Big Trouble in Little China Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

Big Trouble in Little China Blu-ray Movie Review

My colleagues Marty Liebman and Dr. Svet Atanasov reviewed the US 20th Century Fox standard edition and UK Arrow SteelBook of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China (1986) in 2009 and 2013, respectively. You can refer to their analyses of the film and evaluations of the discs in the linked reviews.

You will obey my command.

Big Trouble in Little China Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Big Trouble in Little China makes its second official appearance on Blu-ray in the US courtesy of Scream Factory, who has delivered a huge two-disc Collector's Edition. Its parent Shout! Factory is offering the set in different packages: a website- exclusive bundle that also contains a 18" x 24" rolled poster of the new CE artwork by Laz Marquez and a 7" on green vinyl via Sacred Bones featuring music from the movie composed by John Carpenter and recorded by John, Cody Carpenter, and Daniel Davies; a Limited Edition SteelBook with different artwork; and just the standalone slipcover reviewed here. The first disc includes three feature-length commentaries, vintage EPK materials culled from the Fox vault (and new to both DVD and Blu-ray), and three still galleries.

The film appears in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of about 2.35:1 on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. For the record this is the same DI used for the inaugural Fox Blu-ray a decade ago (as well as the European editions ca. 2009). Scream uses a mean video bitrate of 32603 kbps that moves past Fox's average of 27812 kbps. Scream's encode and bitrate is virtually identical to Arrow's from six years ago. I know the film's many fans have anxiously awaited a fresh 4K scan but one wasn't done for this release. The transfer still looks rock solid with good sharpness, bright colors, and sufficient grain. There are infrequent white specks that very occasionally pop up in the frame but with brevity. I've included a graphical comparison with several matching frame grabs from the Fox and Scream.

Not ported over on any of the two discs that possibly was incorporated as text screens on Fox's 2001 two-disc DVD Special Edition was a June 1986 American Cinematographer interview with DP Dean Cundey conducted by freelance writer Mark Steensland. (I don't have that Fox set so I can't confirm if the article was reproduced. There were actually three articles about BTiLC in that particular AC issue.) Cundey told Steensland that for Richard Edlund's optical effects, certain sets were photographed with a 65mm camera and then a a dupe negative was created. To achieve high quality, Cundey overexposed a half-stop and then printed down so that some of the grain and contrast were diminished. This explains while watching this transfer why grain is more prominent in certain places over others. For the scenes in San Francisco's Chinatown, the art and set decoration department built an elaborate street set that completely covered Stage 6 at 20th Century Fox's lot. Cundey came up with an innovative lighting scheme. His crew stretched a silk over the whole stage, which was about two square blocks. "We hung coop lights - which are rectangular lights containing about six 1K lamps each - from the top of the stage and then hung the silk below it," Cundy explained to Steensland. "By the time the light reached the stage, it was very soft - almost shadlowless." This was how the set was lit during the big street fight when Jack Burton and Wang Chi watched the gangs battle it out. Fifty of the coop lights were erected forty feet high above the set. Atmosphere-wise, the scene appears to have overcast clouds, fog, and a realistic white sky, which is what Cundey's crew produced from the silk. The scene remains a demo-worthy highlight on the Blu-ray.
Note: Screenshot #s 23/24--which depict a duel between the ghost warriors of Lo-Pan and Egg Chen--is based on a conceptual drawing by George Jensen. Its orgiastic colors and phantasmagorical qualities remind me of the dream sequence from Kurosawa's Kagemusha (1980).

Scream provides the usual dozen chapters. The Fox BD has a whopping forty-four scene selections.

Screenshot #s 1-16, 18, 20, 22, & 24 = Scream Factory 2019 Collector's Edition BD-50
Screenshot #s 17, 19, 21, & 23 = Fox 2009 BD-50

Big Trouble in Little China Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The only uncompressed full sound track for the film Scream has supplied is a remixed DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (1929 kbps, 24-bit). They've also added the original Dolby Surround 2.0 in a lossy mix (640 kbps), which is great for purists but too bad it couldn't be in LPCM. Because Scream has also added two audio commentaries alongside the recycled Carpenter/Russell track--not to mention an array of ancillary extras--its bitrate plummets quite a bit. Listening to this track compared to when I first heard Fox's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (3848 kbps, 24-bit), Scream's doesn't have the same depth and amplitude. Its "core" and directional sound f/x remain intact here but I'd prefer to listen to Fox's again (or Arrow's, which is nearly identical). I'm also partial to the older release's pitch levels.

Thankfully, John Carpenter and Alan Howarth's isolated score has been retained here in a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Surround (1880 kbps kbps, 24-bit), again down from Fox's encode of 3699 kbps. Carpenter and Howarth's music is a sheer delight to listen to as it fuses rock elements with snyths/digital samplers and original electronic Oriental tunes. According to film historian Jeff Bond, Howarth mimicked the sounds of finger cymbals, bowed strings, pitched-bending and plucked instruments through special percussion samples performed on an Emulator 2, Prophet V and Kurzweil 250 synth, as well on an EMU drum machine. Carpenter and he also performed on a Fender as well as electric and bass guitars, which add up to a thematically rich score with consistently great rhythms. La-La Land Records' 30th Anniversary Edition (which the label reissued after the first lot sold out) contains almost as much music as the entire film! Spread over two CDs, it also incorporates alternate versions of cues that are different from the final film version. It's a must-have album that you'll want to have along with this set.

