Os Aventureiros do Bairro Proibido

Despite his recent slide into mediocrity, John Carpenter is responsible for what could be termed some of the biggest cult movies of the 1980's. Following his resounding success with Halloween he went on to direct a number of quirky yet excellent movies that began to tail of toward the end of the 80's with the release of such dross as Prince of Darkness. Carpenters movies are probably some of the most under appreciated pictures of recent cinema history on a commercial level, and none more so than perhaps one of his finest, the delightfully absurd action movie Big Trouble in Little China.

The plot is as daft as they come. Loud mouthed truck driver Jack Burton (played by Carpenter's long time collaborator Kurt Russell) arrives in San Francisco's Chinatown where he agrees to help out old friend Wang (played by Denis Dun) by driving him to the airport to pick up his green eyed fiancé. Things quickly go south however when a band of street punks kidnap the girl and the motley duo set off in pursuit. The pair soon find themselves caught in the middle of gang war that takes on a decidedly mythical bent and are forced to flee while Jack's truck is stolen. All this occurs within the first fifteen to twenty minutes.

If there's one thing you can say about Big Trouble, it's that it's action packed. The plot (such as it is) moves at an incredible pace and the film rarely slows to take breath as it rolls from one action set piece to the next. In such movies, normally the dialogue, and subsequently the acting suffer from a lack of any real attention. Not so here. Carpenter balances everything so perfectly that it's a wonder his career took such a slide. Although the actual story may be incredibly absurd and at times suffers from some rather obvious gaps of logic, the dialogue never fails to sparkle. Russell gives his very best wise ass shtick as Burton, the confused have a go hero who's so out of his depth he should really be fish bait, while Dun excels with a character who is consistently more heroic and capable than the lead. Another wonderful turn comes from an appearance by a young Kim Cattrall (of Sex and the City fame) as Gracie Law, a downmarket lawyer with an ability to talk at incredible speed. Some of the scenes between these three are pure comic genius, as Dun and Cattrall rattle out plot information at a rapid staccato pace while an increasingly bewildered Russell tries desperately to keep up.

Despite such positive remarks, Big Trouble was perhaps one of Carpenter's biggest commercial flops. While many of the movie's fans find this difficult to understand I do not. The reason for its failure is really incredibly simple. In terms of its style and the underlying comedy behind the piece, Carpenter's loving part tribute, part send up of all things Kung Fu was way ahead of the curve in every important respect. Take the relationship between our 'hero' Jack and his 'sidekick' Wang. The true dynamic of this relationship is a wonderfully post modern slant on the cliché buddy dynamic that existed in the 80's and it was done long before post modernist humour became truly fashionable in films (the most obvious example of post modern piece of cinema being Scream). Despite receiving star billing, Russell's Jack is actually a sidekick to Wang. While Wang has the knowledge, the skill and the courage to make him a true classic hero figure, Jack lags behind, being brash, ignorant and of little actual use in a fight. Similarly the action, although remarkably quaint by today's standards in both its look and execution, is a surprisingly accurate foreshadow of the current Hollywood move toward the more graceful, balletic chaos exhibited by movies like The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Ultimately Big Trouble in Little China is a movie that survived thanks to the home video market and for that we can only be grateful. While its looks may have aged, its sense of humour and style is as fresh today as the day it first rolled out in cinemas. In short, it's pure escapist magic.

Out of 20th Century Fox, Big Trouble in Little China is directed by John Carpenter and stars Kurt Russell, Kim Catrall, Dennis Dun, James Hong & Victor Wong. The adaptation is by W.D. Richter with the screenplay from Gary Goldman & David Z. Weinstein. Dean Cundey photographs and Alan Howarth doubles up with Carpenter for the musical score.

Truck driver Jack Burton (Russell) agrees to take his friend Wang Chi (Dun) to pick up his fiancée at the airport. Little does he know that he is about to get involved in a supernatural battle between good and evil beneath San Francisco's Chinatown district.

A box office failure upon its release, and known to be the moment when John Carpenter gave up on Hollywood, Big Trouble in Little China has gathered "cult" momentum over the years and shows up rather well these days. Blending Chinese mysticism with chop-schlocky adventure, Carpenter's movie is at once daft but also a ball of energetic fun - propelled by a handsome, but inept action hero. Carpenter had always wanted to tackle a martial arts movie, and here he gets to do it whilst laying on the comedy and playing with effects work as his movie mostly comes alive in a magical underworld of monsters, magicians and sexy green eyed women.

