Sure. Skipping over to Escape From LA is also a worthwhile consideration. You really don't miss a super amount of backstory and information if you don't watch the first movie. Most people saw LA and still haven't seen New York.
If you want to see another good Kurt Russell movie watch Breakdown. I saw it when it came out in the theater for some reason. I was like 11 or 12. I've watched it at least 4x since then.
And that's why Fox didn't market it. They wanted Jack Burton to be an Indiana Jones type character and didn't get the joke that Carpenter/Russell came up with instead. A shame really.
James Hong is a national treasure. I haven't met many celebrities, but I met him about six years ago, and he was just the most pleasant person ever, supporting the Chinese-American community in Seattle. Just an all around great dude.
He's still doing Lo Pan for Comic Cons, the whole regalia and everything, or at least, he was. The beauty of a role like Lo Pan is you never get too old to play him.
Kacee watching Tombstone is a MUST! Not only does that movie do well on RU-vid in terms of Reactions, the movie as anyone who has seen it knows is beyond badass and is Val Kilmer's best acting job period. One is missing out if they've never seen it.
It's also more historically accurate than the Kevin Costner "Wyatt Earp" - mainly because the Costner movie used Earp's own accounts, and Wyatt Earp was a notorious self-serving PoS liar. Tombstone instead used other accounts and news articles of the era, and so got more things right than wrong. It's still not entirely accurate, but it's better than the one praising Earp as some kind of saintly heroic type.
The Kurt's character is supposed to be the audience view thrown into this world not knowing what's happening so your reaction not knowing what is happening is exactly what John Carpenter wanted I love this movie so much its great and so much fun
Great reaction! If you want more Kurt Russell, don't sleep on Soldier. Very different sort of film for him and it's amazing what a performance he gives in it.
The thing about Jack is he's the sidekick- Wang is the hero. This movie gets better each time you watch it and has so many great quotes. DEFINITELY watch Escape from New York!
One of the funniest martial arts action comedy fantasy films ever made! Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood were considered for the role of Jack Burton, until Kurt Russell was cast. It was going to be a western taking place in 1900 San Francisco. Burton was going to be a gunslinger meeting up with his old friend Wang Chi, an expert in Martial Arts and ancient Chinese mysticism where they must stop the evil Lo Pan from destroying the world with a powerful earthquake. A sequel was even considered as well as a reboot but both of these films would be cancelled due to the Fox Disney merger. The reboot would have starred Dwayne The Rock Johnson as a skeptical trucker trying to figure out what happened to Jack Burton after he disappeared. They even team up to take down Lo Pan once and for all.
Probably my second favorite movie ever.after The Thing. My best friend got to meet James Hong at a convention and he dedicated a photo of LoPan to me- "Jason - Go find the girl with the green eyes!" It's framed on my living room wall.😎
Every time this movie randomly pops up on cable in the middle of the day I always stop what I am doing and watch the whole damn thing. My chores don’t get finished despite the fact I have probably seen it 30 times. Great reax video guys!
Lo Pan's escape clause for his curse is actually clever. Finding a woman with the precise requirements then surviving the test is not an easy thing to do. Also the movie is basically a Shénmó Xiǎoshuō (gods and demons) tale set in a different land and time period.
I always took it that the reason Gracie was hog tied and gagged in the one scene was because she wouldn't shut up and the guards got tired of her shit lol
Surprised no one else has commented on this yet, this movie was the main inspiration for the creators of Mortal Kombat for their main characters. Your comparison of one of the three storms to Raiden is more accurate than you realised haha
Another Kurt Russel film is Soldier. It's a sci-fi movie about a retired soldier in a remote colony. He was specially trained since youth to be a soldier. After several years of service, he retired as he was being replaced by genetically enhanced soldiers. He decided to retire to the colony. The colony was attacked by the enhanced soldiers. War ensues.
I like that Anthony looks tough till he giggles like a ten year old boy. I like people with silly laughs, I know they're not faking it. Another great reaction, keep them coming
That's interesting, because I thought the opposite. I thought he was faking the laugh, since it sounded like the laugh of "a ten year old boy," like you said. Either way, fake or not, it's fairly distracting.
