Trailer
Plot summary
Jack Burton drives a semi-trailer truck and arrives at an outdoor market, where he spends the night drinking and gambling. In the morning he wins a bet against Wang Chi in a game of reflexes. To make sure Wang pays, Jack rides with him to the airport to meet Wang's fiancée, Miao Yin. Members of the Lords of Death gang seize Miao Yin for her green eyes. Jack and Wang follow the gang into Chinatown, where a funeral procession erupts into a battle between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong. Three warriors, Thunder, Rain and Lightning, appear.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- 20th Century Fox rushed Big Trouble in Little China into production in October 1985 so it would open in July 1986, five months before The Golden Child, the Eddie Murphy film Fox feared would beat it, hiring John Carpenter for his reputation for working fast.
- John Carpenter wanted Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson to play truck driver Jack Burton, but neither was available, so the studio felt up-and-coming Kurt Russell, who had already appeared in Carpenter's Elvis, Escape from New York and The Thing, was the answer.
- Designed by Screaming Mad George, the "Guardian", a floating creature dotted with eyeballs, took about 60 artists and over $100,000 to build, with far more points of articulation than the crew's Slimer from Ghostbusters; puppeteers and dozens of cables worked it, and two puppets were filmed with a proprietary matting system to make it appear to fly.
- First-time screenwriters Gary Goldman and David Z. Weinstein were removed from the project for refusing to update their story to a modern setting; W. D. Richter rewrote it "nearly from scratch" in 10 weeks, turning cowboy hero Prescott into blowhard trucker Jack Burton and researching Chinese mythology.
- Most of the film was shot on Fox lot sets, where production designer John Lloyd recreated Chinatown with three-story buildings, roads, streetlights and sewers so the effects and kung fu fights could be staged, forcing a 15-week shoot on a $25 million budget.
- For the fight scenes, Carpenter worked with martial arts choreographer James Lew, who planned every move in advance; Carpenter said he used "every cheap gag, trampolines, wires, reverse movements and upside-down sets" and compared it to photographing a dance.
