"BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" (1986)

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

Screenplay by

w. O. Richter

WITH REVISION #3 REVISED SHOOTING SCRIPT October 31, 1985 Scptember·17, 1985

A Paul Monash and Keith Barish Production

In Association With Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

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"BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA"

l EXT. HIGHWAY 101 - DAY 1

... where it's raining like hell around Eureka, California ••. traveller's advisories in effect ... but always one guy ignoring them, and today it's the character driving that big FLOATING-CHROME PETERBILT through this particular monsoon, powerhousing right INTO OUR FACE, the SCREEN SUDDENLY ALL TITLE ... WHAMMO!

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA

A truly unusual person up here running the whole show, yapping into his CB, drinking coffee, scarfing down a customized baked ham sandwich on a monster roll. JACK BURTON they call him when they're not calling him more trouble than he's worth.

Then how come you're doing sixty today, Jack? If they still made outlaws in 1985, Jack Burton'd be one. And ladies love outlaws.

ROAR! The theater shakes as Jack's BIG TRUCK slams by CAMERA!

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6*

Ghostly headlights glowing, Jack's massive ten-wheeler kicking up so much WATER the SCREEN TURNS A HAZY WASH.

Jack is still talking on his CB as the rain pounds on the * windshield ... He's having dessert behind the wheel, some kind of God-awful cellophane encased sugar cake.

FOG AND RAIN. Jack Burton's pig-filled Peterbi.ltbarreling into San Francisco in the quiet hours after midnight.

THE RADIO ON, some lunatic talk show holding Jack's interest.

TITLES CONCLUDING OVER this wonderfully colorful, bustling link in the city's food chain ... RAIN making it all the more fascinating, fruits and vegetables, poultry, pushcarts and pickups glistening under the lights ...

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...ITALIANS buying from BLACKS and CHINESE MERCHANTS mixing with CHIC RESTAURANTEURS, making deals as fast as they ca11, counting money, guzzling coffee, backslapping, bullshitting, gambling under cardboard and canvas canopies as ..•

..• here he comes with his pigs, Jack Burton rolling into the thick of it all.

Jack's view of this madhouse. His kind of world ... a carnival with rules made to bend.

Jack off-loading the little swines into the waiting arms of a FEW PACKING HOUSE BUYERS, their trucks backed up to Jack's ...

...SEVERAL CHINESE dickering for a choice pig here and there, Jack cutting deals on the side, pocketing cash ... accepting business checks and signing invoices ... all of this seeming to us slightly illicit and exciting, Jack a wheeling dealing, rougish figure in this night world.

NOT MUCH LATER••• Jackon foot, moving through the crowd, nodding to FRIENDS, stealing an orange, biting right into the damn thing and spitting out the skin to get at the flesh .••

Jack sitting with a BUNCH OF CHINESE, one of the gang, gambling for stacks of bills at a contest called fan-tan, a guessing game involving piles of beans, and Jack's· taking these Chinese to the laundry ... one fella in particular catching our attention, a handsome young Chinese. WANG CHI. He's got some style: a fedora hat, a baseball jacket, a red shirt and a narrow black leather tie.

Both men count their beans. Jack's right. Wang Chi's wrong. More money for Jack.

A WIDE ANGLE ON the market. Those first tracings of daylight in the sky. The rain over, the market thinning out ...

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... but Jack Burton and his Chinese friends are still at it, fan-tan having long since given way to a spirited game of pai aow, fueled by bottles of Chinese beer and steamed dumplings.

Not only does the guy quit, but the dominoes they're playing with are his and with him they go.

Yeah, right. Jack's packing up his winnings, stuffing money into his pockets ... Wang Chi emptying a bottle of beer, eyeing ,'Jackwho,as usual, can't shut up ...

Jack looks up and across at Wang Chi who's suddenly got in his right hand the biggest, sharpest PRODUCE KNIFE you ever saw ... in his left, thatempty beer bottle.

THE OTHER CHINESE, FROM Jack's P.O.V., backing off just a bit here.

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CONTINUED: ( 2) 13

Wang Chi slams a beer bottle onto their ratty little table, makes those pai gow dominoes jump!

Said while Jack slips his own hand below the table, unzips the left inside ankle seam of his canvas pants ..• REVEALING a Gerber Mark II SURVIVAL KNIFE laced to his calf with leather thongs.

Jack looks at him.

There is something kind of desperate about Wang Chi.

This Wang Chi knows the score. Jack thinks. The whole notion is getting a big grip on his brain. But a cautious man he can still be.

Jack empties his own beer. Just in case Wang's got a trick bottle up his sleeve here.

1GB

13 CONTINUED: ( 3) 13

Jack steps back a pace. Wang Chi sets himself in the chair, moves that big blade against the beer bottle, taking its measure ...

Wang Chi swings! WHAMMO! The bottle flies off the table like a rocket! Right at Jack! His arm comes up in a reflexive blur ... and he catches the damn thing in his fist! A great save! The bottle unbroken. And even Jack's amazed he's not picking glass out of his teeth.

Wang Chi looks at his big knife, mystified.

Jack puts his bottle back on the table in front of Wang Chi, towers over the little man.

I don't have that kind of money, Jack.

I'm just a poor Chinese.

Oh, yeah, right. I meant I don't have that kind of money on me.

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'

Jack Burton an: Wang Chi walking across the mud. Jack's Peterbilt the biggest vehicle left around ..• parked not that far from a beat-up van that says, in predictable chop suey script, DRAGON OF THE BLACK POOL RESTAURANT ...

... as a matter of fact, the same lettering's sewn onto the back of Wang Chi's jacket.

Said so chillingly that Jack thinks twice.

WMlG CHI You don't trust me after all these years. That makes me sad, Jack. It reminds me of an old Chinese joke.

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Jack and Wang Chi cruising along, the Oriental appearing increasingly nervous as the seconds tick by ...

Wang hands Jack a small color snapshot ..• MIAOYIN, a great-looking girl. Barely twenty, she has incredible GREEN EYES.

Jack looks at him.

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A charter terminal. Jack Burton following Wang Chi inside, the little Chinese walking on his toes, alert, looking for some arrival information ...

The Air France charter carrying Miao Y~n taxis into its berth. Through a window we SEE Mi.ao Yin staring out with those green eyes.

Jack and Wang Chi standing in a CROWD OF ORIENTAL FRIENDS AND RELATIVES here to meet the big plane, Jack the tallest human being for miles around ... no,wait ...

..• a girl ... a whiteAMERICANGIRL, moving through the crowd, catching Jack's roving eye because not only is she tall, she's sexy .•. ina wholesome, no-nonsense way.

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The American Girl is gone, swallowed up in the crowd pressing forward toward the greeting area ... an expanse of open floor terminating in wired-glass doors marked "U.S. CUSTOMS -- ARRIVING PASSENGERS -- NO ADMITTANCE."

Miao Yin in the congestion around Baggage Claim, locating her suitcase, just a cardboard box.

Jack having moved away from an anxious Wang Chi, uses his height to locate that sexy, illusive American Girl.

The American Girl suprised to hear English, turning to look Jack's way ... catching his wink ...

Jack looks at himself, wrinkled, unkempt, unshaven and uncouth.

•.• and before Jack can take a spectacular shot back at this * Girl ••• somethingcomes between them... THREE SHADY CHINESE KIDS with Fu Manchu beards, ski vests, jeans and heavy-duty black engineer boots, carving their own freeway through the crowd, shoving people aside ...

But the Girl quickly stopping him, grabbing Jack's arm...

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,JACKBURTON Don't what?

got relatives too, you know. People to meet, places to go.

Miao Yin •..

A MOMENT LATER .•. MiaoYin pushing forward toward her side of those wired-glass doors ... passengers already going through:

Wang Chi pushing forward toward his side of the doors, through friends and relatives reuniting ... Jack getting separated from the American Girl in the crush ...

..• asshe looks at several small SNAPSHOTS ... matching one up to a young CHINESE GIRL just emerging from Customs ...

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Hearing her name, the Chinese Girl turns ... and the Lords of Death close in. But the American Girl's faster, rushing forward, grabbing this Tara's hand, one of the Lords (call him NEEDLES) upon her a second later, trying to yank Tara away!

CHINESE back off ••.SKYCAPS look the other way ...

..• and Jack sees all this .•• just asWang Chi makes eye contact with his beloved Miao Yin coming through that wired door ...

... andWHAMMO! Jack makes his move! Understanding only that two pretty girls are outnumbered by three undesirable thugs! Needles finds himself spun away by the tall American!

Nope! Needles' pals, JOE LUCKY and ONE EAR, suddenly pounce on Jack's head!

Miao Yin moving toward Wang Chi moving toward Miao Yin ...

•.. theAmerican Girl seizing upon the uproar to grab Tara and spirit her off through the churning, panicked crowd!

Miao Yin grabbed! Needles has her, and Wang Chi sees it from five yards away, a dozen people between him and his bride-to-be!

Jack nails Joe Lucky with a right hook, takes One Ear's savage boot hell square in the back!

Wang Chi practically climbing over people, Miao Yin dragged away kicking and screaming by the Lords of Death!

The American Girl hustling her new Chinese friend toward a VAN, hiding her in the back, turning to see ...

The Lords of Death on the run, coming this way, One Ear pausing to muzzle Miao Yin's complaints with a roundhouse right, Needles catching an unconscious Miao Yin, heaving her over his shoulder like a rice sack ...

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ANGLE ON Wang Chi and Jack Burton exploding on the scene! Which way did the bastards go?!

••. The Lords of Death tearing past the American Girl's van and reaching their getaway car, a brand new PONTIAC FIREBIRD ••• into the trunk with Miao Yin!

Jack and Wang Chi running like maniacs past the American Girl backing her van out fast! She's close enough to read'the restaurant name on the back of Wang Chi's jacket!

But the van speeds off! The Firebird starts up with a violent lurch, wheeling out of its space and screaming right at our guys! Wang Chi paralyzed, Jack rushing forward, diving at his friend, knocking him down against the pavement as the Firebird bears in.

One Ear at the wheel ... flooring it ... just missing Jackand Wang Chi lying side by side on the ground.

Flat as pancakes .•• Jack Burtonand Wang Chi .•. but miraculously alive! Jack lifts his head, sees the Firebird screech out of the parking garage!

It's gonna be that kind of movie.

The Lords of Death on a real high, speeding out onto the 280 Freeway toward San Francisco, laughing like hyenas.

Something genuinely spectacular to look at here, a breathtaking WIDE SHOT FROM the 20th and Missouri Street Bridge down onto the Firebird whipping along in traffic ...

big Peterbilt ... ROARING.

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REVISED - "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" - 10/31/85 .l.4

a7-A INT. FETERBILT - DAY 27-A

Jack Burton at the wheel, Wang Chi riding shotgun and hanging on for dear life!

