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Jack and Wang track the hooligans back to Chinatown, where they fast find themselves in over their heads - drawn into an ancient feud between rival gangs and supernatural forces beyond their understanding. Jack loses his truck, but the two men manage to escape with their lives. Desperate to rescue his bride, Wang recruits some help – childhood friend Eddie Lee (Donald Li), a nosy civil rights lawyer named Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall) and a grizzled old mystic named Egg Shen (the immensely loveable Victor Wong). Together they descend into the depths of Chinatown to mount a rescue. Unspeakable horrors await them there, and they discover that Miao is the victim of something far more sinister than random street crime.

It turns out the universe is threatened by an ancient demon called David Lo Pan (James Hong) who happens to have the hots for Wang’s girl. Lo Pan is a crusty, merciless old bastard who commands hordes of evil minions, and has mastered the elemental powers of Chinese black magic. And, he has Jack’s truck. Our heroes must race against time to rescue Miao, save the universe, and find Jack’s truck before Lo Pan takes off with Miao to rule the universe from beyond the grave.

Sounds like fun? Well it is, mostly. Big Trouble is an eclectic and often haphazard mash-up of styles, and it takes great pleasure in throwing as many of them in your face as possible. The central theme of the movie is that beneath the streets of Chinatown, there’s a hidden world of sorcery and danger that’s not meant for Western eyes. Jack and Gracie are two of the only white faces in the cast, thrust into a world they can hardly begin to understand, which makes for both light and awkward moments. Jack’s conservative hubris and Gracie’s liberal idealism are of little use in this world, and the Asian characters are center stage for much of the film, in roles that usually (but not always) favor their ethnicity without resorting to demeaning racial stereotypes. The film churns rapid fire through a lengthy list of influences with mixed results. You can see bits and pieces of American Westerns, Hong Kong martial arts classics, old school Charlie Chan adventures, real life Chinese legend and what passed for a modern action comedy in the 1980s.

And have I mentioned that this movie is very heavy on the Ghostbusters style special effects? That’s not meant as an insult - even by today’s standards, Big Trouble boasts some pretty dazzling eye candy. It’s a lot to digest, but it never slows down long enough to truly feel exhausting. This is more of an amusement park ride than a movie, and in that respect it succeeds brilliantly. However, even casual, incurious moviegoers can sense when there’s too much grain in their beef. Big Trouble technically does have a story, and it’s not hard to follow. But it’s essentially an early example of the “video game on film” genre. There’s never any doubt as to how the thing will end, and the characters are even more one dimensional than the plot. Each set of challenges our heroes face as they descend into the depths of Chinatown play out like a first generation console shooter - you make your way through the same level over and over again, only the difficulty increases slightly each time and the boss battle at the end gets a little more unfair.

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