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A DVD Review of...
  
Images (C) FOX |
Genre: Comedy/Fantasy
Cast: Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, Victor Wong, James Hong, Dennis Dun, Kate Burton
Synopsis: Jack Burton, a tough-talking, wisecracking truck driver has his hum-drum life on the road thrown into a supernatural tailspin when his best friend's fiancee is kidnapped. Speeding to the rescue, Jack finds himself deep beneath San Francisco's Chinatown, in a murky, creature-filled world ruled by Lo Pan, a 2,000-year-old magician who mercilessly presides over an empire of spirits. Dodging demons and facing baffling terrors, Jack battles his way through Lo Pan's dark domain in a full-throttle, action-riddled ride to rescue the girl
Film Review: Everyone has their own favourite John Carpenter film whether it be the seriously atmospheric "Halloween", the superbly tense "Escape from New York", the gritty indie feel of "Prince of Darkness", or the FX gory horror flick "The Thing". While I really like all those flicks, its this comic fantasy actioneer that has been and will likely always remain my favourite Carpenter movie and one of my fave films of all time. This is the ultimate definition of a cult Summer movie and it works perfectly, sure its cheesy at points and shallow like most Summer movies but unlike "The Mummy" movies this at least has a hell of a lot of imagination and humour. I was too young to see this in theatres, but got it out when it came out on video, I was about nine or so, and must've seen this film at least once a month every month for a good two to three years as it so appealed to me. When you're a real young 'un, there's always places in the city that your imagination runs wild about thinking about what may be going on down there - Chinatown is one example. That's exactly what the story of this film is, the wild imaginings of a child who hasn't really been exposed to the reality of another culture and rather conjures up all sorts of elaborate fantastical possibilities in their head - this is one of those possibilities.
Kurt Russell stars as the wise cracking Jack Burton, a hero you can quickly identify with as he's worldly, cynical, hilarious and out for himself. He's the anchor in a world of wild FX-filled fantasy and helps keep you grounded as like him, you're thrown into the middle of a complex story and are wondering what the hell is going on. The rest of the cast know exactly the camp quality of the material and thus treat it for what it is, and it works. They're over the top, they speak at a mile a minute, but god damn its fun listening to them go through the rounds. Cattrall is the smart sassy interest, Hong does a great baddie as the sorcerer Lo-Pan, and Dun is the fun fly kicking sidekick. Has the film aged? Sure, its quite 80's but it still holds up better than a lot of recent Summer movies. There's some scenes you'd wonder what would happen if they redid it today's post-Matrix world, such as the ending kung-fu swordfights, but still even now its a real modern-day fantasy story that's definitely worth having in any movie/DVD collection. Stephen Sommers - this is how Summer movies should be done. - Garth Franklin
"Big Trouble in Little China: Special Edition"
DVD Details In Brief (Region 1)
Rating: M
Runtime: 99mins
Versions: 16:9 Enhanced Widescreen, 4:3 Letterboxed
Aspect Ratio: 2.35: 1
Sound: Digital 5.1 Surround, DTS 5.1, Dolby 2.0 Surround
Language & Sub-Titles: English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Norwegian, Polish, Portugese, Swedish
Audio: Commentary by John Carpenter & Kurt Russell
Documentaries: Featurette, Richard Edlund Interview
Clips: Deleted Scenes, Three Theatrical Trailers, Ten TV Spots, Music Video
Other: Production Notes, Two Magazine Articles
Region 1 vs. Region 4: Standard NTSC/PAL Differences |
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DVD Review: After disappointing releases of "Halloween", "The Thing", "Escape from New York", etc. at last comes a DVD set worthy of a Carpenter movie. For a fifteen year old film there's a surprisingly large amount of material still available for this. The first disc contains the film itself which looks superb. Having always seen the movie on grainy videotape, the DVD rings through siny and clear with vivid colours that are so good that some of the FX look even more dated than they should be. Other scenes really show off the quality such as a scene where Lo-Pan and Egg Shen are zapping coloured rays at each other, the green and purple 'fighters' look stunning. The sound also rings clear with the synthesised 80's music and the main Asian theme song hauntingly played over and over again. I'm sure the DTS and 5.1 Surround are great, as the 2.0 Surround is certainly good enough for me. The commentary track by Carpenter and Russell is quite simply the best I've ever heard. Its been recorded recently and both don't seem to have seen the film in a while so at some points its informative, but most of the time its laughter and jokes about the movie. Carpenter is smart and informative with a wicked sense of humour, Russell has a great laugh about everything from the production to himself and whenever things threaten to go quiet he pops in with a question to ask John that helps us understand things more. I'm not normally big into commentary tracks at all, but this one is most DEFINITELY worth sitting through from start to end several times - its that good. To top it all off comes some great CG animated underground temple menus.
Disc Two has a whole bunch of deleted scenes and an extended ending which add more characterisation and deals a bit with more real world aspects such as issues of illegal immigrants and the dark trade in young Asian female prostitutes in America. These were understandably cut to keep the pace and fantasy alive of the main plot, but are an interesting sidenote. The quality of each scene varies depending upon the source material, most are surprisingly good. Others take scenes which we know in the movie but show it from different angles and takes which is kind of strange - but an interesting idea. The featurette is a standard 'making of' feature, overshadowed by a really cool interview with Richard Edlund who talks about the prosthetics and monsters, budget constraints, San Fran's Chinatown resident reaction to the movie, and an "Alien 3" makeup trick David Fincher would rather forget. While he's talking at his desk you either have the option of viewing production photos in a small box off to his left, or have that box fill the screen and just have his voice recounting stories. There's a music video with I think its Carpenter himself in there doing a very Duran Duran-esque performance (watch out, I'm having an MTV acid flashback), two articles from movie magazines (which tell you some cool stuff about the 'alley fight scene'), the standard production notes, and an exhaustive Trailer & TV spots section. They've really gone creative with some other stuff like the biographies menu which is atmospheric, whilst the exhaustively long still gallery has some not only good quality stills (about 200) but a great sense of humour with a priceless shot of Victor Wong & crew members standing next to golden Buddha statues and sticking their guts out. All that's missing is some outttakes. This is a great set all round with a really good movie and some really good extras - a must have. - Garth Franklin
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