JACI< Hoodlums? That American girl back at * the airport said they were assholes .••

27-B THEIR F.O.V. THROUGH FETERBILT WINDSHIELD 27-B

Up ahead, a flash of Pontiac red •.•

JACl<BURTON Ah, ha ••• you can run but you can't hide •••

WIPE! A TRAILWAYS cuts Jack off! And when it clears •.• no Firebird.

The Firebird looking for trouble, SCREAMING FAST CAMERA, toward an off ramp, the city waiting to swallow it up.

Jack looks at Wang Chi.

Now Jack's Peterbilt RUMBLES BY CAMERA, toward that same off ramp, down into the city.

Gateway to Chinatown .•. early morningTOURISTS on the hoof ... A FUNNY BUS covered with garish paintings of The Eight Immortals surrounded by hot yellow script announcing EGG FOO YUNG TOURS •.. meandering picturesquely down this post card thoroughfare:

The proprietor himself at the wheel, EGG SHEN, a peculiar talkative little charmer born in Canton, China, longer ago than he'd care to remember.

The Firebird bearing down on us, BLASTING PAST CAMERA.

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35*

Jack Burton's Peterbilt thundering through the same intersection that Firebird just negotiated!

Only one FAT MAN raises his hand ..• Egg'sPASSENGERS firing off INSTAMATIC FLASHES at the street as Egg turns a corner down Commercial Avenue, a side street •••

37 P. 0. V.THROUGH FUNNY BUS WUIDSHIELD 37

Watch out, Egg! Jack's Peterbilt suddenly coming right at him!

As the funny bus swerves on to the sidewalk, the Peterbilt ROARING BY ••• !

••• Jack Burton andWang Chi! Driving as fast as they can on these tiny Chinatown streets, turning right off to Commercial on to Grant Street.

A LONG LENS SHOT OF the huge Peterbilt gliding down Grant Street.

Jack Burton trying to negotiate the truck through the crowded street ..•

,1'ACKBURTON What alley?

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J./

WANG CHI * Go right .!12!!,Jack!

And Jack squeezes a tight right turn off Grant into a small side alley.

At the far end of this long narrow brick passage ... looking back at Jack's big truck squeezing onto the scene in the distance, coming in off Kearny and leaving behind the public, touristy hustle and bustle •.. *

CLOSER ON PETERBILT, slouching past a wall plastered with Chinese political posters, smeared with Oriental graffiti, everything suddenly so foreign, so forbidding, we might easily be in Hong Kong ... FOGROLLING IN.

Jack having glanced to his left during the above and come eyeball-to-eyeball with an OLD CHINESE LADY sitting on her first-floor tenement balcony, her meat cleaver chopping away at a dead duck ••. CHINESEMUSIC playing on a scratchy record somewhere deep inside •.•

SLAM! Her shutter snaps in Jack's face. OTHER SHUTTERS up and down the alley begin closing too, as THE SOUND OF SMALL CYMBALS comes up ...

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..o

45. CONTINUED: 45

SLAM AGAIN! But this time it's Jack hitting his brakes! There's a BAREFOOT FIGURE standing right in front of him, ghostly in the swirling fog, an image from ancient China, cloaked in a RED TURBAN and a voluminous black suit.

Having come from an intersecting alleyway, this red-turbaned OLD MAN moves on, followed by more of his ilk, but younger, a DOZEN CHINESE WARRIORS, solemn and unsettling ... THE SOUND OF CYMBALS AND A DRUM behind them.

JACK BURTON * What the hell is it, a parade?

WANG CHI

A funeral.

MORE OF THEM STILL... several carrying Chinese standards ... several carrying ancient musical instruments.

THE CASKET •.• FOURPRIESTS chanting prayers hold it aloft ... a DOZEN MALE AND FEMALE MOURNERS follow, beating their breasts, stripped almost naked in their ritualized grief, one man carrying a beautiful FAFER HORSE in tribute to his fallen leader ...

JACK BURTON * Holy shit •..

•.• thiswhole unearthly procession by now having yanked us almost completely out of the twentieth century, Jack's Feterbilt our only touchstone. Quietly, wisely ...

Jack's voice catching in his throat because in his big fender-mounted REARVIEW MIRROR he can see ...

... YELLOWTURBANS coming out of the fog. And these guys have weapons ... LONGKNIVES, MEAT CLEAVERS, SAWED-OFF SHOTGUNS, AND AUTOMATIC RIFLES ... putting us rightback in the twentieth century ... sort of.

16B (CONTINUED)

A YELLOW TURBAN going by Wang Chi's window. CHARGE! Jack locks his door, lunges across Wang Chi and locks the passenger door as outside a battle is joined!

Nightmarish ... the guys in those red turbans, the Chang Sing, no slouches either, armed to the teeth underneath their black clothing ..• HATCHETS,LUGERS, WALTHER AUTOMATICS appearing ..• mournersand priests scattering •.. the casket crashing to the ground at a grotesque angle!

GUNSHOTS! A BULLET piercing Jack's windshield and punching into the space between him and Wang Chi! Chinese tong warriors slashing at each other left and right, bounding off Jack's hood onto his roof! The w~ole thing so surreal that ••.CRASH! A HATCHET SMASHING THE WINDOW near Jack's ear! Not surreal ••• all E_£ real.

so EXT. FOGGY ALLEYS - DAY 50

The Peterbilt lurching forward, separating one group of combatants, throwing another group together ...

••• THE Chang Sing in their red turbans rallying, coming out on top as the fighting spreads into several alleyways •.• aWing Kong body count starting to mount.

Jack trying to wedge his big truck down another alley ... MORE COMBAT COMING AT THEM! A NAKED CHINESE GIRL FLYING BY!

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A CRACK OF THUNDER! At least that's what it sounds like, up ahead, and the concussion rocks the truck like an earthquake •.. the alley darkening withJET-BLACK SMOKE!

FRIGHTENING, A CHINESE SUMO •.• callhimTHUNDER!

A BLAST OF LIGHT! From where it comes, no one knows, but it's hot as magnesium and big as a stick of kynamite going off in your fist! LIGHTNING! That's his name, this second new arrival, tall, thin, dressed in shimmering gold and swinging through the sudden glow on a metal line from a roof top!

RAIN APPEARS! Not water from the sky, but a man from nowhere, the last member of this unholy triumverate ..• known as The Storms. *

Jack unzips his pant leg, pulls out his survival knife.

The Chang Sing freeze in their tracks. Jack gunning his * Peterbilt right at these apparitions ..• the Storms parting like bullfighters to let him pass!

OUT THROUGH JACK'S WINDSHIELD as, last in line, Rain somersaults clear in his many-pocketed brown robe and rice field straw hat!

As Rain lands behind the truck ..• the truck roaring on.

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RESIDUAL SMOKE AND FOG cutting down Jack's visibiltiy ... giving ·him no warning that he's about to mow down .••

•

a magical Mandarin, regal and ferocious all at once, and tall ••. seven feet tall,planted in that fog-bound alley like a colossus, sublimely unperturbed, taking the front bumper of Jack's Peterbilt upon his chest like a warm summer breeze!

Jack on his brakes again! But it's too late this time! WHAMMO and he ploughs right through LO PAN! Swerves to a halt! Rolls down his window and looks back ...

JACK'S P.O.V .•• LOPANunharmed, turning to regard Jack with a smile that RADIATES A BRILLIANT, BLINDING LIGHT ...

his eyes ...

WANG CHI

Don't look, Jack!

JACK BURTON

I already did!

WANG CHI

Don't!

JACK BURTON

I won't. Who •.. Imean, what ••.?

WANG CHI

Lo Pan. Drive.

Half-blinded, Jack hits the gas, caroms his Peterbilt off the alley wall and out into a large junkyard of a parking lot behind rows of crumbling Chinatown tenements.

The truck stops, Jack practically falling out, still half-blinded, heading for a puddle, a muddy pothole of water that he splashes into his eyes as Wang Chi hurries to his side ..•

Wang suddenly focusing hard on the American. *

Sitting on his butt, Jack looks up at his Chinese friend.

THREE CARS pull into the lot. TWO DODGE CHARGERS and that all-too-familiar PONTIAC FIREBIRD .•• TENLORDS OF DEATH ... joined by an eleventh on an outrageous EASY-RIDER CHOPPER.

•.• Jack getting to his feet •.• The Lords of Death advancing

J"ACKBURTON They know your name •••

Jack's looking at the advancing gang, turning now to find Wang Chi off and running ... thegang running ... Jack running! A GUNSHOT!

Wang Chi flying like the wind .•• Jack catchingup ••. the Lords of Death in hot pursuit ... theguy with that motorcycle starting it up! ANOTHER GUNSHOT!

16B

They round a corner, right back where that tong war was raging ..• butnow it's over, as fast as it began .•• red-turbaned Chang Sing casualties strewn left and right ...

And Wang Chi dives for cover through a bashed-out rathole of a basement window! Jack looks back •.. hecan HEAR THAT MOTORCYCLE BEARING DOWN!

Dark and dank .•. WangChi hiding .•• jack Burton wedging his almost-too-big American body through the small window:

••. just in time. A Lord of Death arrives on his cycle ... screams right through the stunned Chang Sing casualties!

Jack out of breath, leaning against a foul old wall. .• and right up against· a WOUNDED CHANG SING!

The man puts his hand over Jack's mouth .•.RUNNING FOOTSTEPS OUTSIDE ••• SLOWINGDOWN••. CHINESE VOICES ••. LORDSOFDEATH.

Needles and One Ear demanding answers from the wounded, decimated Chang Sing ••• kickingone of them, almost starting another fight, but the sensible Joe Lucky pulling his pals away.

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Wang Chi quizzes the wounded Chang Sing in their midst ...

THE BASEMENT LIGHTS POP ON ••• a string ofbare bulbs exposing everything, making the RATS scurry! It's a big basement ••• FIGUREScoming down a richety staircase way across the room .••

And fast it is! Wang Chi ducking into a HOLE in the foundation ••• Jack looking at the approaching FIGURES through those bare bulbs ••. ONEEAR••• NEEDLES.

Jack squirming in after Wang Chi ••. it'sso Goddamn dark and slimy. A SCREAM ••• way behindthem. That wounded Chang Sing.

Out squirms Wang Chi, looking like a mud wrestler, enlarging a too-small rotted air vent in the side of what should be a condemned building but instead probably shelters a dozen families. This is Chinatown too •••

••• and Jack Burton's getting the royal tour, forcing his body out the opening next, Wang Chi yanking on the big, slippery American .•• Thetwo pulling themselves together, staggering off in a direction of Wang Chi's choosing ..•

Jack practically on his face, caked with more mud and debris than Wang Chi if that's possible.

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REVISED - "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" - 10/~J./t;::,

A DEEP RUMBLE OF THUNDER ••• RAIN splashingdown upon Wang Chi's restaurant in a row of older restaurants ... their illuminated plastic signs glowing in the thick air.

