12 Things You Might Not Know About “Big Trouble in Little China”

Cheryl Eddy and io9.com present 12 Things You Might Not Know About Big Trouble in Little China.  Here are three of my favorites…

3) Jack Burton’s Insane Boots Were Kurt Russell’s Idea
Though the Big Trouble book showers rightful praise on costume designer April Ferry, Russell says he had a hand in selecting his character’s distinctive footwear. He had Jack Burton’s “funky, high-top moccasins” specially made in Aspen at a shop he happened to know about.

5) The Actor Playing Rain Had No Idea He Was in a Comedy
Peter Kwong tells the authors that his scenes as Rain, one of the villainous Lo Pan’s well-armed lieutenants, were so intense that he was under the impression that Big Trouble was merely “an action-adventure with a mysterious ghost story.”

It wasn’t until he filmed his last-act fight—and noted Dennis Dun’s over-the-top eyebrow raise at a key moment during their battle—that he realized the movie was actually a comedy that also happened to have action-adventure and mystical elements. Later in the book, Kwong reveals that his luxurious long wig, which was specifically designed to look like those traditionally worn in Chinese martial arts movies, cost $3,000.

11) Making Lo Pan’s Glowing Skull Was Weirdly Easy
Actor James Hong plays two versions of iconic bad guy David Lo Pan: the ancient old man, and the younger sorcerer. His on-screen transformation comes courtesy of both a bust of Hong that was covered in clear, flexible skin, carefully painted to look like Hong in his old-man make-up, and by fading the lights off outside the bust while fading the lights inside the bust on. According to Johnson, the scene was completed in just one take.