{"id":89984,"date":"2026-10-03T20:44:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-03T12:44:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=89984"},"modified":"2026-10-03T20:44:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-03T12:44:05","slug":"why-john-carpenters-big-trouble-in-little-china-is-both-problematic-and-progressive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=89984","title":{"rendered":"Why John Carpenter\u2019s Big Trouble in Little China is both problematic and progressive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.i-scmp.com\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/1280x720\/public\/d8\/images\/canvas\/2026\/10\/03\/782fbc53-afee-43ba-ae58-c39e8f9b78c8_677e4a32.jpg?itok=-3YJRvUU&amp;v=1791021581\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In 1986, a strange coincidence occurred in Hollywood. Despite the industry having previously shown little interest in the subject, two major Chinese-themed fantasy films were released in the same year: John Carpenter\u2019s <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Big Trouble in Little China<\/em> and the Eddie Murphy vehicle <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">The Golden Child<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Ever the cynic, Carpenter refused to believe in serendipity.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">\u201cHow many adventure pictures dealing with Chinese mysticism have been released by the major studios in the past 20 years?\u201d he asked Starlog magazine. \u201cFor two of them to come along at the exact same time is more than mere coincidence.\u201d<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Coincidence or not, when Carpenter was offered both projects to direct, he chose the more interesting of the two. Playing like a long-lost Indiana Jones film, <em data-qa=\"ContentSchemaRender-defaultRenderMapFunctions-Component\" class=\"css-1mniedq ex3nmsa15\">Big Trouble in Little China<\/em> was a raucous, racially charged action-comedy with horror elements, and it had an equally unlikely origin story.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.scmp.com\/lifestyle\/entertainment\/article\/3369539\/why-john-carpenters-big-trouble-little-china-both-problematic-and-progressive?utm_source=rss_feed\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1986, a strange coincidence occurred in Hollywood. Despite the industry having previously shown little interest in the subject, two major Chinese-themed fantasy films were&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":89985,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[577,17926,832,1175,31032,7480,11983],"class_list":["post-89984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-big","tag-carpenters","tag-china","tag-john","tag-problematic","tag-progressive","tag-trouble","wpcat-33-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=89984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/89985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=89984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=89984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=89984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}