The kitchen. Hair squeaky clean, scruffy face scrubbed and body clothed in an old Chinese robe, Jack Burton's at a wall phone watching his clothes dry on-a line strung over the stove while he trys to reach ••.

Wang Chi at a big table, lunching with THE CHINESE STAFF .••

Uncle Chu is the chef at The Dragon of the Black Pool, and when Uncle Chu talks, people listen.

16B (CONTINUED)

REVISED - "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" - 10/ 21/ 85 26

JACK BURTOl-< * (dialing)

•

What does that mean, 'China is here'? I don't even know what the hell that means. All I know is this Lo Pan character comes outta thin air in the middle of a Goddamn alley while his buddies are flyin' around on wires, cutting everybody to shreds and he just stands there so I can drive my truck right through him?! With light comin' outta his mouth?!

A BIG CRACK OF THUNDER•.. BLUELIGHTNING making the electricity come and go ... UncleChu disturbed •.•

16B

EDDIE LEE breaking the mood, barging in the back kitchen door, folding an umbrella. An Am~rican-born Chinese, Eddie Lee likes three-pi~ce suits and loud floral ties.

JACK BURTON

(into phone) I don't know my policy number. It's in my glovecompartment. Look under B-U-R-T-O-N.

Jack slams the phone into its cradle!

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REVISED - "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" - 10/2:r/85 27-A

68 CONTINUED: (3)

• WANG CHI

Take it easy, Jack, you're with friends. We'll find it for you.

Jack's worked himself up, onto his feet ..• stoppingdead in his tracks because now he alone SEES A SPECTRAL FIGURE come in from the storm, through the backdoor, of course ... a STOOPED OLD WOMAN, rain glistening off her crimson oilcloth shroud, her face obscured by a damp scarf wrapped protectively about her head •••

(CONTINUED l

16B

During the above, the old woman's been transforming herself, shaking free of her unnerving disguise ... straightening up ... the American Girl from the airport.

Jack having closed in on Gracie Law, intrigued.

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68 CONT.INUED: ( 4) 68

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dream.

J:<J:.VJ.::i,t:;D-"'.l::l.l.GTROUBLEINLITTLECHINA"-10/-"J./b!:>

68 CONTINUED: ( 5)• 68

Jack looks at Uncle Chu, unnerved.

It's still RAINING, and down this sinister back alleyway it really looks like Hong Kong tonight. A CADILLAC appears·, splashing water and forcing a few LONELY PEDESTRIANS closer to the shadowy brick walls. The Cadillac pulls up across the street from a tall Chinese tenement building.

Eddie's behind the wheel, Wang Chi riding shotgun. In back with Gracie Law is a transformed Jack Burton, "disguised" in one of Eddie's loud ties and this Ozzie Nelson sportscoat scrounged from God-knows-where ..• all staring across the street at that tenement ...

over David Lo Pan? Somebody's pulling your leg.

From the front ..•

16B

,TACKBURTON I'll try.

A TIBETAN LADY meets an open-faced Jack Burton lugging up the stairs, fresh off the bus from Anytown, U.S.A.

The Tibetan Lady looks at Jack. His move.

16B

Wang Chi and Eddie Lee and Gracie Law ... waiting ... ASHABBY OLD GRE.ENDATSUN pulls over to the curb ahead of them.

And she hops out, heads for the green Datsun.

No response.

Wang Chi is staring at the tenement, and it's almost like he ~oesn't even hear Eddie.

Gracie piles into the passenger seat. The driver's an earnest young freelance journalist called MARGO LITZENBERGER.

MARGO LITZE?lBERGER God, it's creepy. Do we actually have to go in because I will if we have to. I'll go anywhere and do anything to get my story.

Jack Burton meeting the proprietor, a female Fu Manchu... THE WHITE TIGER herself.

A BEAUTIFUL CHINESE GIRL in black lingerie passes through the room behind The White Tiger, momentarily distracting our Jack.

The old Chinese Lady who let Jack in has meanwhile handed him a stack of remarkably candid 8xl0 glossies ... The White Tiger catalogue, if you will.

Jack laughs like a horse, looks at the pictures .•.

Meaning the old Tibetan Lady ... The White Tiger excusing * herself, heading down a corridor but not yet out of earshot when Jack announces:

Green eyes. The White Tiger pulls up short. And Jack sees that, keeps at Mrs. O'Toole •..

MRS. O'TOOLE * Chinese girls don't come with green eyes.

JACK BURTON

That's not what I hear. What I hear is that the rarest beauties, the most intelligent young ladies ..• (an evil wink) •.. the hottest tamales, all have green eyes.

MRS. O'TOOLE

Where you hear 'thing like that?

JACK BURTON

On TV. What do you think? Any prospects?

Mrs. O'Toole trades a fast glance with The White Tiger... * Jack's eagle eye picking up on it ...

The White Tiger has moved off, vanished, all this intrigue registering with Jack.

The White Tiger moving down a corridor, hitting a panel.

The White Tiger entering a passage so narrow her shoulders touch the walls as she travels to a heavy door, unlocks a fat lock:

More like a cell, plaster cracked off the walls, a single bare bulb shining down on...

•.• Miao Yin! The unfortunate girl is gagged and lashed to a terrible little bed. Bruises dot her face and her hair's a fright.

The White Tiger being so kind, swabbing Miao Yin's brow with a damp cloth ...

16B

THE vlHITETIGER

together.

A WELL-HEELED PATRON exiting ... A PRIESTenteri~g.

Jack Burton sitting on a bed in a nicely done-up private chamber ••. watchinga CHINESE GIRL in a loose kimono performing the most intriguing, erotic bathing ritual with a steaming basin, some overly ripe persimmons, and a sea sponge •••

JACI< BURTON So how long you been in the U.S. of A.?

(CO}lT INUED)

Jack starts to remove Eddie's hideous tie ...

KABOOM! The whole Goddammed building shakes! Like an earthquake!

Only it's not. Wang Chi jumping out.

Gracie and Margo scrambling from the Datsun to see ...

THE TENEMENT ROOF!

Wang Chi already across the street, pounding on The White Tiger's door, trying to get in!

Panic reigns •••GIRLS and their CUSTOMERS certain the world is ending .•• Jack in the thick of it••. looking up through creaking timbers and a shower of collapsing plaster out into the night where •••

JACI<'SP.O.V ••• THESTORMS are descending! THUNDER the cause of that ghastly green light •.•RAIN in his charming rice field hat dropping straight through the ceiling!

The White Tiger running back the way she came ••• hurled forward by the force of a MAGNESIUM WHITE EXPLOSION behind her ••• in that littleroom where Miao Yin's held captive!

Gracie arrives! Margo Litzenberger and Eddie Lee encountering each other in the street .••

B

Eddie and Wang Chi squaring off at the door ..• shoulders

first! The thing flies right off the hinges!

Plaster falling in ... LIGHTNING dropping down a wire, his knife slicing Miao Yin's bonds, scooping her up, swinging her out of the room like a blur!

Jack running after Rain through the chaos, grabbing him, landing two fairly good punches in the face before Rain knocks Jack back with a chop! Rain moving again, Jack diving for him! Rain sommersaulting! Jack slamming into the wall, crumpling to the floor, looking up to see ...

••• JACK'S P.o.v .•• RAINVAULTING right back up through a hole in that wasted roof ..• joining LIGHTNING AND MIAO YIN in midflight! ANOTHER BLINDING GREEN BLAST ...

•.• just asWang Chi and Gracie Law reach this floor!

Jack points. They look up. Rain pouring in through the ceiling ..•REAL RAIN, not some apparition in a rice field straw hat.

The door unlocking, Gracie turning on the lights, Wang Chi and Eddie Lee helping a dazed Jack Burton inside ... Margo Litzenberger the last in •••

16B

CONTINUED: 94

He does, in a big modern armchair that at once starts rocking on hidden rails, nauseating him, the whole place spinning for Jack .•. books piled evi;rywhere, very little furniture, a TV••.a bed. *

JACK BURTON * You sleep in your office?

JACK BURTON * Try real hard.

From the refrigerator, she's handed Jack a glass of ...

REVISED - "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" - 10/21/85 39

94 CONTINUED: ( 2) 94

Jack staring at Wang Chi ..• at Gracie ...

GRACIE LAW * I've been trying to get somebody, anybodv, from the press to listen to me about this, Burton.

A door opens .•• anda familiar Chinese girl appears, listening to all the commotion ... Tara. In a nightgown.

Eddie stops Wang Chi!

6B

39-A

( 3) 94

94 CONTINUED:

16B

-,V

94 CONTINUED: ( 3) 94

Tara vanishes again.

Silence. Jack has spoken. But he hasn't said enough.

1GB

94 CONTINUED: ( 4) 94

More silence. MORE THUNDER AND LIGHTNING OUTSIDE ... the power starting that weird fade out, fade in again .. .

Jack looks at his friend, realizes he means it. So Jack looks at the potion Gracie's concoted ... and he drinks the stuff, one long swallow, everybody watching him smack his lips, conclude:

Big silence.

16B

94 CONTINUED: ( 5) 94

GRACIE LAW

The Wing Kong Exchange? The most dangerous, depraved, isolated,

•

cut throat den of madmen in Chinatown? You can't just waltz in and outta there like •..

No, he didn't, but now he's trying to get up out of that rocking chair, Gracie helping him ... contact. Nice.

He smiles at Gracie. Jack's back. Everybody rests easy again.

A huge sign identifies the Wing Ko11gTrading Company. A 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation. SEVERAL WING KONG TRUCKS coming and going in the RAIN.

TWO FIGURES suddenly massing in the f.g., water dripping off their noses. Jack and Wang Chi.

6B

Antiseptic, bright lights here in the OFFICE, A CHINESE SECURITY GUARD behind a small security desk, TV CAMERAS on the walls, TWO WHITE-COLLAR CHINESE working industriQUsly on desk-top computers as in out of the rain come Jack and Wang Chi .•.

And to prove it, Jack's got Gracie's whole telephone in his paw, waving it around like a six-pack as they move right toward the security desk ..•

Wang Chi asks the·GUARD, in CHINESE, "Where ' sthe main panel at?"

He's gone, down a stairway, into:

•.• essentially a large warehouse area. Coming down the stairs, Wang Chi catches up to Jack •..

A NOISE above Jack and Wang Chi! They whirl! To see a SECURITY CAMERA UP ON A BRACKET •.~PANNING TO FOLLOW THEM ... Were they being observed? For all to hear:

16B

They move past some boxes, away from the TV camera, through • a big space crammed to the rafters with CHEAP PLASTER EFFIGIES of Ho Tai, that familiar little pot-bellied God of Happiness. THERE'S ANOTHER DOOR AT THE FAR END ... so Wang Chi heads that way •..

Hidden from the TV camera now, Wang Chi's listening with • his ear to the wooden door, upon which SEVERAL CHINESE CHARACTERS are scribbled ..• Wang Chisuddenly picking the lock with a pocket knife, Jack making sure they are shielded from the CAMERA..•

Wang Chi SQUEAKS THE DOOR OPEN .•. Jack starting to feel sort of vulnerable here. He takes that SURVIVAL KNIFE off his calf.

