Between the years of nineteen-eighty to nineteen-ninety, some of the manliest movies of all time were released to the public. Manly men showed manly emotions and manly feats of manliness to carve out their legend into the hall of manliness for all mankind. Look onto this article and be amazed by the manliness herein.
The year is 1986, and in that magnificent year, the most epic of martial arts/fantasy/urban action movies known to manliness was brought to us by director John Carpenter. Yes, we are talking about Big Trouble in Little China. And movie’s hero is Jack Burton.
Kurt Russell plays Jack Burton, a man’s man of a truck driver who acts first and thinks second. He’s loyal to his friends, is mostly pretty brave, and lets you know what he thinks. However, his brain is not his best feature, he takes himself way too seriously and is so manly at times he refers to himself in the third person.
Throughout the movie, Kurt Russell’s betrayal of Jack Burton jumped from homages to actors such as John Wayne and Charles Bronson, and sometimes almost borders on parody. And despite all of the dire situations happening to new friends he’s made in Little China and dealing with damsels in distress, he is definitely one of the manliest manly movie heroes of all time.
Several times throughout the film with all of the Chinese mythology, real and or made up by the movie creators, Jack Burton is either so relaxed about it you wonder if he’s on something to moments of complete disbelief, to him wondering if he is in some kind of weird fever dream.
The cast of this film is very well-rounded and most of them give Russell’s Burton a run for his money.
Kim Cattrall as Gracie Law and neighborhood attorney who is sort of the love interest for Jack Burton, (one of the damsels in distress, she also causes some distress)
Dennis Dun as Wing Chi, Jack’s best friend, and restaurant owner whose fiance (that’s the other damsel in distress).is kidnapped by the villain. He’s extremely grounded despite the weirdness and is more the classical young, knightly hero.
Victor Wong is Egg Shin, the neighborhood wise man, who is an old enemy of the villain, and also happens to drive a tour bus.
And James Hong as David LoPan, an ancient Chinese sorcerer who also happens to own several illegal businesses, and is probably smarmy and sarcastic enough to give Skeletor a run for his money.
Manly movie action sequence- During a fight between good and evil, uh, tongs? Anyway, the good guys pause to give each other their version of a “thumbs-up” every time they successfully whoop up on their opponents. Jack Burton was stuck in the cab of his truck, so no manly participation from him.
Manly stare and glare action-Again, Jack Burton is beaten to the punch by our nefarious villain, Lo Pan.
Manly love moment for manly hero-Through an epic manly battle raging around him, Jack Burton saves his love interest and gets a rewarding kiss strong enough to share Gracie Law’s lipstick.
Manly moment of sensitivity-To help his buddy Wang recover his fiance, Jack shows his sensitivity by going undercover as a nerdy exec type to try and retrieve her from traffickers.
Manly moment of manliness-In the most epic, manly way possible, Jack fires his machine pistol excitedly and finds a manly way to knock himself out.
Manly epic moment of conclusion-At the almost end of the movie, remember this is a John Carpenter film, Jack has his epic showdown with LoPan, however, it does it go all as planned but, due to how he seems to live his life, it all works out.
In other words..
Manliness on a scale of Jean Claude VanDamme (Kickboxer) to Sho Kosugi (Revenge Of The Ninja)-Since Jack Burton seems to have some confusion about his sensitivity to his love interest and as he relies a lot on reflexes and luck, we are to give him three out of four Kosugi’s for manliness.