No, Big Trouble In Little China Isn't "Problematic"

"Problematic or woke?" This is the question posed by Leon Thomas of the YouTube channel Renegade Cut in his video essay about the 1986 film Big Trouble In Little China. Thomas admits that he enjoys the film, but he seems reluctant to answer his own question one way or the other. His essay points out that the film contains orientalist tropes, and Thomas manages to find at least one contemporaneous Asian-American advocacy group that reacted negatively to the film at the time. But he also acknowledges that the film is "aware of its tropes" and makes an effort to subvert them. In conclusion, the essay says of John Carpenter's film, "You tried." But Big Trouble in Little China deserves more credit than that.

Taken at face value, the film is about Jack Burton, portrayed by Kurt Russell, an archetypical white savior who romps through the otherworldly depths of San Francisco's Chinatown on a mystical adventure to rescue a damsel in distress and stop an evil sorcerer's plan for world domination. It is, as Thomas points out in his essay, a "caricatured portrayal of Chinese culture" replete with "Chinese black magic," elemental warlords, and kick-ass martial arts.

But the film is not meant to be taken at face value. The film may be centered on Jack Burton, and the audience may expect him to be the hero of the story, with his John Wayne bravado, but it is apparent from the events of the film that Burton is little more than an "inept sidekick" to Dennis Dun's character, Wang Chi. Both Russell and Carpenter have supported this interpretation in remarks about the film. Big Trouble is told from Burton's perspective, but it's Wang Chi's story.

There's no doubt that the film contains orientalist tropes ("orientalism" being defined as a tendency to exoticize Asian culture and reduce Asian characters to stereotypes). Thomas quotes Roger Ebert's review as saying of the film, "This movie is straight out of the era of Charlie Chan and Fu Manchu, with no apologies and all of the usual stereotypes." But the Asian stereotypes are so over the top as to reduce them to satire. The evil sorcerer, Lo Pan—who goes by the cunning alias "David Lo Pan"—is a direct parody of Fu Manchu, the undisputedly racist caricature from the 1930's. No movie-goer can watch James Hong's performance as Lo Pan and not laugh at the absurdity of the character.

"... orientalist tropes can be employed to satire orientalism, and this is clearly the artistic intent and running joke of Big Trouble."

The same goes for the vast subterranean depths beneath Chinatown—known by colorful names such as "the Hell of Boiling Oil" and "the Hell Of Being Cut To Pieces"—and the film's hand-wavingly explained "Chinese black magic." As Thomas points out in his essay, Big Trouble is conscious of these tropes and makes of a mockery of them, just as it makes a mockery of white saviorism.

Leon Thomas is a left-leaning commentator on film and politics. At the end of his essay, he disclaims his desire to be "a decent ally," saying, "my white ass does not know better than the people actually affected by this." But the only contemporaneous objection to the film that Thomas cites is from a San Francisco-based organization called "Chinese-Americans for Affirmative Action," which still exists today. This is a contentious subject in Chinese-American communities, however, as affirmative action has been shown to disadvantage Asians. In fact, the 2020 Asian American Voter Survey found that Chinese-Americans were among the least likely to support affirmative action. I raise this point only to note that the CAA doesn't speak for all Chinese-Americans on affirmative action or, presumably, on Chinese-American perceptions of Big Trouble in Little China. In my research for this article, I wasn't able to find any significant offense taken at the film.

I believe Thomas wants to defend Big Trouble in Little China, but he hedges his bet, explicitly afraid of being perceived as a white man defending orientalist tropes. I admit that I can't speak for the lived experiences of Chinese-Americans, and I don't claim to do so. But orientalist tropes can be employed to satire orientalism, and this is clearly the artistic intent and running joke of Big Trouble—Leon Thomas knows this, and his equivocation does a disservice to the film.

As Roger Ebert's review concludes, "It may not be true that Chinatowns are honeycombed with subterranean throne rooms, but isn't it kind of fun once in a while to pretend?"