Wang Chi poking his head inside •.. thisroom, like the first, about bursting with HUNDREDS OF PLASTER HO TAIS .•. NoCameras * in here, just DUST AND COBWEBS SMOTHERING EVERYTHING ... THIS ROOM A SPIDERY TOMB •.•

Wang Chi's popped on his CIGARETTE LIGHTER, illuminating the floor where the STRANGEST TRACKS are cut through the dust •••

the lines waving across the storeroom and,~ the footsteps, heading right up to a BRICK WALL. *

16B

l9 CONTINUED: 99

Wang Chi moves up to the brick wall, as Jack spots a STRANGE BAMBOO GRILL in the floor ••. covering a pipe shaft that drops off into darkness. Wang Chi examines the wall, looking for a way to open it ••• WHOOSH! It slides •.•REVEALING a beat-up ELEVATOR DOOR.

Wang Chi forces the elevator door open.

CLOSE ON THE FLOOR-BUTTON PANEL •.• thenumbers reading in the exact opposite direction you'd expect ••. starting with the "l" at the top ••• ANDDESCENDING THROUGH "7 . "

Wang Chi punches a button and THE ELEVATOR STARTS MOVING ••• DROPPING ••• 1 ••• 2...WHAM!STEELSHUTTERS CLOSE AROUND THE WALLS AND SUDDENLY THE CAR STOPS DEAD BETWEEN "3" and "4." Jack starts prying his knife in between the doors, trying to open them. Wang Chi working the floor buttons to no avail.

BLINK •.• and the single bar elevator bulb burns out in a FLASH of blue light. The SCREEN IS INDARKNESS for a moment until Wang flicks his Bic. Jack eyes the ceiling .•.

Eddie Lee having set quite the feast before Gracie and Margo ... whole fishKwangtung-style, a winter melon filled with shark's fin soup ... andnow .•.

Eddie heads back to the kitchen as Margo digs in.

Gracie wants no more of this. She gets up, crosses the dining room, nearly empty at this late hour ...

a table tallying his receipts on a calculator ... Uncle Chu sipping tea and chopping water chestnuts.

16B

From behind her. Gracie turns around to see Mr. Egg Shen, the enigmatic tour bus driver, sitting in the shadows, smoking his pipe.

Jack at the ceiling, struggling with the service hatch, forcing it open just as ••. THECAR SUDDENLY RESUMES ITS DESCENT •.. and herecomes the WATER! Seeping in at their feet!

WATER LITERALLY POURING IN NOW .•• UPTOTHEIR KNEES AS the floors creep by ... 4... 5..•

16B (CONTINUED)

UP TO THEIR WAISTS IN SALT WATER ••.

IN OVER THEIR HEADS! Wang Chi's lighter snuffed out, his fedora floating off his head, bobbing in the tiny air space left in the car: THE CAMERA GOING UNDERWATER...

••• where Jack and Wang Chi struggle at the doors .•. A CRACK APPEARING:

It's always night here ••• in thisunderwater chamber littered with UPSIDE-DOWN SINNERS hanging by their feet, house-of-horrors nightmares buffeted by the SURGING WATER ••• thatsweeps Jack and Wang Chi out of that elevator ••• our heroesswimming desperately underwater, searching for air, tangling in the ghastly sinners, coming eye-to-eye with those puckered anguished faces ••• crabs crawling on them••• *

••• Jack finding the surface first, no idea where on earth he is, spotting A THICK BAMBOO CEILING GRATE a yard above his head, chains running down from its rungs into the water, the chains suspending all those "people" down below •••

• • •AHAND RISING OUT OF THE WATER!

Wang Chi's the Chinese hoisting himself up on a chain, gasping for air •.•

Beyond the grate •.•Jack pulling himself up:

16B

LOOKING DOWN ON JACK •.• his fingers curling around the grate, his wide-eyed face pulling closer, trying to see something, anything .•.

FEET IN OLD CHINESE SHOES ••• steppingINTO FRAME right near Jack's fingers:

A SHADOW FALLING ACROSS JACK'S FACE ••• CAPPEDWITH A RICE FIELD STRAW HAT.

Long since having said good night to its last customer, the restaurant's become a dimly lighted, mysterious little sanctuary .••

Eddie Lee sitting upright in one booth snoring lightly ••• Margo Litzenberger sound asleep in another, her face on the table amid remains of crispy-skin whole chicken .•• plates of steamed broccoli, Hunan-style prawns •.•

around a flickering candle with Uncle Chu and Egg Shen.

16B (CONTINUED)

::,u

Silence.

Gracie turns, startled. Eddie's awake, rubbing his eyes, looking at his watch.

SLAM to the stomach! Jack doubling over, crumbling to the floor in a chamber full of ashes. What hit him? TWO YELLOW-TURBANED WING KONGS drag Jack upright as ...

A HAND takes hold of Wang Chi's face, shakes his head back and forth until his punchy eyes open ...

16B

JACK'S P.O.V. OF WANG CHI ... theyoung Chinese lashed to an OLD WUEELCHAIR ••• hishead being shaken by Rain .•.

Rain turns, regards Jack, Jack's knees buckling, the two Wing Kongs barely able to hold him up •••

Palm up, Rain makes a fist. Five feet away from Jack, he snaps open his hand •.. andaDARK RED OBJECT the size of an eight ball materializes, flies out, pounds into Jack's gut! Back on the floor, Jack.

WHEELS TURNING ••• Wang Chiand Jack Burton .!2.s!ihlashed to old wheelchairs now, dirty blindfolds tight around their eyes as the Wing Kong hatchet men speed them along after Rain, downward along this dank corridor illuminated at intervals by ORDINARY BARE LIGHT BULBS .•. the procession quickly making a frightful turn through a small opening and into:

•.• a conference room, actually, when you cut through all the crap ••• things likea fierce MONGOLIAN WOLF carved from charred timber, various LIFE-SIZE STATUES OF TAOIST FIGURES, some with white beards, some with black, all seated around a big table with a really HUGE DRAGON CHAIR at its head ••• anempty Dragon Chair •••

••• Jackand Wang Chi wheeled in and parked facing us, their backs to a wall of TELEVISION MONITORS that broadcast a variety of standard, security-conscious views of The Wing Kong Trading Company.

A SWITCHBLADE comes out of Rain's pocket, CLICK, SLASH, cutting away first Jack's, then Wang Chi's blindfolds from a point right between their eyes!

16B

Rain's moved to the table, picked up a telephone, made a report ... Jack whispering •..

The first words Rain's ever spoken. And how did he even hear Jack .••? A DOOR ACROSS THE ROOM BLASTS OPEN, bounces against the wall with a brutal crack!

And then silence. Those two Wing Kong hatchet men quickly duck out the way they came in •.. sodoes Rain. Leaving Jack and Wang Chi just sitting there hogtied ••.

A SQUEAl<Y SOUND..•SQUEAKY WHEELS .•. A HUGESHADOW COMING THROUGH THE DOORWAY ••• but getting smaller the closer it gets ... untilhe appears ...

••• an aging Chinese businessman, confined to a wheelchair like Jack and Wang Chi, but amodern job, all solid state and highly maneuverable as this shrivelled-up old . character motors to within a few yards of .••

JACK BURTON

Get outta here. Lo Pan is •••

DAVID LO PAN

There are many mysteries, many unanswerable questions in a life even as short as yours.

l6B

WANG CHI

David Lo Pan has motored behind them to fine tune one of his TV monitors, stop an annoying roll by pounding the damn thing with his fist!

Wang Chi doesn't blink, doesn't say a word ..• DavidLo Pan comes around right in front of him, wheelchair to wheelchair.

16B

::,.,

David Lo Pan ignores Jack, repeats the request, this time IN CHINESE, to Wang Chi, but again Wang Chi remains silent.

1GB

109 CONTINUED: ( 4) 109

A sudden non sequitur, Lo Pan's eyes looking beyond Jack and Wang Chi at the bank of security monitors ... ONE SCREEN IN PARTICULAR featuring a view of The Wing Kong Trading Company lobby and three faces we know ... GRACIELAW,EDDIE LEE, AND MARGO LITZENBERGER.

16B

109 CONTINUED: ( 5) 109

David Lo Pan is sliding away, backwards, toward that door he blasted in through •••

MARGO LITZENBERGER

Trying an ethnic approach •••

VOICE I can help you?

Thunder. Fat as ever but dressed now in ordinary Western street clothes, he smokes a stubby cigar and holds a routine CLAW HAMMER in his fist.

16B

Blindfolded again, Jack and Wang Chi are shoved £E_ a steep passage by the two Wing Kong hatchet men ... rolled from this cavelike, ragged tube into:

door that CLANGS shut behind them.

Gracie, Eddie, and Margo walking along with Thunder and his hammer .•• past the most ordinary shipping and receiving activity, DOZENS OF CHINESE GIRLS compulsively unpacking the most God-awful trinkets ...

Thunder's cigar smoke is filling up the car as they ride along ..•

Gracie coughing ••. the cigarsmoke thickening ...

THE CIGAR SMOKE REALLY THICKENING .•.

16B

On each other's heels, first Eddie, then Gracie, then Margo overcome by Thunder's smoke, dropping to the elevator floor ..• as the doors open onto:

••. a big low-ceilinged space stacked with Oriental shipping crates. Thunder reaches down to the elevator floor, grabs Eddie's limp body by the scruff of his collar, drags him out like a puppy dog. Eddie •.• the last he sees before his eyelids close are ...

and Margo off the other way. Things are not looking good for our side.

Jack Burton rockin' 'n' rollin', trying to get up enough sideways momentum to tip his wheelchair •.. over! CRASH! Jack on his ear!

He's squirming, twisting, using the floor to scrape off his blindfold, get his body out of that damn wheelchair strapping, like a caterpillar from its cocoon ..•

SKELETONS? You bet. Hanging from those hooks.

16B

True. LIGHT SEEPING IN where the floor meets the walls . ... Jack contorting,getting at his calf and that Gerber Mark II survival knife.

Cyclone fencing chops this space into small cubicles, an ORIENTAL GIRL penned up inside each, like prize fillies, like slaves. Gracie Law and Margo Litzenberger the only Caucasians in sight, causing quite a stir as they're dragged in ...

... Graciecoming 'round, coming out swinging! But nowhere to run, chased by the Wing Kong Ladies,~ ladies, nasty ladies .•. Gracie runningdown a blind alley of cyclone fencing, slamming into the chain link! She turns ... here they come.

Jack slicing Wang Chi free of his bonds.

Jack eyeballing a skeleton ••• Wang Chidown on his knees, at the juncture of floor and wall, checking out that light ...

Jack taps his knife handle against the door.

16B (CONTINUED)

• JACK BURTON

Wang, you know something you're not telling me, Wang.