Movies like this that don't stop the action are the ones that get better with time. As you watch it the first time, everytime something cool happens, it holds your attention for so long. Then when you regain your focus on the movie, it has moved on without you and you miss the things that happened while you were tranced by the last thing. So watching it over and over again, you see things that you didn't notice before. Like the little chinese character in the lightning or something in the background. It gets better with age.
THANK YOU! You're the only person I've ever seen mention those older movies. Some of my other favorites: "Now You See Him, Now You Don't" "The Strongest Man in the World" "The Barefoot Executive"
This movie inspired Ed Boon's Mortal Kombat characters, Lo pan looks very much like Shang Tsung and the lightening dude is basically Raiden with the lighting and big straw hat. He also took inspiration from vamme, johnny cage, Bruce Lee, Liu Kang and even Sonya Blade, Cythia Rothrock. A lot of characters have a martial arts movie homage
@doscavazos Maybe you noticed, but Big Trouble in Little China had a HUGE influence on the Mortal Kombat games, especially the first 2. Lo Pan influenced Shang Tsung, Raiden was based on the 3 Storms, and many of the set pieces in this movie inspired the fight arenas.
If you want another Kurt Russel action classic, then check out Tango and Cash. Him and Stallone in a Buddy Cop movie. (One of the first no less.) Well worth the watch.
If you guys want to watch more John Carpenter then you absolutely have to watch They Live! It's classic Carpenter with a slightly wacky plot, wonderfully cheesy dialogue, cool effects, and one of the best fight scenes ever filmed. For a real mind-screw, watch Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. Also, definitely get into Clint Eastwood films. The Dollars Trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) are masterpieces of the Spaghetti Western genre. Dirty Harry is also a great series to watch and still hold up well today as suspense thrillers.
This is one of my favorite movies. All the magic, monsters, gods are based on actual Chinese mythology. I could go on for hours, but... Escape from New York is good. I'll watch you guys react. Dirty Harry is a must IMO.
Terry Gilliam's 1981 "Time Bandits" is the next closest movie to this in scope and hilarity. The sheer star power of the cast is staggering considering most of these actors were not well known at the time (other than Sean Connery, Ian Holme , and the boys from Monty Python). It's a must watch.
TIMING is EVERYTHING! REALLY needed this and I JUST caught it, outside my focus point, just on the edge of the frame and clicked. "It's all in the reflexes..."
Great choice. I've seen this movie hundreds of times. This was one of my childhood movie rotations. Along with The Golden Child and Mannequin. It was always these three movies only at one time. Lol!! Probably why I know it so well.
This is such a fun movie. One of my favorite tropes is how the "hero" of the story is really a buffoon (though loveable) who lucks into most any success he has.
This is a unique movie in that the protagonist and audience surrogate, Jack Burton, is the sidekick. Structurally, Wang is the hero. It’s just that we identify with and see the events play out through Jack. The director commentary with Carpenter and Russell is pretty hilarious. They are obviously old friends who hadn’t talked in a while before being asked to provide commentary. It’s clear they would rather catch up with each other (asking about each other’s kids and if they are still practicing guitar) rather than talk about the movie.
Something I'm not sure you picked up on, is that this is a deconstruction of the 80s Action Movie (or just Action Movies at the time it was filmed). It has the big muscled white guy who is the character the audience connects with and his small Asian friend with the funny name and starts off the movie saying he's just 'some poor little Chinese boy'. But in actuality, the small Asian guy is really the hero of the story and the big hulking white guy played by an action star (Kurt Russell) is the sidekick/comic relief character. By don't tell that to Jack Burton. He's the hero of the story, that's why he get paid triple.
When I saw James Hong in Everything Everywhere All at Once I was so confused. I remember him as the old sorcerer in this movie and thought he'd have to be dead. 90+ years old and still kicking. Saw him on the Oscars and he looked great. Number one at 600+ acting credits in his career. The Eye guy in Blade Runner, The Hari Kari guy in Airplane, ...
The BEST Kurt Russel movie! I must have seen it at least a dozen times. For Christmas last year, my brother-in-law gave me a funko-pop of Jack Burton because he knew what huge fan I am of this movie!
