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(on Wikipedia)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090728/

A man’s fiancé is kidnapped, and he and his friend move to rescue her from what turns out to be ancient Chinese mystical forces.

A phenomenal movie. Fun and interesting. The acting is great, the story is great, the setting is great. I easily consider this mandatory viewing, and I think it holds up even after all these years.

• 2023-01-24
• 2015-11-02
• 2006-01-14

• Watched beforehand, more than once; no notes were taken.

2023-01-24 ∞

• 0:30 —

  • Tour bus
  • Chinatown, San Francisco – San Francisco – United States
• 1:45 — Ghosts in Chinese culture
• 2:30 — Truck driver
• 4:15 — Alone in this universe

• 5:45 —

  • Fan-Tan
  • Heaven and Earth
  • Gambling
• 7:15 — Californian – California
• 9:00 — Airport
• 11:00 — Miller Brewing Company

• 13:30 —

  • Central Park
  • Hitchhiking
  • Lawyer

• 14:15 —

  • Gold rush
  • Gold Mountain (toponym)
• 14:30 — Chinese which needs to be translated..
• 16:30 — Funeral – Chinese funeral rituals
• 18:30 — See also Mexican standoff
• 20:00 — That is the whitest Chinese guy..
• 23:00 — Some nice clean puddle water..

• 24:30 —

  • Chinese restaurant
  • Insurance

• 25:45 —

  • Glove compartment
  • Insurance policy
  • Abandoned vehicle
  • Motor vehicle theft

• 26:30 —

  • Kidnapping
  • Sexual slavery
• 27:00 — Chinese hells
• 28:00 — The Immortals
• 31:00 — Hong Kong
• 33:30 — Berkeley People’s Herald

• 37:45 —

  • Buddhism
  • Confucianism
  • Taoist alchemy
  • “Chinese sorcery” doesn’t have a handy reference
• 42:00 — Hunan

• 43:00 —

  • Ch’ing tai – See list of wind deities
  • Shen (Chinese religion)
  • I don’t know about “the furies”, but that concept is found in Erinyes.
• 45:45 — Trade restriction
• TODO – earlier was Import/export

• 47:00 —

  • Qin Shi Huang
  • Seven Warring States

• 56:15 —

  • Sanitary sewer
  • Seawater
• 59:15 — Why would she be curious about a hidden door opening right then and there?
• 1:02:00 — Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – (1865 book), by Lewis Carroll
• 1:02:30 — Dirty Harry – (1971 movie)
• 1:03:15 — She’s dry.
• 1:07:00 — Oil
• 1:08:00 — His blades aren’t by his feet any more..
• 1:09:00 — God that guy’s neck is long.
• 1:17:15 — I don’t think that “may the wings of liberty never lose a feather” is an actual bit of poetry.
• 1:25:00 — Casual misandry.
• 1:28:15 — Why would wiping lipstick off of him be important at a time like that?
• 1:32:15 — Richter scale
• 1:33:45 — China