Jack's down on the floor, both of them sitting on the floor .•• eerie half-light making monstrous WHEELCHAIR SHADOWS across their faces.

Silence. Jack looks around. Some of those skeletons on the walls are MONKEY SKELETONS •••

makes a lot more sense.

The last from Wang Chi so sincere and quiet that it reaches Jack, unnerves him.

LOCKS UNLOCKING! Like shots, instincts taking over, Jack and ,·langChi scramble to get back into their wheelchairs, to fake that all's the same in here ... THE DOOR OPENING ..•

16B

118 CONTINUED: ( 2) 118

Blindfolds up, just in time, J'ack's on so he can peek over the top with one eye and see •••

••. THUNDER standing in the open door, a CRUMPLED FIGURE in the Chinese giant's hand. Thunder lumbers in past J'ack and Wang Chi, hoists the figure up onto one of those hooks .•. Eddie Lee.

J'ACKATTACKS! WHAMMO! He's on Thunder from behind, on his back, trying to strangle him .•.

Wang Chi tearing off hl_!!blindfold, moving to Eddie Lee's rescue ..• Eddiechoking on his own ugly necktie ••.

Thunder hurls himself backward, makes a pancake sandwich out of J'ack and the wall! This is not a big room, remember .•. Thunder grabbing Wang ChT":-:-.Eddie'sstill choking ••.

J'ack draws his knife, leaps onto Thunder's back again, but this time THE TIP OF HIS BLADE IS AGAINST THE GIANT Is JUGULAR••.

Meaning Wang Chi. Thunder gets the point •.. andWang Chi hits the floor!

Meaning Eddie. Thunder waddles over, knife to his throat, J'ack ridinghim like an elephant .•• Eddie hits the floor!

Wang Chi and Eddie scrambling through the big iron door. Okay, J'ack,now what?

J'ack looksaround, Wang Chi behind him in the doorway.

J'ACKBURTON

16B

118 CONTINUED : (3 ) 118

Thunder starts taking these enormous breaths, seems to be inflating himself! So Jack does a crazy thing, half thought out, hurling himself backward off the giant's shoulders ..• CRASH!onto the seat of one of those wheelchairs, his momentum shooting the chair backwards tool

Jack and his wheelchair rocketing from the iron basin! Wang Chi SLAMMING the door shut! Throwing the bolt! Thunder crashing forward, trapped inside!

Wang Chi turns ... seesEddie relearning how to breathe.

ANGLE ON JACK. Holy Christ, the old wheelchair's like a bobsled! Jack going backwards at the speed of sound!

TWO WING KONG HATCHET MEN coming the other way, scrambling to investigate all the comrnotion ••• tenpins!WHAMMO! That's what they are, human tenpins, Jack blasting through, knocking the two Wing Kong every which way ... and spinning to a halt himself, dizzy, stunned...

Jack on his wobbly feet by now ••• WangChi frisking the fallen hatchet men •.• LOCATINGSOME GUNS •••AMMUNITION...

A SAWED-OFF SHOTGUN! Eddie catches it ... Wang Chi hands Jack a LUGER, takes a snazzy little BUSHMASTER ASSAULT PISTOL for himself, 13 inches long, 30-round magazine ...

Bushmaster to Jack, Luger to Wang Chi, Jack sheathing his survival knife with one fluid motion.

16B (CONTINUED)

Jack moves out ••. thetwo Chinese following.

Shrivelled in his fancy wheelchair, David Lo Fan sits amid a world of priceless Chinese artifacts, telephone to his ear:

And he hangs up. David Lo Fan sits still for a moment ..• BEFORE HIS EYES BEGIN TO GLOW •.• ANDHIS BODY STARTS TO EMIT A VAPOROUS HALO•••AS FIRST HE STRUGGLES TO RISE UP OUT OF HIS WHEELCHAIR ••• then does so effortlessly, GROWING TALLER, the silken threads of his elegant suit GLOWING too, the cloth itself transforming into the robes of a fearsome SEVEN-FOOT MANDARIN as Lo Fan walks right through the walls of this antique-filled room.

•••ANDRIGHT THROUGH THE WALLS of the most extraordinary bridal chamber since that time centuries and centuries ago when Emperor Ching Te, the Sun, married Queen Pao Yueh, the Moon, gossamer, unearthly, the air itself seeming to part as Lo Fan slides with the grace of a tiger toward •••

••• MIAOYIN .•• that unfortunate girlan absolute vision, her clothing ancient and regal now ..• HERBODYFLOATING SUPINE WELL ABOVE THE FLOOR as Lo Fan comes close ... tries to touch her .•• HISVAPOROUS HAND PASSING STRAIGHT THROUGH Miao Yin's body!

Lo Fan passing his hand back and forth through Miao Yin, over her face, across her breasts ••.

16B

KABOOM! And the massive door to the iron basin blows right off its hinges! Thunder is loose.

1'23 INT. FORKED PASSAGES - WAREHOUSE - DAY 123

Again that odd rnix ... electrical wiring,bare bulbs and just a huge, empty warehouse ••.

Wang Chi's moving ahead of the others, cautiously through a doorway toward an elevator.

WHAM! THREE WING KONG HATCHET MEN JUMP OUT AND GRAB WANG CHI! Instinctively Wang Chi moves, chopping the Hatchet Men away for a beat, as Jack comes up with his gun ...

Wang Chi dives away, as ..• BANG! BANG! BANG! THREE SHOTS from Jack's Bushmaster, three dead Wing Kong.

Stepping over the fallen enemy, Wang Chi rushes to the elevator .•• Jack'slooking stunned •.• Eddie followingWang Chi, collecting Jack en route.

Jack snaps his head clear, takes off fast ... WangChi reaching the elevator first, Jack a second later ...

Eddie arriving .•.

They jump inside.

16B

Looking out the open, grated door, over Jack, Wang Chi and Eddie Lee, as the elevator rises up to the floor above, REVEALING the Wing Kong Detention area. They slip quietly out of the elevator and study the situation from across a long wooden walkway leading to the cyclone fenced-in gate.

Gracie gagged, lying on the floor of a cell, hands bound behind her back, rope around her neck going down to·her feet. If she struggles, she chokes.

Margo Litzenberger just tossed into the adjoining cyclone cubicle, busy scribbling on a tiny pad ...

FEMALE GUARDS tearing by! Rushing up toward the entrance gate where ••.

acting like a lunatic hijacker, a sawed-off shotgun jammed into Eddie's cheek, Eddie-the-hostage wide-eyed with terror .•• Jack crawling hand-over-hand along the bottom of the wooden walkway, thirty feet above ground, hidden from the female guards.

Whoa! Serious, demented threat if these guards ever heard one. Wang Chi's kicking at the fencing! And Jack's slipping right past the guards, up a pipe to:

Gracie moving ••• choking herself ••• Margo trying to see what's going on .••

Overhead, above her, spread-eagle on the cyclone ceiling!

16B

Jack peers ahead, sees Gracie's predicament.

Back at the main gate ... TWOFEMALE GUARDS'watching a crazed * Wang Chi jumping around with his hostage •.. SHOUTINGCURSES IN CHINESE!

Jack leaps off the ceiling, into the compound... asWang Chi turns his shotgun on the guards, and Eddie yanks out the Luger!

The guards react, their BAMBOO NIGHTSTICKS coming up in a blur PUMPING OUT A BURST OF TEAR GAS!

Wang Chi reels sideways, hit hard, Eddie gagging ... one guard kicking him, a vicious blow that lifts Eddie skyward!

Jack OPENS FIRE on the MAIN LOCK, throws the bolt, doors * opening off a dozen cells, panicked CHINESE GIRLS flooding into the central corridor, the main gates opening as ...

•.• WangChi fights for his life, a guard choking him, Wang Chi pounding his rival's ears, bursting her eardrums ••• vaulting onto the lady beating poor Eddie to a pulp!

Jack at Gracie's side, only time to cut the rope choker around her neck, carrying her out into the chaos ...

A COMMUNAL BATHING AREA for the compound ... the escaping Chinese girls rushing that way!

Wang Chi finishing off the last guard and slamming the main gate shut, locking it against the inevitable arrival of ..•

..•MORE WING KONG HATCHET MEN!

Eddie Lee running, tripping, crawling ..• Wang Chi practically dragging his cousin as the Wing Kong start SHOOTING! 16B

One way in, no way out? The desperate Chinese girls are throwing themselves into the biggest pool!

He yanks Gracie's gag off .•.

Jack pushes Margo into the drink ..• more Chinese girls hurling themselves overboard•.. vanishing. Gracie cut free, knocking Jack backward into the pool with her uncoiled energy ... following witha perfect dive herself ...

behind them, a FEW BUI.LETSALREADY RICOCHETTING off the tile in here! Wang Chi leaping into the pool!

Eddie Lee hitting the water like a tiny cannonball!

BACK AT THE CHAIN LINK GATE .•• Thunder crashing right through it, hatchet men rushing past him.

UNDERWATER •.•AN INLET ••• APIPE18 INCHES WIDE •••PEOPLE SQUEEZING INTO IT .••TALKABOUT INSANITY ••• BUBBLES,PANIC, THRASHING BODIES ••.WEDON'T SEE JACK BORTON.

Op ahead the first Chinese girl surfaces! Still in the pipe but above its water level! The going's still nightmarish but there's air ... AND THE PIPE'S GETTING WIDER, not much, 36 inches. Gracie breaks the surface! Wang Chi next!

Wang Chi has no idea, and Gracie shoves him on by her, Margo appearing, Gracie shoving her on by ..•

16B

Eddie! Gasping for air! Gracie helps him, shoves him forward ...

"Jack?" Getting familiar, Gracie showing concern, huh? She's looking back at the water, no Jack ... no Jack ... THEN JACK ERUPTING IN HER FACE!

She grabs him, elated! So is Jack, to be breathing again and be hugged by Gracie Law when a second ago he thought it was curtains ... sohe kisses her!

Their wet bodies on top of each other, no way they can move at the same time.

The first escaping Chinese girl appears, crawling out of that pipe into the strangest plumbing junction •.. a big slimy catch basin with a SERIES OF PIPE OPENINGS spread around the perimeter •.•

••. more girls appear,then Wang Chi, Eddie, Margo ..• THEIR VOICES ECHOING IN THE HOLLOW WATER ROOM.

16B

b!:i

Everything's mossy, slippery •.• hard to standup •.• WangChi on his stomach, peering into one of the pipes.

Back to Jack and Gracie. Gracie squeezing past him ..•

JACK"BURTON Stop that! Stop rubbing your body against me because I can't concentrate when you do that.

She's gone, Jack scrambling after her.

Gracie appearing, Margo and Eddie helping her out ...

Jack appears right behind Gracie •••

A BIG, OMINOUS VALVE OVER THEIR HEADS .••

JACK BURTON * Why? What for?

16B

WANG CHI " To cool the fires of hell. I bet up there's where we first got on tha't elevator ...

