Do yourselves a favor and close this browser window, folks. Don’t bother reading this review, just watch the movie right now, however you can.

You see, I knew absolutely nothing about tonight’s movie when I picked up the DVD. All I knew was that it’s a cult film with a marvelous reputation, one of John Carpenter’s many collaborations with lead actor Kurt Russell. I’d also heard something of a comparison with Green Hornet, saying that this film also did the “inept white action hero outclassed by his Asian sidekick” gimmick and did it far better. Aside from those vague descriptions, I dove headfirst into this movie totally blind.

And really, that’s the only way to go. I personally found that discovering this movie was half the joy in watching it. I can’t begin to describe how I felt as I watched this movie unfold into such bizarre and off-the-wall insanity, with no idea of what was coming next. In any case, I can guarantee that no matter what I say about it and no matter what you hear about it, there is absolutely nothing to prepare you for Big Trouble in Little China.

There’s some very confusing plot exposition near the start of the film, but I learned quick that all the gang war politics were totally meaningless. All that’s really necessary to know is that the thugs wearing yellow are good, the thugs wearing red are bad and the bastards with supernatural powers are the villains. This is a totally cut-and-dried story about an evil wizard kidnapping our protagonist’s girlfriend (well, the sidekick’s girlfriend, actually) in a bid to take over the universe. It’s just amplified with magic, monsters and an improbably huge underground fortress, along with other fantasy tropes and action cliches.

Russell plays our hero, Jack Burton, a not-so-humble truck driver who stumbles into this whole supernatural mess. He’s just a guy who wants to collect a bet from his friend — Wang Chi, the aforementioned sidekick — and gets his truck stolen. Jack gets up to his neck in fantastical goings-on and dangerous sorcery, but all the poor guy wants is his money and his truck. Jack acts like a standard action hero and he certainly looks like one (he’s played by Snake fucking Plissken, after all), but for every time when he gets a good hit in, there’s a time when Jack proves comically inept at action. He’s an action hero parody, through and through.

In fact, pretty much everything about this movie is borderline self-parody. Wang is an obsessive romantic, his fiancee is treated as nothing more than a MacGuffin, the old mentor is an exposition machine, the fantasy elements are absurdly heightened, the action defies all physics and the villain is hilariously evil. Yet through every scene, there’s always at least one character on hand (usually Jack) to play the straight man and comically remark about how crazy all this is.

If you haven’t guessed by now, it is totally impossible to take this movie seriously. The film has absolutely no ambition to convey deep themes or character drama, just a nonstop thrill ride that never ever lets up at any point during its 99-minute running time. Seriously, there was one point in the film when Jack and Wang were tied up and led to the villain of the movie, only to be sent off to their dooms in some prison. Sounds like the scene just before the climax, doesn’t it? I know that when this scene came along, I’d seen enough action and comedy to last me through two acts of a movie. But then I checked: This scene was only halfway in!

I find it remarkable that this film seems to know exactly what it wants to be, since it seems to be everything at once. No matter what you want in a movie, you’ll find it here. Humor? Check. Fight scenes? Check. Romance? You got it. Beautiful women? By the score. Magic? Hell yeah. Monsters and other special effects? As only John Carpenter in his prime could deliver. Car stunts? Yeah, the film even has a couple of those.

The film delivers all of this and more with superb technical flair. Not only are the effects and the score up to Carpenter’s usual standard, but the production design is varied and phenomenal throughout. The actors all chew their way through the spectacularly-built sets, but they’re clearly having a lot of fun in the process.

Put simply, Big Trouble in Little China is the best kind of batshit crazy. It’s almost like Carpenter took the most cliched story he could find, only to load it with so much self-parody and magical wackiness that the predictable narrative became a totally unpredictable spectacular. I’ll be very surprised indeed if I ever learn of a film remotely like this one. It demands to be seen, if only so the audience can believe a film like this could ever exist.