They go into the mysterious underworld beneath Chinatown, where they face an ancient sorcerer named David Lo Pan (Hong), who requires a woman with green eyes to marry him in order to be released from a centuries-old curse.

Jack and Wang track the Lords of Death to Chinatown, where they find a funeral procession that erupts into a battle between the Chang Sing and Wing Kong, two ancient Chinese warrior societies.

Jack and Wang track down the front business used by Lo Pan and impersonate telephone repairmen to gain access, but are quickly subdued by Rain.

Locked in a cell, Wang tells Jack that Lo Pan needs a green-eyed girl to break an ancient curse, and he intends to sacrifice Miao Yin.

Lo Pan can temporarily obtain a decrepit body by supplication to the gods, but he must marry and sacrifice Miao Yin to fully lift his curse.

Frank Ho, Conan Lee (Uncredited) and James Lew (the film's martial arts choreographer) appear as Chang Sing warriors.

[5] Goldman had been inspired by a new wave of martial arts films that had "all sorts of weird actions and special effects, shot against this background of Oriental mysticism and modern sensibilities",[6] such as The Butterfly Murders; Weinstein, for his part, was fascinated by the historical Tong Wars of 19th-century San Francisco's Chinatown.

"[5] Because Goldman and Weinstein were unwilling to update their story to a modern setting, and from the producer's desire to bring a new perspective to the writing, the original duo were removed from the project while screenwriter/script doctor W. D. Richter (Academy Award-nominated writer of Brubaker) was brought in to extensively rewrite the script.

While admitting that he invented or changed some lore, Richter expressed a desire for those portions of the script to be "as authentic as possible" despite coming from a white writer, contrasting his approach with modern criticisms of Charlie Chan.

[12][7] Carpenter made his own additions to Richter's rewrites, which included strengthening the Gracie Law role by linking her directly to Chinatown, removing a few action sequences due to budgetary restrictions, and adjusting material that could offend Chinese Americans.

[7] Carpenter remarked that the "offbeat" characters had a "very 1930s Howard Hawks" quality to them[9] — with respect to their rapid-fire delivery of dialogue, especially between Jack Burton and Gracie Law.

In Big Trouble in Little China, Jack Burton, despite his bravado, is constantly portrayed as rather bumbling; in a climactic fight sequence, he knocks himself unconscious before the battle begins.

Carpenter came up with a prologue scene where Egg Shen reassures the audience (vis-à-vis a lawyer character) that "Jack Burton is a man of courage.

[8][12] Carpenter initially looked for a major star for the lead role to compete with The Golden Child's casting of Murphy; the director wanted Clint Eastwood or Jack Nicholson, but neither actor was available.

[9] Carpenter liked how Cattrall had a "comedic sense" yet could be serious,[9] standing up for her acting abilities against studio pressure to cast a "rock star" as the love interest.

Carpenter and producers met with community leaders to assuage concerns about the writing of the movie and hired a casting director who represented many Chinese and Asian-American actors.

Steve Johnson led work on many effects, including Lo Pan's old age makeup (a wizened appearance inspired by Dick Smith's work on Little Big Man) and transformation into his middle-aged form, the "wild man" (a shaggy-haired apelike demon), a fishlike "sewer demon" (designed by Screaming Mad George and puppeteered by Noble Craig), and the explosive death of Thunder.

[7] The theme song "Big Trouble in Little China", which plays over the closing credits, was performed by The Coup De Villes — a group consisting of Carpenter alongside friends Tommy Lee Wallace (second-unit director on the film) and Nick Castle.

On the DVD commentary for Big Trouble in Little China, Carpenter and Russell discuss this among possible reasons for the film's disappointing box office gross.

The site's consensus reads: "Brimming with energy and packed with humor, Big Trouble in Little China distills kung fu B-movies as affectionately as it subverts them.

[24] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade "B+" on scale of A to F.[25] Ron Base, in his review for the Toronto Star, praised Russell's performance.

"[27] Writer Harlan Ellison, widely known in Hollywood for his brutally honest critiques, praised the film, writing that it had "some of the funniest lines spoken by any actor this year to produce a cheerfully blathering live-action cartoon that will give you release from the real pressures of your basically dreary lives.

"[28] In his review for Time, Richard Corliss wrote, "Little China offers dollops of entertainment, but it is so stocked with canny references to other pictures that it suggests a master's thesis that moves.

[31] David Ansen wrote, in his review for Newsweek, "though it is action packed, spectacularly edited and often quite funny, one can't help feeling that Carpenter is squeezing the last drops out of a fatigued genre.

Club, Noel Murray wrote, "If nothing else, this is a DVD designed for Big Trouble cultists; it's packed with articles from Cinefex and American Cinematographer that only a genre geek would appreciate.

announced a new four-issue limited series, to be published in September 2017, called Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack, written by Carpenter and Anthony Burch, with art by Jorge Corona.

Additionally, the character David Lo Pan has been credited as the original inspiration for the soul-stealing Mortal Kombat villain Shang Tsung.

The twenty-third episode of the second season of the 2012 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles TV series, "A Chinatown Ghost Story," uses concepts from the film, but renames the antagonist Lo Pan to Ho Chan and replaces the Storm figure Rain with Wind.

The song "We Have Candy" by the South African rap-rave group Die Antwoord features lead singer Ninja reciting some of Jack Burton's dialogue from the film.

[62] The Regular Show season 3 episode "Fortune Cookie" features a villain called The Warlock, who bears a resemblance to Lo Pan; he also played by James Hong.