goofery and John Wayne impression, the way everybody is really emphatically talking past/at each other in this absurd situation, and the generally gleeful ridiculousness of the script, set amidst lots of charming practical effects and sets and stuff. The story is just a dumb setting for that, it's not like it's a classic tale that you can sorta imagine maybe being good brought up to date with a new cast. Or could have sorta imagined, once, but no longer can after the past eons of terrible generic remakes.

i enjoy this movie, but i also enjoy gunga din and i that would be a really fucking stupid movie to remake as well

feel like the original has a "just hangs together, barely" aspect to it that a remake will surely crush

dude is already doing a jack burton imitation in a lot of movies anyway

also this movie wasn't remotely a hit when it came out - is the rock dying? is this his make-a-wish foundation request?

you'd think the smarter road if you want to make a nu-carpenter remake with the rock would be snake plissken

Escape From Witch Mountain

haha yeah i did realize after the fact he's already done some VERB FROM A PLACE movies. But still, remaking a cult dystopia hit makes a lot more sense today than remaking a cult camp kung fu flop

Dr. Casino otm, loveable goofery and gleeful ridiculousness are v apt.

the key to the movie is that wang rules and if they miscast him/diminish his importance nothing else will matter

When is the buckaroo banzai remake happening

The thing is, an an Escape to Witch Mountain reboot hardly makes a ton of commercial sense either! Though apparently it did pretty good. Maybe the rock has just committed himself to using his stardom to force forgotten properties of his youth back onto the American public. Buckaroo Banzai not so unlikely really.

The lamest thing about remake-topia is that it never actually enables a proper do-over a movie to bring out its best ideas. Like, I just watched D.A.R.Y.L. recently (dunno why I'm picking that, maybe witch mountain made me think of it), and it's got many charms but many faults, and I just caught myself thinking "why can't the Rock remake D.A.R.Y.L. instead?" which is crazy because obviously it would just be awful and certainly missing everything I found really lovable out it (mainly: gentle early 80s woodsy suburban milieu, kids dressed exactly like me at that age).

otm about Wang. Also Egg.

also lo pan

i dunno, seems kind of like trying to remake rocky horror (which it seems is also happening)