Every year as Chinese New Year approaches (Year of the Tiger starts February 1, 2022!) I start missing home. When I start missing home, I start eating Chinese food and watching John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China…
My love for this movie started at the dollar theater. My brother wanted to see Rambo: First Blood Part II, but he couldn’t get in to see it at the regular theaters. When dollar theater finally advertised Rambo was playing, my mom said he could go as long as he took me. So, I was roped into going to see this sucky Rambo movie. The dollar theater always showed movies as double features. My mom dropped us off for the Rambo start time and told us to be outside at double feature start time. But the theater screwed up. They switched films and played the second film first.
Picture a theater full of teenage boys biting at the bit to watch Rambo (a hard-core action film). Instead, this weird fantasy martial arts action-comedy starts playing. At the beginning of the movie everyone in the theater was screaming obscenities and booing the film. Yet, by the end of the film the ENTIRE theater jumped to their FEET screaming and clapping for the BEST ending to any movie I have ever seen. Yes, I’m overselling it. The real reason this film’s ending is the best ever is that I was part of an audience which went from spewing venom to standing ovation during the 1 hour and 39-minute film. Remember, this is an audience of teenage boys who wanted to watch Rambo… it was a hard sell from the get-go, but it won us all over – EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US.
I don’t remember the Rambo movie, the only part I even remember about that movie was being outside convincing my mom let us stay. But I still remember the power Big Trouble in Little China had over us. I remember the cheering at the end. I’m always searching for an ending like this – one that has the power to stand the test of time. Hopefully, I’ll write one one day…
Until then, I will watch Big Trouble in Little China yearly as the world celebrates Chinese New Year while reminiscing about the best theater experience I have ever had, eating Chinese food, and missing San Francisco.