Jack's into the pipe outlet like a shot, clamboring up, the others following.

Jack pushes open the bamboo grate, squeezes out of the pipe opening in the floor, right near that first elevator they rode down into trouble. He's got the soggy Bushmaster in hand •.. butno opposition in sight. He crosses quickly to the door leading to that other storeroom, the clean one, and he puts an ear against it, hears nothing ... sohe waves everybody out of the pipe opening .•.

Dust, cobwebs, filthy little statues of the pot-bellied Ho Tai all around them as they all cross to Jack. In whispers:

Wang Chi's been translating to the Chinese girls. Everybody's got it.

He rips the door open! The clean storeroom ... crowded with SEVEN WING KONG HATCHET MEN! Jack slams the door shut! Locks it with a throw-bolt! BAM! Something starts pounding on the other side!

CRACK! A HATCHET BLADE POKES THROUGH THE OLD DOOR! BAM! BAM! SPLINTERS FLYING!

16B

THE DOOR CRACKING IN HALF! Gracie dispersing the Chinese girls behind those awful, crowded shelves ..• EddieLee taking Margo into a dark corner .•.

THE DOOR BUSTS OPEN! Jack FIRES THREE TIMES POINT-BLANK, GETS THREE WING KONG! But the rest flood in, FOUR MORE, blades slicing the air •..

••. WangChi going mad, a pint-sized tornado, all flying, punching, chopping, arms and feet! WHAMMO! WHAMMO! WHAMMO ! AND WHAMMO !

Jack throws a simple right, polishes off the last attacker ...

•.. little WangChi standing in a heap of Wing Kong bodies.

Wang Chi leading the escape now, through these so-ordinary office environs, stopping at the door beyond which those two Chinese accountants were sitting at computer terminals *

A shift change underway •.• SIXCHINESE WHITE COLLAR WORKERS out here now, three coming, three going ..• the administration door opening ..• and Jackcoming out with Wang Chi •.. both of them soaking wet, covered with slime, and smiling.

16B

His Bushmaster! Jack suddenly brandishing it with two hands, waving it around at everybody, everybody surrendering, frightened.

The Chinese girls rush out ..• Margo next ...

... a cubicle door opening up near Gracie •.•AHAND COMING OUT FAST! ENORMOUS! COVERED WITH FILTHY, MATTED RED HAIR! IT MUFFLES GRACIE'S LIPS AND SNATCHES HER INSIDE AS:

Jack waves his weapon like a fanatic .•. the Chinese girls flying out behind him! Chaos! Margo! Eddie!

A Chinese accountant hits the ALARM BELL! Now, after all this, an ALARM BELL?!

Egg Shen behind the wheel ••. OncleChu watching as the Chinese girls get steered on the run by Eddie, through FOG AND RAIN, across the Wing Kong Trading Company parking lot and toward the bus .•• EggREVVING HIS BIG ENGINE •.• he needsa tuneup ••• GONSHOTS!From Wing Kong Security!

Jack returning their fire! Covering everyone, stumbling onto his ass, jumping up, diving for the bus, the last on as BULLETS breaks windows!

Egg Shen flooring it! Jack beside himself, drowning in adrenalin!

16B

There's a moment, a powerful moment of failure.

Gracie Law in the clutches of the most horrific creature •••thing.••abomination•••YOU ever saw..• an unnatural monster of myth and legend, A CHINESE WILD MAN made of flesh and blood with long twisted locks of fire-red hair, yellow teeth and yellow arms .•. theclaws on his fingers that dig into Gracie's arms recalling only death •..

Gracie ripping and tearing at the Wild Man as he races along, reaches the EDGE OF A GLOWING, JAGGED HOLE in the :·0cky passage .•• and leaps!Leaps right into the Goddamn abyss with poor screaming Gracie in his possession!

The Wild Man plummeting from a crevice in the celiing! Landing thirty feet below on his broad hairy feet ... with Gracie stunned by somehow still intact.

CLOSE ON A PAIR OF MANACLES, held in the Wild Man's clawed hands. He clamps these ancient shackles on Gracie's ankles, anchors her in place on a short chain, then moves away as .•.

A SHADOW FALLS UPON HER. Gracie looks up ... andRain (in ordinary street clothes) steps INTO FRAME, taking hold of her face, staring into her eyes.

A REVERSE ANGLE SHOWS us Thunder (in street clothes as well) •.• and DavidLo Pan, shrivelled in his wheelchair.

Right in front of you, Gracie, enjoying his anonymity.

16B

144 CONTINUED: 1.44

It's pouring rain outside.

Their conversation taking place in the restaurant kitchen where Jack's sharpening his survival knife on one of Uncle Chu's ancient whetstones. Wang Chi, sitting on the floor, is wearing black ninjitsu pajamas and binding his ankles and his wrists with cloth.

Jack and Wang Chi lock eyes .•• EggShen coming in out of the storm with a dirty half-dozen Chang Sing TONG WARRIORS

the rescued Chinese girls, being fed by Uncle Chu, withdraw in fear ••.

16B

A gigantic .44Magnum.

His knife and his Bushmaster.

Jack steers Margo aside, tries to be gentle.

16B

'0

Margo looks across the room at Eddie who's talking quietly with Wang Chi.

Margo skewers him with her glance.

The walls cracking open on hidden hinges ... Gracie Law tossed into the thick ·vaporsby a heartless Thunder...

SLAM! Thunder closes the wall behind him, Gracie flying at the "door" •.• but it's gone,not even a trace of the seams, not a hinge or a knob •••

She turns to survey her prison, the treasure-filled room still awash with ghostly air, •. A BODYFREE-FLOATING in the haze!

Gracie comes close ••• curious and afraid. She looks into Miao Yin's lovely, empty face.

No response. She passes her arm above the suspended girl ••. below thesuspended girl. No wires.

Miao Yin opens her eyes! AND AS SHE DOES SOMETHING DRIFTS BEHIND GRACIE IN THE SWIRLING AIR ••. LOPAN THAT FRIGHTFUL MANDARIN, THERE AND NOT THERE••. like so much smoke, certainly undetected by Gracie .••

16B

Gracie whirls around! There he stands ... Lo Pan, all seven imperial feet of him, hovering in the mist.

Gracie looks back at Miao Yin ••• back atLo Pan.

Lo Pan smiles and that LIGHT BURSTS FORTH! OBLITERATING * THE FRAME!

Fog, rain .•• the sky rolling dark clouds as an urgent PROCESSION makes its way past lighted stores selling lychee wine, pickled ginger, dried ducks .••

••• EggShen leading the way under a huge black umbrella, Jack Burton half under it too, getting rained on, Wang Chi and the Chang Sing warriors making no effort at all to keep themselves dry as they swing around a corner ...

16B

• EGG SHEN

You tried the front door. It got you nowhere.

Meaning Egg's umbrella so Jack can lift it higher and get some serious protection outta the damn thing.

Egg Shen-is unlocking the large garage do~r on an OLD FIRE COMPANY••. Jack reading the big wet sign over his head ••• EGGFOOYUNG TOURS.

A converted, dilapidated firehouse ••• Egg's silly cus taking up most of the space, an old futon ced in the watch station •••l:)ooksandbottles of strange Chinese chemicals overflowing from those few small rooms leading off the garage proper.

Jack drinking all this in, the way everyone else feels instantly at home here, the Chang Sings just squatting as a group while Egg busies himself in one of those rooms crammed with bottles and jars •••

16B

CONTINUED: 148

Egg Shen reappears with a single corked-up IVORY FLASK which he tucks into a large satchel with many pockets.

Egg heads over to the FIREPOLE which, typically, soars upward to the second floor. He barks an order in CHINESE and a pair of Chang Sings hustle over to pry up a THREE-PIECE MANHOLE COVER through which the bottom of the firepole passes.

Egg Shen has, meanwhile, gotten himself a big Eveready camp light which now shines deep INTO THE HOLE in his floor ••• one Chang Sing after another just grabbing that firepole and zipping down into the blackness!

Jack grabs the pole, slides o.s.

16B

Day? The notion's irrelevant. And with only that meager light stabbing down from Egg's Eveready, Jack has no idea what he's just plunged himself into. ONLY THE HOLLOW SOUNDS OF DRIPPING WATER give us some idea this place is ~ small.

WHOOSH! Wang Chi rockets into the picture!

WHOOSH! Egg Shen and his light. *

••• where the walls, made of ordinary brick, vaulted like * an ancient Roman bathhouse, give way to CRUMBLING OLD STONES •.• TILTINGBUTTRESSES ..• ANDSLIMY VEGETATION THAT GROWS IN THE DARK..•

The conference room where Jack and Wang Chi first met the ordinary little Mr. David Lo Pan... buta scene startlingly different now•.•

•.• Lo Pan,the Mandarin, sitting in his extraordinary robes, filling easily that gigantic ~ragon Chair at table's end. Rain and Thunder perch by his side ••. several HATCHET MEN scattered around the perimeter .•• all of them watching ••.

••• GracieLaw and Miao Yin, those two girls still clearly entranced, barefoot, facing each other and ascending a frightful pair of SWORD LADDERS that extend from floor to ceiling, each rung a knife blade turned on edge between bamboo uprights.

Gracie, in fact, a rung higher than Miao Yin •.• her hands grabbing the blades above, her feet pressing into the blades below as she climbs, expressionless ... no blood.

Miao Yin, likewise, overtaking Gracie .•.

Gracie's hand reaches for a knife-blade rung •.• and bleeds! But she doesn't stop, seems to feel no pain. Lo Pan watches. Now Miao Yin suffers a wound ••• her foot! And neither does Miao Yin cease her horrible climb •.• both girls closing in on the room's high ceiling where bundles of CHARM PAPERS have been tied •..

16B

A huge belch from the river? Jack through joking ...

Jack, interrupted by the BUBBLING NOISES coming from the black water ..•

Jack and Wang Chi staring at each other, looking down at the threatening, BUBBLING morass they're skirting when •••

thing, THE SEWER DEMON, who the hell knows it moves so fast, right out of hole in the sludge-caked wall, four-inch fangs grabbing a Chang Sing, yanking him backward INTO THE WALL!

Jack's gun is drawn! But there's nothing to shoot at. Egg suddenly, quickly porducing a handful of pulverized material which he casts upon the wall, into the hole ... HSSSSS!! And then silence.

The Chang Sing obviously believing that, Wang Chi too, because they all move quickly onward ...

16B

Day? The notion's irrelevant. And with only that meager light stabbing down from Egg's Eveready, Jack has no idea what he's just plunged himself into. ONLY THE HOLLOW SOUNDS OF DRIPPING WATER give us some idea this place is not small.

WHOOSH! Wang Chi rockets into the picture!

WHOOSH! Egg Shen and his light.

... where the walls, made of ordinary brick, vaulted like an ancient Roman bathhouse, give way to CRUMBLING OLD STONES •.. TILTINGBUTTRESSES ... ANDSLIMY VEGETATION THAT GROWS IN THE DARK ...

