Commentary track by director John Carpenter and star Kurt Russell, deleted scenes, isolated music score, vintage featurette, extended ending, interview with visual effects director Richard Edlund with pip mode, six TV spots, three theatrical trailers all presented in 480i.

John Carpenter had good stuff to sell unfortunately the public wasn't buying. "Big Trouble in Little China" like "The Thing" (my favorite Carpenter film)didn't connect with audiences at the time but has discovered renewed popularity on home video. Kurt Russell appears in his fourth Carpenter film ("Elvis", "Escape from New York", "The Thing" and later he would appear in "Escape from L.A." which parodies the first film and all the films that imitated its post-apocalyptic style. Interestingly Carpenter was inspired to make "Escape" after watching a then little known movie called "Mad Max")with a John Wayne swagger, macho attitude and parody of that type of hero. ***

Kurt Russell mentions in the commentary that the film tested off the charts so Carpenter, Russell and even the studio expected the film to do well. Unfortunately, Fox made minimal effort at the time to promote the film (perhaps the marketing department didn’t like it for whatever reason—it’s been known to happen. A good example of this is “Arrested Development” which the marketing department just didn’t like probably because they couldn’t figure out how to sell it). That’s too bad because it’s one of Carpenter’s most amusing film this side of his early satirical film “Dark Star”. ***

Set in San Francisco’s Chinatown district, the big trouble of the title occurs when Jack (Kurt Russell) gives his friend Wang (Dennis Dun) a ride to the airport to pick up his fiancé Miao Yin (Suzee Pai)arriving from China. She has green eyes and the immortal Chinese sorcerer Lo Pan (James Hong) needs to marry a girl with green eyes to regain physical form and rule the world. Human rights lawyer Gracie Law (Kim Cattrell) offers to help them retrieve Miao Yin and with the help from sorcerer Egg Shen (Victor Wong) they must battle the “elements” (Carter Wong, James Pax and Peter Kwong) Lo Pan’s henchmen to prevent the evil sorcerer from gaining human form. ---

Image & Sound:

The Blu-ray looks excellent. Colors pop and detail is remarkably sharp. Fox has clearly learned a thing or two after the debacle of the over processed "Patton". Dialogue comes across loud and clear. ***

Most of the extras are ported over for this special edition including the entertaining Carpenter/Russell commentary track. It’s clear that the duo enjoys each other’s company as they share stories and joke about the shooting of the movie from the real sweat on Russell (he had the flu while shooting the film) to the often difficult stunts that appear in the film. ***

We get the original featurette, deleted scenes along with a more recent interview with visual effects supervisor Richard Edlund (shot for the original DVD release). We also get an isolated music track for the film as well as the extended ending of the film. All of the special features are presented in standard 480i. ---

Final Words: