If we're not back by dawn... call the president | dreamkatcha

Big Trouble in Little China neatly summates the unlikely scenario in which Kurt Russel finds himself as the star of John Carpenter's dark, martial arts, comedy fantasy film. Moreover, arrogant, wise-cracking, All-American truck driver Jack Burton is unexpectedly drawn into a surreal oriental crusade against the decrepit Chinese sorcerer, David Lo Pan, who has kidnapped his friends' green-eyed fiancee. A strange detail to include you may imagine, except that marrying then sacrificing two such specimens is the key to lifting an ancient incorporeality curse cast upon him by Emperor Qin Shi Huang.

In both the movie and licensed 8-bit computer game, Jack, Wang Chi and Egg Shen join forces to defeat Lo Pan. In the latter, published a year after the 1986 movie, we achieve this by traversing a 2D platforming landscape modelled around the principle locations seen on the silver screen. We replenish our health with food pick-ups, employing various weaponry and magic to keep bandit combatants at bay until reaching the finale that takes place in Lo Pan's underground lair.

I compare and contrast the two oblations to establish if either are worth revisiting today.