• 1:35:30 — Heaven

2015-11-02 ∞

• San Francisco Chinatown is the largest Chinatown outside of Asia as well as the oldest Chinatown in North America.
• Green flame? So there was copper involved?
• 3:15 — “The pork chop express” was not explained until the end, where the logo on the side of his truck says “The Pork-Chop Express”, with a running pig. Maybe it was visible in parts of the movie, but I didn’t look.
• What was that gambling game being played at the start, with the bowl?
• What was that gambling game being played at the start, with the dominoes?
• Cutting a bottle in half with a knife.
• “You own a restaurant, that’s a hell of a lot more than me.” .. back then, it would be likely that Burten owns his truck, which is a hell of a lot more than Wang’s family owning a restaurant.
• 9:00 — Peking is now called Beijing. Thanks, communist dictatorship!
• 9:15 — She doesn’t look remotely Chinese. Just saying.
• Lords of Death. Sweet band name.
• Oh the innocent pre-September 11 attacks days. I wonder if someone has a blog about all the movies with such scenes.
• Transcontinental railroad
• I don’t know the translation of the bus driver’s swearing.
• Kurt Russell was the actual driver. Damn man, that’s some difficult stuff. Since then, I’ve seen some really good driving from this lot.
• Once side with guns, the other in the open. Game over.
• Oh wait, one of the good guys has a gun. One.
• Really great move with them clearing the area. That must have done wonders for continuity.
• The robotic sound of the three storms preparing the knives is so dumb.
• He ran over Lo-Pan, but there was a building right there, wouldn’t he have been preparing to turn?
• Chinatown pothole rain water cures temporary blindness.
• “like the immortals..”
• Damn, Kim looks good wet.
• Even now, the effects are great in context.
• “I know, there’s a problem with your face.” .. years later, this has been laughing so hard. Because she’s hot, you see, so there’s no problem with her face. Did I mention she looks good wet?
• The Chinese have a lot of hells.
• The marks on the floor, also seen in Tron 2. Probably elsewhere. I wonder what other movies use this sort of trick. Indiana Jones comes to mind for some reason. Maybe even The Goonies – (1985 movie).
• Oh god, particles from rotting corpses are in my eyes..
• I like that everyone has a face. In contemporary movies, there would be some reason to hide everyone. I guess the union rules changed.
• I don’t understand the comment about “even in a life as short as yours”. Lo-Pan was saying that there are many unanswerable things, but wouldn’t that make it expected that a short life would have unanswerable things? As in not having enough time for answers? I would have expected some comment about “even for a life as long as mine”.
• Entombed.. but these days he’d have the internet so it wouldn’t be so bad. Play some Counterstrike, watch some movies, nap a lot.
• “I can hap you” still makes me cringe.
• The rolling wheelchair scene is fucking amazing.
• Where are the two ladies?
• Lo-Pan’s long pinky nail is a trend with the Chinese. From what I can tell, it’s a sign of leisure (not doing manual labour) being wealthy or nobility. I think this is correct because of old Chinese nail guards.
• Hehe, he has a hatpin.
• .. so nobody upstairs heard the gunfire?
• “The hell of the horny dragon”, not to be confused with the hell of the thorny dragon.
• The pathetic one-shot guards are sad as hell. How come all the fights with men are so awesome, but these women guards are shit? Also, why don’t they have guns? All the manfolk have guns.
• It’s so sad that the one woman who gets dropped never gets back up.
• Jack is thrilled to be alive. He is the man.
• These guards don’t have guns.
• Those guards have some serious weaponry. Oh, and where did the extra guards come from?
• I never did understand the entire two girls with green eyes thing. She’s not Chinese. SHE’S NOT CHINESE.
• “.. Down where? Down there, towards the universe.”
• They’re underneath Chinatown? WELL DUH.
• Masturbatory martial arts demonstration scene.
• Maybe I haven’t seen enough girls with green eyes, but the brown rings around her pupils seems odd to me.
• Thinking about how this hold up, I do note that the dress of most of the guards looks stupid, the monster (why is there a monster) looks stupid,
• The Six Demon Bag is also found in World of Warcraft (item 7734)

• I think these lines are original to this movie:

Wang Chi: Here’s to the Army and Navy and the battles they have won; here’s to America’s colors, the colors that never run.

Jack Burton: May the wings of liberty never lose a feather.

• The flying sword duel is something from classic Chinese B-movies.
• Unnecessary video game scene.
• Technically he’s high so she’s sexually assaulting him. But since the ritual kindof messed her up, then I guess It’s even. But in the real world that means he’s sexually assaulting her. Somehow.
• Oh god, the exploding Thunder is hilariously bad.
• Why is the lightning dude screwing around? I guess he was preventing escape? Except he was standing around watching Jack hesitate.
• Do explain how the crossbow device works. It’s awesome and all, but still..
• Did all the other guys make it out alive?
• Why not go to China, and visit the homeland? Because China was destroyed by the communists, and San Francisco’s Chinatown is the largest surviving population .. outside of Hong Kong since it was still non-communist in 1986.

• “The Four Pillars of Heaven” may be a reference to the Chinese Four Pillars of Destiny.

2006-01-14 ∞

• 56:09 — Kim has a nice wet t-shirt shot. =)

• 1:00:10 — That leap down the hole is so bad.