The Blu-ray provides optional English SDH for the feature. The film also contains some Cantonese dialogue.

Big Trouble in Little China Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Scream Factory has added a smorgasbord of new commentaries and interviews. My general comments for them as a whole are they are very comprehensive. The interviews are part-biographical in addition to covering the participants' experiences on this Carpenter film. They nicely balance breadth and depth. I've denoted if an extra is new to this release and which label(s) have released it on a prior BD.

DISC ONE: THE FILM

• NEW: Audio Commentary with Producer Larry Franco, Moderated by Justin Beahm

• NEW: Audio Commentary with Special Effects Artist Steve Johnson, Moderated by Filmmaker Anthony C. Ferrante

• Fox and Arrow: Audio Commentary with Director John Carpenter and Actor Kurt Russell

• Fox and Arrow: Three Theatrical Trailers (1080p)

• Fox and Arrow: Five TV Spots (1080p)

• Blu-ray PREMIERE: Vintage Audio Interview with John Carpenter (5:49, 1080p)

• Blu-ray PREMIERE: Electronic Press Kit – Interviews and Profiles (27:26, 1080p)

• Blu-ray PREMIERE: Gag Reel (2:56, 1080p)

• Fox and Arrow: Music Video (3:28, 1080p)

• Fox and Arrow: Eleven Deleted and Extended Scenes (1080p)

• Fox and Arrow: Extended Ending (3:17, 1080p)

• Movie Stills Gallery (6:39, 1080p) - a clickable slideshow displaying eighty-one on-set photographs (all color) on the set of Big Trouble in Little China. They're shown in portrait and landscape in various sizes.

• Posters, Lobby Cards, and Publicity Photos (6:53, 1080p) - an amalgamation of publicity shots, lobby cards (US and Spanish ad campaigns), one-sheets, VHS covers, and press kit photos. Nearly all these are in color. The publicity pics of Russell, Kim Cattrall, and Suzee Pai boast outstanding clarity.

• Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery (15:10, 1080p) - a very large collection of behind-the-scenes snapshots (185) with a majority of them featuring Carpenter on the set with various members of his cast and crew. For certain photos, it would have been useful had Shout included descriptive captions to identify lesser-known producers, f/x artists, technicians, and actors that appear with Carpenter. The gallery also includes several costume sketches.

• NEW: You're the Hero – An Interview with Actor Dennis Dun (14:14, 1080p)

• NEW: The Soul of Lo Pan – An Interview with Actor James Hong (23:57, 1080p)

• NEW: Able to Be Myself – An Interview with Actor Donald Li (18:29, 1080p)

• NEW: The Tao of Thunder – An Interview with Actor Carter Wong (25:47, 1080p)

• NEW: The Tao of Rain – An Interview with Actor Peter Kwong (28:34, 1080p)

• NEW: The Hatchet Man Speaks – An Interview With Actor Al Leong (6:32, 1080p)

• NEW: Damn Wiley Prescott – An Interview with Writer W.D. Richter (20:31, 1080p)

• NEW: It Was a Western Ghost Story – An Interview with Writer Gary Goldman (27:50, 1080p)

• NEW: The Poetry of Motion – An Interview with Associate Producer/Martial Arts Choreographer James Lew (35:01, 1080p)

• NEW: Into the Mystic Night – An Interview with The Coupe De Ville's Member Nick Castle (12:35, 1080p)

• NEW: Since We Were Kids – An Interview with Second Unit Director/The Coupe De Ville's Member Tommy Lee Wallace (28:51, 1080p)

• NEW: Love And Art – A Conversation with Movie Poster Artist Drew Struzan (17:04, 1080p)

• Arrow: Return to Little China – An Interview with Director John Carpenter (12:14, 1080p)

• Arrow: Being Jack Burton – An Interview with Actor Kurt Russell (20:57, 1080p)

• Arrow: Carpenter and I – An Interview with Director of Photography Dean Cundey (15:38, 1080p)

• Arrow: Producing Big Trouble – An Interview with Producer Larry Franco (15:23, 1080p)

• Arrow: Staging Big Trouble – An Interview with Stuntman Jeff Imada (12:32, 1080p)

• Fox and Arrow: Interview with Visual Effects Artist Richard Edlund (13:25, 1080p)

• Fox and Arrow: Vintage Featurette (7:26)

Big Trouble in Little China Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Big Trouble in Little China is uncategorizable as a genre because it blends in so many different ones. Carpenter's penultimate studio film has eclipsed its cult status to become a postmodern pop art film that has inspired and influenced (directly or indirectly) young filmmakers and graphic novelists alike. Scream Factory's two-disc CE reuses the same fine transfer from a decade ago with lossless audio that I wish had been given higher priority in its encodes by the disc's sound engineers/technical authors. (I'll still play my Fox disc.) Where this package elevates itself substantially over the Arrow and Fox is the bountiful extras that carry significant informational value. Because a 4K restoration will likely transpire in the not-too distant future, I'll hold off in labeling this the "definitive version." But its bonus features are hard to beat. HEARTILY RECOMMENDED to Carpenter connoisseurs!