The conference room where Jack and Wang Chi first met the ordinary little Mr. David Lo Pan ... buta scene startlingly different now.••

... Lo Pan, the Mandarin, sitting in his extraordinary robes, filling easily that gigantic ~ragon Chair at table's end. Rain and Thunder perch by his side... several HATCHET MEN scattered around the perimeter •.. all of them watching ••.

••. GracieLaw and Miao Yin, those two girls still clearly entranced, barefoot, facing each other and ascending a frightful pair of SWORD LADDERS that extend from floor to ceiling, each rung a knife blade turned on edge between bamboo uprights.

Gracie, in fact, a rung higher than Miao Yin ... her hands grabbing the blades above, her feet pressing into the blades below as she climbs, expressionless ... no blood.

Miao Yin, likewise, overtaking Gracie .•.

Gracie's hand reaches for a knife-blade rung .•• and bleeds! But she doesn't stop, seems to feel no pain. Lo Pan watches. Now Miao Yin suffers a wound .•. her foot! And neither does Miao Yin cease her horrible climb •.• both girls closing in on the room's high ceiling where bundles of CHARM PAPERS have been tied •..

16B

Egg takes hold of Jack, guides him down a few feet to ANOTHER HOLE, into which Wang Chi and the Chang Sing climb. In goes Egg. Jack'll be the last one. E)ecause there's no going back.

FEMALE WING KONG work Gracie and Miao Yin over, Gracie in particular, scrubbing her down, exchanging her own torn and soiled clothing for the finest Chinese silks ...

... MiaoYin similarly attired, her wounded hands and feet being treated with herbal resins, wrapped in the purest white gauze ...

Druggy, dizzy, Gracie tires to rise, gets shoved back by the Wing Kong who have a job to do for Lo Pan ...

Crawling on his belly, heading downward, ,Jackinches along, survival knife clamped in his teeth for quick and easy access ... WangChi and the Chang Sing ahead of him ... Egg Shen pushing at his feet ...

..• up aheadTHE SUDDEN SOUNDS OF SLIDING GRAVEL! The shaft taking a nose dive, sucking the Chang Sing forward! Sucking Wang Chi forward ... his feet rocketingaway from Jack!

Jack next!

Everybody landing on top of everybody else in mounds of DRIED FISH ..• RATS scattering! Egg's Eveready showing us the ugliest fish faces •.. Jack finding his precious knife.

Egg scrambles to the wall, feels along the wall .•. finds a LIGHTSWITCH! CLICK. On comes an ordinary 100-watt Sylvania in a cheap porcelain ceiling fixture.

16B

A Chang Sing is sampling the competition, taking a big bite out of a dried mackeral head. Not bad, he thinks, offering it to Jack ...

Egg's holding that IVORY FLASK he filled up back in the firehouse.

JACK BURTON * This gets worse? Come on ...

Jack looks at his friend, sees that even Wang Chi has suddenly no idea what's coming next here ...

WANG CHI * Kill her?! No!

16B

JACK BURTON * Then let's go! What're we sittin' around in a pile of fish for when ...

Egg lists his IVORY FLASK into prominence.

gun, Mr. Burton, all can be used against the Wing Kong who will try to keep us from Lo Pan. Even against the Storms knives and bullets may work. But if we reach Lo Pan ...

THE LIGHTS GO OUT! Shut off by a Chang Sing! Quick, hushed words in CHINESE fly back and forth. Then silence. Darkness.

WING KONG WARRIORS moving through an endless corridor lined with LIFE-SIZE FIGURES OF THE DOOR GUARDS, these great imperial statues clad in armor, holding battle axes, sporting whips, chains, bows and arrows, their stone hair standing on end.

16B

The Wing Kong pass. And then a moment passes. And then the storeroom door opens ... Egg~eeking out ... the coast looks clear. Jack starts to follow Egg into the ... CLANG! CLANG! POWERFUL FOOTSTEPS!

Trapped in the corridor, Jack and Egg dive behind the statues, and Wang Chi closes the storeroom door as ••.

... around the corner come TWO LIVING, BREATHING DOOR GUARDS, armor, battle axes, whips, chains, bows, arrows, electric black hair standing on end! Jack's fist tightnens on his Bushmaster... but the Door Guards pass also.

Jack's gone, over the edge, living this nightmare full out now.

Gracie and Miao Yin.something to behold, frightening, beautiful, extravagantly stylized creatures from the Chinese theater, white pancake makeup, eyebrows blackened, thickened, exaggerated and flowing up into the crowns of blue and gold and purple •.• their lips blood red •..

... thosefemale Wing Kong leaving the smoky chamber, leaving the two women with their eyes closed .•. kneeling and facing each other in silence. For several seconds. Until ... Graciepops open one eye. Looks around. Pops open another eye ... and pitches forward ..• barely catching herself.

16B (CONTINUED)

0'

She shakes the Chinese girl, pries up an eyelid. Miao Yin seems a thousand miles away. Gracie tries to stand, but her knees buckle ... ANDTHE HIDDEN DOOR STARTS TO OPEN AGAIN ...

haven't felt since this stormy demon snatched Miao Yin through The White Tiger's roof. Now he comes forward through the mist to find ...

... Gracie Law and Miao Yin kneeling as the Wing Kong attendants left them, eyes closed, brides fit for a king.

Lightning crackling ... this presence making THE GIRLS' EYES OPEN, PUPILS GONE NOW, WHITE ORBS STARING VACANTLY! *

Jack, Egg Shen, Wang Chi and the Chang Sing moving away from us under the forbidding shadow of one carved Door Guard after another ... finallybecoming tiny figures in the distance when...

... A LEATHERYSPHERE DOTTED WITH EYEBALLS flies into the f.g., apparently breathing, definitely following ...

••. Jackand the guys! Egg waits, the column turns around, causing everyone co turn around and see •••

••• THEFLYING EYE BEHIND THEM! It stops. Elephant hide and dozens of blinking eyeballs.

Egg rushes to the rear, to put himself between everyone else and the EYE.

The EYE just hovers, breathes, stares at him.

16B

Indeed. Lo Pan being outfitted in his wedding attire ... the magnificent clothing somehow hanging upon him but the helping hands of his Wing Kong valets passing right through him...

The name scares Thunder. Little Egg Shen •.. big powerful Thunder.

Lo Pan has closed his eyes the better to see.

Rain spins on his heels, rushes from the Hall of the Infernal Judge. Lo Pan regards his robes.

Thunder absorbs that news with a grin.

Egg backing away from the disgusting flying EYE, motioning the column to get moving again ... instead bumping into a planted-in-place Jack Burton ... Jack's arm coming up with his Bushmaster.

16B

BANG! BANG! The EYE goes crazy! Hammered backward by two shots! BANG! Now it sparks! Drops to the ground •.. and retreats, rolling furiously backward down the long corridor!

CLOSE ON LIGHTNING, striding TOWARD US in the foggy air, Miao Yin and Gracie Law following him, pulled along like * puppets in Lightning's evil wake as ...

... Rain interrupts this ungodly procession ...

Rain moving off ... adozen Wing Kong warriors with him.

Those two animate Door Guards flanking the portals of a VAST SUBTERRANEAN ROOM lighted both by torches and the most unnerving mix of shabby CHINATOWN NEON LIGHTS AND SIGNS ••. a schizophrenic infe=o that jars us with its demonic strangeness and touristy kitsch ..• truly the Chinatown of our imagination where ...

..•AN ESCALATOR seemingly built of cracked old temple stones delivers Lightning into the thick of it all, his two charges, Gracie and Miao Yin, riding downward * behind him, toward a MONOLITHIC ALTAR that glows hot as radium.

Familiar territory. Wang Chi the first to appear ...

Jack, Egg, the Chang Sing boys following Wang Chi to a wooden door studded with two-inch spikes.

16B

Behind you, Jack. The passage suddenley filled with Rain and his Wing Kong hatchet men.

Jack turns to the door, FIRES at what appears to be its lock! It flies off! Jack shoves the door open, carefully avoiding those huge spikes.

... Egg,Jack, Wang Chi, everybody inside ... Jackslamming the door, spiking the first Wing Kong! Jack with his shoulder, hi•swhole body, trying to keep it shut as ...

... WangChi and the Chang Sing push and shove and strain to get that big conference table across the hall and up against the door ... Jack ducking under the table at the last second ... BAM! The door buckling! The table stopping it. Whew. Jack's head sticks up.

Rain. Looking at the deadly door, at one of his Wing Kong still stuck to it. He turns to his men, orders some to remain here, the rest to follow him back up the passage.

Wang Chi opening the connecting door from The Honorable Hall of the Infernal Judge, gaining access to David Lo Pan's corporate inner sanctum. Antiques, telephones, a desk befitting the C.E.O. of I.B.M.

The crumbling stone escalator ... Lo Pan the Magnificent making his grand entrance, riding down into an extraordinary gathering of ma.lice .••

growling Wild Man ... an assortment ofWing Kong Elders ... even the evil EYE, tucked in a corner licking its gunshot wounds with the most disgusting tongue ever put on film.

16B

And at the dead center of it all, standing on the glowing * altar block .•. MiaoYin ... and GracieLaw.

Jack and Wang Chi tearing away at the office, looking behind panels, in the executive washroom, behind the TV, in the wet bar ...

Wang Chi standing before a luminous, ancient scroll painting of a Chinese god with a bird's body and a human face, the deity surmounting two fierce green dragons ..•

Egg Shen taking out his IVORY FLASK as Wang Chi taps the surface of the priceless artifact.

Fuck it, out comes Jack's knife. Slash, and the scroll's in two pieces, REVEALING behind it what at first glance seems only an ornate closet .•. housing David Lo Pan's unoccupied wheelchair.

Wang Chi hurling that wheelchair into the room, stepping into the small space to examine its walls for secret levers, switches, buttons, whatever •..

16B

REVISED - "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" - 9/25/85 92

He's at the wet bar, carefully pouring t~lespoonfuls of thick, grey-green treacle into Lo Pan's Baccarat whiskey glasses •••

Right on the wall, in plain sight, A BUTTON with a single marking •.•ANARROW POINTING DOWNWARD.

Egg hands glasses all around ••• Jack losing his nerve •.. because the liquid is SMOKING.

Egg takes his own medicine in one big gulp. The Chang Sing likewise.

There's an awful pause.

JACK BURTON ... Bey, what more can a guy ask for?

16B

REVISED - "BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA" - 9/25/85 92-A

Hanging off his shoulder, the strange bag that yielded Egg's anti-SEWER DEMON potion.

Wang Chi extends his smoking glass to Jack.

16B

Moved, Jack clinks his glass against Wang Chi's.

GEYSERS OF STEAM shooting up through grates from the fiery bowels of the earth •.• as Rain strides into the room, his arrival causing heads to turn as he moves to the altar and whispers something to ...

