"I'm a reasonable guy. But I've just experienced some very unreasonable things."
I've only seen two of John Carpenter's films before- Halloween and Christine. Both, to some extent, are genre films. This is a massively mainstream Hollywood blockbuster. And it's awesome. I don't care if it flopped. You can't trust the judgement of the general public. You, dear reader, have impeccable taste. But people in general are rubbish and like rubbish things. I'm sure you agree.
Anyway, this is bloody good. It seems to give quite a positive depiction of Chinese culture to my ignorant eyes, but this was 1986. There's plenty of scope for cultural insensitivity to have happened which will have sailed right over the head of this Leicestershire lad. Yet it seems to me that, whatever flaws I cannot see, the film shows a lot of affection to Hong kong kung fu movies, and with bloody good direction to boot.
Kurt Russell is an idiosyncratic, mildly humorous, action hero- the working class man as decent bloke rather than as the bigoted wanker that modern expectations may demand. It's quite refreshing to see a leading man from a time where politics wasn't composed of this culture war nonsense and Donald Trump, if rather more compos mentis in 1986 than he was in his rather confused presidency, was rightly dismissed by the Jack Burtons of this world as a rich wanker.
This is a wonderful, very '80s film, with an equally '80s soundtrack and splendid performances from all involved, not only the wonderful Kim Cattrall but a load of Chinese-American actors who seem to have few other credits. It's as good an '80s blockbuster as any of its many competitors.
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