1. Big Trouble In Little China Feels Like It's Being Made Up As You Go Along
Arguably John Carpenter's best and most underrated film, which stars Kurt Russell as a trucker thrown into an accident battle in San Francisco's Chinatown, makes absolutely no sense. There are so many obscure plot points being thrown around from the very first scene to the very last that it's made near-on impossible to follow the mythology that Carpenter and his writers attempt to conjure up across the span of the film. And yet it doesn't matter, given how wonderful Kurt Russell's performance is, and how brilliant the frankly insane set-pieces are. It would be easy to say that Carpenter purposely ensured that his plot was so muddled and confusing and filled with random elements that aren't always explained and don't match up, given as to how self-aware Big Trouble In Little China appears to be on the surface and how much it plays as a homage to B-movies; but through listening to the director's commentary track on the DVD, and observing the way in which Carpenter addresses the narrative, it appears that he genuinely tried to make sense of his story but ended up half-assing it entirely. No matter. Big Trouble In Little China is one of those rare movies that feels like it would have been worse off if the filmmakers had tried to fix the half-assed plot issues. Like they say, "it's all in the reflexes" - in this case, Carpenter's reflexes totally failed him. And we couldn't be happier about it. Like this article? Let us know in the comments section below.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
