BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

Director:  John Carpenter

Starring:  Kurt Russell, Kim Cattrall, James Hong 

The film that captures John Carpenter’s rebellious streak most effectively, Big Trouble in Little China, is a firm favourite among his fans. Anyone who's only seen the film on ITV, or has only seen it on VHS will be astonished by Fox’s Region 2 two disc set, which presents a re-mastered 2.35:1, 16:9-enhanced transfer with a 4.1 (384kbps) audio mix (the US version also has a 5.1 dts (754kbps) track and the Dolby Digital track is presented at 448kpps, reason enough for many fans to avoid the UK disc). 

Extras are bountiful, and it’s obvious that a great deal of research and effort went into sourcing and presenting them (several sequences are shown in multi-angle format, for example). These include a commentary track with Carpenter and his buddy Kurt Russell, deleted scenes (including an alternate ending), interviews, a contemporary featurette (7 minutes), theatrical trailers, a comprehensive stills and artwork gallery and a frankly terrible music video (hear the director sing!) 

The Region 2 disc is missing a number of TV adverts and a couple of other very minor features. Somewhere in the translation from R1 to R2 Fox have screwed up some of the animated menus, which appear very jerky on the UK disc.

UPDATE - 20th November 2002

The two-disc Region 1 Special Edition disc has been discontinued, and replaced by a single disc version. This has been achieved by simply ditching all the bonus material on the second disc (the deleted scenes, the featurette, Richard Edlund interview, music video, trailers, stills gallery, magazine articles and production notes).  Obviously, this remains the most attractive version, but it's likely to become increasingly scarce and valuable. The Region 2 version is an adequate substitute, if the Region 1 version is prohibitively expensive.