B-Movies: Seamless • Big Trouble in Little China

B-Movies & Couch Classics
Reviews of Movies Often Overlooked or Forgotten

by Steve Moulton

Seamless (2001)
Artisan; R

If you’re ever hanging out with someone you’d prefer to be rid of, just pop this movie into the VCR. I’m willing to bet that your unwanted companion will take his leave on his own volition.

Kentaro Seagal (relationship to Steven still unverified) plays JB, a rave DJ and owner of a rave-style clothing store, Down Stream. He also runs a little pirate radio show and tells stupid stories about his concept of family. JB doesn’t really remember his parents and doesn’t care much for the woman who raised him — despite the fact that she gave him all of the money he needed to open his store — so he’s made his own family with the street kids he’s taken under his wing and put to work in his store over the years.

When JB isn’t selling clothes, he is hosting raves inside the store or bickering with his best friend Zinc about the wedge that’s seemingly being driven between them. This wedge is made up of several things: Zinc’s cocaine habit, a rival shop owner named Nicole (Shannon Elizabeth - Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, American Pie 1&2), and the live-in kids whom JB loves but Zinc despises. If I were Zinc, I’d hate these kids, too (or at least the horrible actors filling their roles).

JB takes an interest in Nicole and considers bringing her over to his store, but she’s happy at her “vintage clothing store that caters to the Japanese market.” (That’s actually how they described it in the film.) Zinc decides to use the shipments from Nicole’s store to smuggle drugs. Eventually, he not only turns all the kids against JB, but he turns them into junkies with a new drug called ambers.

At the beginning of the “film” — it was actually shot on high-quality video — JB takes the kids to a cave under a tree to eat some sap (it’s only amber if it’s solid). JB convinces them that this sap will get them higher than anything they’ve ever tried, and they believe it. The kids show some to Zinc, who sees the jewelry that Nicole made from some amber and gets the idea to make the same jewelry out of cocaine. So now we don’t just have a bunch of annoying rave kids on our hands, we have annoying rave kids with an endless supply of narcotic jewelry called evil ambers.

The movie wasn’t all that light-hearted to begin with, yet it takes many grim turns throughout. Besides being a total bummer of a movie, it has terrible acting, terrible dialogue, terrible music (and I’m not just talking about the electronica or whatever it’s called this week since I sort of dig some of that stuff), and terrible acting…oh, I said that already? Well, let me describe just how bad the acting is. Watching these people act is like watching a typist use the one-finger, hunt-and-peck method. The lines are delivered with the same awkward rhythm and lack of intensity, and it’s simply agonizing to watch.

The only thing this movie has to offer is Shannon Elizabeth, but she’s just a pretty face here. I haven’t exactly been blown away by any of her other work, and this flick doesn’t do anything to change my opinion of her; Elizabeth doesn’t do any better than her costars in Seamless, who were completely inept.

If you really like movies about the rave culture, stick with Go (1999) since that’s pretty much the only good one I’ve seen. If you’re a huge Shannon fan, you probably can’t be talked out of renting Seamless, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. A movie centering on fashion, cocaine, annoying kids, and a love affair that couldn’t steam up a running shower just isn’t going to make the grade here. Its title may be Seamless, but it leaves plenty of room for improvement.

Big Trouble In Little China, (1986)
Twentieth Century Fox; PG-13

I’ve yet to meet a movie buff who doesn’t love this one. Back in 1986, John Carpenter (director of Halloween, The Thing, and Escape from New York) brought us the compelling story of a John Waynesque trucker and his run-in with the Chinese underworld.

Jack Burton (Kurt Russell - Vanilla Sky, Tombstone) is the tough-talkin’ driver of the Porkchop Express, an 18-wheeler. Jack enjoys fast women, fast money, and imparting wisdom from the road over his CB radio: “It’s like I used to tell my ex-wife. I’d say ‘Honey, I never drive faster than I can see; besides that, it’s all in the reflexes.’” How right he is.

Jack rolls into Chinatown just to make a drop and be on his way. He’s sidetracked when his friend Wing Chi (Dennis Dun - Prince of Darkness, Warriors of Virtue) can’t pay up after a night of gambling. Wing needs his money to make a good life for his fiancée Miao Yin (Suzee Pai - Sharky’s Machine), who is arriving from China that day. Jack offers Wing a lift to the airport. “I thought you were gonna follow me,” Wing protests. “Yeah, I was, then I came to my senses.” At the airport, Jack spots Gracie Law (Kim Cattrall - Mannequin, Baby Geniuses) and tries to pick her up with a few choice lines. No such luck, as Gracie says, “You should try standing down-wind where I am. It’s Miller Time.”

Suddenly, thugs show up and kidnap Wing’s fiancée right from under his nose. Jack, being a tough guy, insists on helping find her, but he’s in for way more than he ever imagined. It turns out that those thugs belonged to a street gang working for a Chinatown mob, the Wing Kong. The Wing Kong are controlled by a thousand-year-old ghost (yes, you read that correctly) named Lo Pan, who also has at his disposal three guys who wield meteorological powers (Rain, Thunder, and Lightning) called the Storms.

You see, Lo Pan was a powerful sorcerer in China, but he was cursed by a god and made into a ghost. The only way he can change back is by marrying a girl with green eyes. He also made a deal with an emperor stating that he would kill his green-eyed bride if he could continue to use his ghostly powers after becoming human again. Wing’s fiancée, Miao Yin, and Jack’s new crush, Gracie, both have green eyes; so you can see why these boys are so intent on kicking Lo Pan’s spectral rear-end.

Jack and Wing employ the help of Egg Shen (a good-guy sorcerer), Eddie (the host at Wing’s restaurant), Margot (a reporter who was working with Gracie), and a gang of kung fu fighters who call themselves the Chang Sing.

Jack, Wing, and their buddies can’t free Miao Yin from the White Tiger brothel or from Lo Pan’s stronghold, and Gracie winds up getting captured in the process. Along the way, they encounter a crazy gorilla beast, a huge man-eating bug, and a floating head with multiple eyes called a guardian. “What it sees, Lo Pan knows,” Egg warns, right before Jack shoots it in the face three times. “Hey, you never know until you try,” he quips.

It only gets better from there, with lots of kung fu and more surprisingly funny dialogue; many consider Big Trouble in Little China to be one of Carpenter’s best movies. But if you ask anyone who isn’t a movie-buff, they probably have never heard of it. The fact that you won’t see BLILC mentioned on any documentary about John Carpenter (like the ones made back when Vampires was released) doesn’t help either.

Remember Jack Burton the next time you’re at the video store and all the new releases are checked out. Search out this little gem of a movie, with its colorful cover-box and zany description on the back. Yeah, you just take it up to the cashier, and when he says, “Big Trouble in Little China, eh?” with a smile on his face, you just say what ol’ Jack Burton would say in a time like that: “Gimme yer best shot ... I can take it.”