Nice job guys! Love Kacee's first-time reaction. Carpenter is great at this but also with Kurt Russell and his first-time reactions to everything is timeless. If you like to see more Kurt Russell movies here's a list of must see 's among the ones you mentioned already: (since your gonna watch Escape from New York) watch- Soldier, Tango & Cash, Overboard, Captain Ron and Sky High, to name a few. Afterwards, I'll be watching for the Clint Eastwood train. Thanks again. Enjoy!
I was 6 when this came out. Probably saw it when I was 8 or 9. VHS took a long time 😂 But this was instantly my favorite movie when I saw it. I can't really explain it, but it had everything I loved in action movies at that time.
Imma big fan of John Carpenter so I'm glad you guys are watching more of his movies. And this one is bonkers, in a good way, lol. Love it and have watched this flick so many times. It's a really good background movie.
Big Trouble actually started life as a sequel to 1984's 'Buckaroo Banzai: Adventures Across the 8th Dimension' (a must watch cult film) but now bares no resemblance at all to the original script treatment idea at all and quickly became something unique in it's own right. It is however still a great light hearted romp though and one of my favourite Carpenter movies.
Definitely watch Escape from New York! Also Soldier is another good Kurt Russel movie. James Hong, the actor who played Lo Pan, has had a long career in movies and TV. He started with uncredited movie roles back in 1954 and is still working at the age of 94. He's one of those actors that people recognize from other things, but probably don't know his name. In 1974 he even had a part in an adult film called China Girl, playing an Asian crime lord.
I love this movie, it is so funny and entertaining! I highly recommend both Escape for L.A and Escape from New York, they both are fantastic! Another great movie that Kurt Russell is in is Stargate.
Make me feel old. I was in my early 20s when this came out. Went to see it in a theater with a bunch of friends and had a blast. To this day, one of my favorite movies. You could also check out the next John Carpenter movie - a horror - Prince of Darkness. It has the same actor who played Wang Chi in this one (Dennis Dun).
OH GOSH!!!! They did it again! Smacking me straight in the face with that nostalgia! Just Wow! Wonderful choice!!!! Watch this when I was a young man about 7 I think idk. I’m going to enjoy this 😊.
Now that you've seen it, watch it again. Because the whole movie is from Jack's perspective as the comedic sidekick to his friend Wang Chi. Who is the hero.😀
John Carpenter is the king of the cult classic with movies like the Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, and They Live, all bombed at the box office, but are beloved cult classics. Also, if you want another Kurt Russell movie, don't forget Overboard.
Some interesting facts. Raiden from Mortal Kombat was inspired by Lightning (The lightening guy) and Jack Burton is actually the sidekick and Wang is the hero.
This movie is about saving victims of sex trafficking. It was random, that's why they took the Wang's girl, she was just closest Asian girl to them because the city or news won't care if an Asian immigrant goes missing. Watch "Eden" it's a horror film based on the Chong Kim (Sex trafficker victim) story.
Those slit glasses are actually snow goggles--they're kind of silly in this situation but they actually have a functional purpose in places like the Arctic where they cut down on glare from the bright white snow. The Inuit invented them centuries ago and made them from things like bone, wood, and walrus tusk.
The 3 Storms ... the big guy who could swell up is THUNDER, the guy with the long hair who blew the ball at Jack is WIND and the third guy ... well, obviously is LIGHTNING.
it feels strange that I know - today - exactly what you mean by that description, but as a kid growing up in the 80s, this was just a normal movie I mean they were all like that, fever dreams
I worked as an actor in L.A. for a long while. I got cast in a sit com called Regular Joe that got cancelled in it's first year. When I got to the set in the morning James Hong (Lo Pan) was checking in right next to me. We were both being walked to our dressing rooms when Hong turned to me and said "We have worked together before, haven't we?" I told him no we hadn't , I would certainly remember that. He said "Then you interviewed me sometime" and he turned away not waiting for my answer.
There's an action flick starring Dolph Lundgren and Brandon Lee called, SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (1991), a title I always felt was inspired by BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA.
