Big Trouble in Little China (1986)
Jack Burton's in for some serious trouble and you're in for some serious fun.
Truck driver Jack Burton gets embroiled in a supernatural battle when his best friend Wang Chi's green-eyed fiancée is kidnapped by henchmen of the sorcerer Lo Pan, who must marry a girl with green eyes in order to return to the human realm.
In Big Trouble in Little China, consciousness is carried by the dead — a plane of “mythic Chinatown”. The story fights on E8/E9 of the E0–E14 reality ladder, compressing culture, magic, myth, prejudice, power.
Same rung, same subject
Films fighting at the same level of reality, about the same things.
Green Book (2018)E8/E9 · culture, power
Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls (1995)E8/E9 · culture, power
Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)E8/E9 · magic, power
Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)E8/E9 · culture, magic
Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003)E8/E9 · culture, myth
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)E8/E9 · culture, powerSame subject, different rung
The same preoccupations examined at another scale — one mind versus a nation.
Blade II (2002)E4/E10 · rare rung · power, prejudice
Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984)E7/E12 · rare rung · culture, power
Epic (2013)E6/E7 · rare rung · culture, magic
Ultraviolet (2006)E4/E11 · rare rung · power, prejudice
Warcraft (2016)E12/E13 · rare rung · culture, power
Return to Oz (1985)E10/E13 · rare rung · magic, powerAlso hides consciousness here
Other films that move a human interior onto the same kind of thing.
Sleepy Hollow (1999)consciousness in the dead · gothic colonial village
Candyman (2021)consciousness in the dead · cursed urban legend
Byzantium (2013)consciousness in the dead · vampire underworld
Casper Meets Wendy (1998)consciousness in the dead · spectral resort
Naruto Shippuden the Movie: Blood Prison (2011)consciousness in the dead · ninja prison
The Legend of La Llorona (2011)consciousness in the dead · folklore ghost villageSame subject, different mask
The same preoccupations carried by a different kind of thing — grief told through the dead, an animal, a machine.
Red One (2024)consciousness in monsters · magic, myth
Raya and the Last Dragon (2021)consciousness in monsters · culture, magic
200% Wolf (2024)consciousness in animals · magic, power
Doctor Strange (2016)consciousness in aliens · magic, power
Shrek 2 (2004)consciousness in animals · power, prejudice
Captain Marvel (2019)consciousness in aliens · power, prejudice
