https://vo.rs/tags/action-comedy/Latest from the Action Comedy desk at vo.rs.Hugo -- gohugo.ioenThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.Sun, 11 May 2025 12:00:00 +0000https://vo.rs/screen/big-trouble-in-little-china-the-action-film-where-the-hero-is-the-sidekick/<p>John Carpenter&rsquo;s <em>Big Trouble in Little China</em> (1986) died on release. It cost around twenty-five million dollars, made back a fraction of that, helped sour Carpenter on the studio system for good, and then it did the thing that the best flops do: it refused to stay dead. Rented, taped, traded and re-watched for four decades, it has become one of the most beloved cult films of its era, and the reason is a single structural gag so clean that most first-time viewers do not notice it is happening to them. The film gives you a swaggering, wisecracking action hero in Kurt Russell&rsquo;s Jack Burton, and then it quietly arranges the plot so that Jack is useless, the comic sidekick who has wandered into the lead role and never worked it out.</p>Sun, 11 May 2025 12:00:00 +0000