It's evident now that the film was ahead of its time, not from a technical viewpoint, but from the point it tried to Americanise chopsocky. This is some time before Chinese style wire-work and mythology became common to Hollywood, one has to believe that Tarantino was nodding approvingly around about this time. It's also worth noting that although this "American" movie has an American beefcake as its main protagonist, it's the Asian Americans who actually are the heroes of the piece, with Dun's sidekick the stand out hero as Russell's Burton bumbles his way from one sequence to the next. It was a bold move by Carpenter to structure the narrative this way, something that annoyed the executives at Fox and kept the paying public bemused. It's easy to see why the film failed, contrast it with the similarly themed Eddie Murphy movie, The Golden Child, from the same year, which was a box office success. There the public got what they wanted (or what they were used too), the standard American hero fluff where Murphy saves the day and gets the girl.

Carpenter dared to be different and clearly had a lot of fun along the way, as evidently did his cast. It may have taken a decade of VHS and DVD releases to prove he was right, but right he was, Big Trouble in Little China is a damn fine popcorn movie. Russell plays it meat head style, with swagger in tow and tongue stuck in cheek, nicely toned physique for the girls to enjoy, and making vest wearing cool two years before Willis did in Die Hard. Cattrall is wonderfully alluring, red lips and green eyes shimmering bright in a world of colour; and boys do look out for her wet scene, it's wolf whistle time! Dun is likable and athletic, while Hong as Lo Pan gives the action/adventure genre a truly memorable villain. The film is briskly paced and not found wanting in the set piece department either. Not all the effects are high grade stuff, but in a film with such zestful comic book traditions at heart, it hardly matters one jot. With a great home format package doing it justice, Carpenter's movie is now, at long last, getting the appreciative audience it fully deserves. Amen to that. 8/10

I EMPHATICALLY recommend Big Trouble in Little China, but I must say that if you didn't grow up with this movie, I can see being very entertained but not in awe of it. I and many others like me repeatedly viewed this film throughout childhood and still love it just as much now as then. Nowadays, a new viewer who is past puberty will regard it with a more skeptical eye, comparing it to things it shouldn't be compared to. Some newcomers might get it right away, but I don't think they get the same thrill out of it as they might have as a child in the eighties. That's why this film needs to be shared with children (especially boys), who hopefully won't be too jaded by flashy nineties schlock to be impressed, which I think is exactly the problem for adults who are new to the movie. Perhaps it can't be taught, the reverence I mean, but the movie isn't any less fun and awesome for new viewers, just less magical. I would rate it with stars or something but that's like trying to grade your own religion. I love you, Mr. Burton.

This is one of the wildest stories ever: a cartoon come to life and a mixture of an old-time serial with modern special-effects with bold colors all the way through.

This movie is pure tongue-in-cheek. One just has to take nothing seriously in here and just go along on the wild ride. From the nonsense mystical Chinese sorcery that is taken so reverently, to the American hero "Jack Burton" (Kurt Russell) who displays the fearless macho man, to combatants flying through the air (this was 15 years before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed), to one exotic character and situation after another - it's all absurd fun.

Russell plays his role to the hilt, playing his favorite kind of role when he was younger: brash, bold and an ignoramus who fears absolutely nothing. His lines are deliberately corny and one can bet he had a lot of fun making this movie. He even gets in a few good comedic lines. His partner, Dennis Dunn, is a likable guy with a devilish grin on his face and Kim Cattrell plays the more modern damsel-in-distress role to the hilt, too.

They could have lightened this up a bit on the action - it gets to be too much at times - but the movie is just slightly over an hour-and-half. It still wore me out the first few times I saw it.

All in all: ludicrous fun, a kind of Indiana Jones in Chinatown adventure flick.

This movie occupied most my junior high years. Action, suspense, cheesy diaologue, and martial arts galore. What more could you ask for from a b-movie that is clearly a b-movie? Carpenter and the cast and crew must have had a blast on this film because I can't think of a single movie that combines some of my favorite things about movies: Action, comedy, violence, martial arts, and a small tour bus driver named Egg who also knows a little magic. Magic indeed. This is movie magic. Agree or disagree, you can't deny that Carpenter succeeded on all levels when he made this movie. Saturday matineeish? Yes. B-movie cheese? Yes. Pure movie-going fun? Absolutely. Watch and enjoy.