... Lo Pan,standing between his brides, this demented * Bodhisattva of the Underworld rendered more frightful than ever by that sacrificial marriage light beneath him. He absorbs Rain's whispers, turns to his right ...

Noses practically touching, Jack, Wang Chi, Egg Shen, and the Chang Sing descend with A RATTLE AND A SHA.KEto God-knows-where in their jampacked coffin ••.

Jack looks at Egg, winks. Egg winks back.

The elevator stops. The Chang Sing tense.

16B

Nope. The Great Arcade. Holy shit, right into the thick of it.

safe and sane twenty yards from the altar ... time to gather their wits as they emerge from that microscopic elevator ... its door closing behind them.

The hate, the loathing in Egg's voice a thing to recon with as he knits together his fingers in a centuries-old pattern, to calm himself, assure self-control at this crucial juncture.

CLOSE ON THE ALTAR •.. LoPan presiding at his own wedding, the Wing Kong Elders having begun a ceremony whose roots dig deep into spirit-medium shamanism ... aceremony where the "wedding rings" are yin chen •.• silver needlesa foot long with ornate metalwork heads, an Elder sterilizing several in a small hot flame •••

••• while a sweating Jack, Wang Chi and Egg Shen edge closer through the thick, hot air ..• Chang Sing fanning out .•.

16B

A CRASH! The big table just blown backward by the force of that spi.ked door swinging inward, a crude wooden club bashed into it! Thunder bursting on the scene, vaulting • onto the table! He sees the doer to David Lo Pan's office wide open across The Honorable Hall:

Thunder waddles in, spies the vandalized Ch'ing-ti scroll ... the elevator cavity beyond it!

One Wing Kong Elder has hold of Miao Yin's naked arm, feeling her flesh like an acupuncturist ... while another holds a silver needle, its tip glowing red hot. Everybody in here sweating bullets except ...

Skewer. The Elder glides his silver needle through Miao Yin's left arm. There is no blood ... andno reaction from Miao Yin but ••.

fingertips come away red.

Gracie sees this, sees just the trace of a smile licking the madman's thin gray lips. A SHADOW FALLS UPON HER.•• a Wing Kong Elder with a red-hot silver needle. Where the hell are •.•

••• Jack,Wang Chi, Egg ••• halfway there but still an easy dozen Wing Kong warriors between them and the altar.

A BREATHING SOUND ••• likea boot going in and out of the mud. Jack looks sideways and there it is ••.

watching them with its beady little pupils!

16B

::tt>

What happens next, happens fast! Lo Pan getting the Eye's telepathic warning, snapping his head around like a wild animal! Miao Yin's eyes opening! Normal again! Likewise with Gracie. She feels her will strengthening, and she yanks her arm out of the grip of one startled Elder!

Lo Pan spinning back at Gracie at ... Wang Chi draws his short sword, and WHAMMO lops the Eye in two in the blink of ...

CHARGE! Wing Kong and Chang Sing rushing at each other like two primal forces! Little Egg Shen suddenly a whirling dervish of T'ai Chi Ch'uan pushing hands, meeting the ton warriors head on, chopping through them .like Bruce Lee!

Jack, using his fists, his gun, ducking a Door Guard's whip thick as a baseball bat, the rush of air knocking him back on his butt! The Door Guard leaping at him! Jack sticking up his feet to absorb the impact ... driving his right foot along his left ankle, hammering his survival knife forward and right out of the bottom of its sheath like a stiletto •.. into theDoor Guard's big evil heart!

Lo Pan .•. snatchinga silver needle, introducing it into a horrified Miao Yin's other arm, her right under arm! Lo Pan winces, grabs his own right arm! Blood!

Gracie hurls herself on Lo Pan! A strange sight, enough of Lo Pan flesh and bone now to hang onto .•• but some of him still vaporous, Gracie half off, half on ... completely off with a violent shrug of Lo Pan's shoulders!

Jack charges through the battle, tripping, sliding, back n~ his feet, charging, shooting, ducking, God! The man's amazing! He reaches the altar! But no one's there!

But someone's coming! Rain! Somersaulting at Jack, a high-speed reaper, blades on his hands, blades on his feet! Jack aims, pulls the trigger •.• CLICK. CLICK. Empty! He hits the deck!

And Rain screams by overhead, a cruise missile, without a target .•• except the alter! SPLAT. THE ALTAR, A MOLTEN MELTING SLAB NOW, ABSORBS RAIN! STARTS RUNNING ALL OVER THE FLOOR LIKE A KILLER LAVA FLOW!

16B

J•

173 CONTINUED: ( 2) 173

Gracie, crawling over to his side, her gown askew, her face so heavily painted that for a second, his head spinning, Jack has no idea who ...

Lo Pan! With a struggling Miao Yin in his evil clutches, the enormous mad warlord is striding .!:E.his escalator, aqainst its downward flow, already almost at the top!

Wang Chi sees this too, starts for the escalator •.• but Lightning intervenes ... firesfrom the hip! A BOLD OF ELECTRICITY that shatters the moving stone stairway the instant his master gets off! Chunks of MOLTEN ROCK cut the air ... NEONSIGNS start blinking, shorting •.. "COCKTAILS" ..."CAMERA SHOP" ..• "CHOWMEINNOODLES" ! Where I sWang Chi? !

Jack leading Gracie through the confusion, through GEYSERS OF SCALDING STEAM, past Egg, that little man beating the crap out of all comers ..•

The closet-size elevator. Its door closed, Jack pumping the button. The door opening .•• TheWILD MAN INSIDE! Grabbing Jack by the throat, pounding his head against the wall! Spinning Jack overhead! Crumbling under the force of Gracie's foot in his groin!

She already has, into the elevator, Jack stumbling inside after her, squeaking through the closing doors!

16B

He yanks it out! Gracie backs away, no place to go ...

Confident, Jack leans against the wall, slides at her, cornering her ...

He's on top of her, nose-to-nose ..•

Jack kisses her with great skill. And she responds.

CLUNK. The elevator stops with a jerk in.

Jack steps ·outfirst with his survival knife .••

16B

They listen. Are there NOISES coming from ...? SLAM! Out in The Honorable Hall!

Together, Jack and Gracie edge toward the door into:

... whereThunder is frantically trying to put things back in order, center the table, upright fallen Taoist figures, blow dust off the great Dragon Chair ...

for the arrival of ...

... LoPan with Miao Yin pinned in his arms, kicking, resisting!

Thunder doing so, touching Lo Pan in the exchange process ...

Lo Pan feeling himself, whacking himself, amazed as well ...

Thunder with his fat fist around Miao Yin's throat, her eyes bulging!

Jack walks in .•. alone,hands in his pockets, cool as a cucumber.

16B

Jack's got them turning to follow him as he walks and talks ... Graciecoming in behind them now ...

Wang Chi! He flies through the open spiked door! Lands in a ferocious fighting posture! The odds may be improving.

SLAM! Gracie hammers Thunder over the head with a priceless vase! Shattering, it has no effect on Thunder. Other than to distract him. Miao Yin strikes, something, God knows, we've been waiting for! Springing her hands free, chopping and hacking at the fat man from such close range and with such ferocity that his head vibrates like a suet punching bag!

Lo Pan moves to help Thunder ••• Jack leaping, putting himself and his knife in between!

Lo Pan bashing Jack with the butt of His huge fist, slamming him out of the way! Grabbing Miao Yin!

Wang Chi grabbing Miao Yin too! The poor girl about to split!

16B

Lo Pan laughing, knowing he can't lose, Miao Yin starting to craaack ...

WHAMMO! Right between the eyes, Lo Pan's eyes ... Jack's survival knife. Up to the hilt.

Miao Yin, released by the mortally wounded Bodhisattva of the Underworld, flies into Wang Chi's arms. Reunited at last!

Lo Pan reels left, right, THE WHOLE ROOM SHAKING as his mighty bulk crashes into Taoist figures, starts a domino effect! Shattering pottery and billowing dust everywhere as the Ultimate Evil Spirit buys the farm, a big, flashy death dance, a rogue elephant going out with a bang. Crash. It's over.

That's what we said. But we were wrong. Thunder •.. holding his battered face and pissed as hell ... is enlarging, like an angry storm front building, swelling, straining his own envelope ... ablimp full of what we can only imagine ••.STEAMCOMING OUT OF HIS EARS ... HIS NOSTRILS .••

They run!· Jack, Gracie, Miao Yin, Wang Chi, for the spiked exit door, almost make it too before •.• KABOOOOOM!!! THE LOUDEST CRACK OF THUNDER YOU EVER HEARD!!! Hurling them out into:

••. ina roiling, boiling green storm cloud! The air thick and dark, lashed by great howling winds!

CUT BY A BLAST OF LIGHT! By Lightning! Up ahead .•• ELECTRICAL CHARGES CRACKING all around him! THE WALLS OF THE PASSAGE A VOLCANIC ORANGE, STARTING TO MELT•..

16B

Lightning coming toward them, FLASHING, CRACKING, DISCHARGING DEADLY BOLTS that jar the walls!

Overhead, an updraft, sucking out the green storm cloud and rising steam like a restaurant exhaust! Through a fissure! Miao Yin just climbing right up Jack's back to boost herself through it! Good idea, Jack pushing Gracie up too, offering his locked-together hands as a stirrup to Wang Chi .•.

Jack boosting Wang Chi up through the crack, taking a hi.t of Lightning's energy on the shoulder! Jumping for the fissure. It's too high! Lava flowing all around him! Wang Chi suddenly reappearing upside down, hands extended toward Jack, Jack grabbing them, getting yanked up through the fissure into:

Gracie, chained her to the floor ••• but now Gracie and-Miao Yin pulling on Wang Chi's fee~, dredging Jack_up _out of the Passage Downward, HEAT AND SMOKE RISING EVERYWHERE:

Where is he? Above them! Egg's head poking down through that hole in the ceiling where The Wild Man and Gracie leaped in!

16B

J.U.;i

Egg takes a metal staff out of his satchel, aims it and FIRES A LINE down into the floor! A METAL PRONG anchors into the ground. There's a pulley and a second line attached!

ELECTRICITY ERUPTS FROM THE FISSURE IN THE FLOOR!

Jack pushes Miao Yin to the line. She grabs the pulley. ZIP! Up she goes! Gracie next. ZIP!

LIGHTNING! His head explodes through the floor!

On the run, Jack grabs the pulley and starts up. LIGHTNING rising into the Mansion of the Disloyal! Takes aim! FIRES A BOLT OF ELECTRICITY AT JACK, BARELY MISSING JACK, HITTING THE WALL NEXT TO HIM AS JACK ZIPS THROUGH THE HOLE!

Wang Chi looks up, sees Egg at the ceiling hole, pushing a LARGE, HEAVY HO TAI STATUE over the edge!

Wang Chi leaps sideways as Lightning's arms come at him from the floor! Egg's HO TAI STATUE flies down! WHAMMO! SPLUTCH! It pounds Lightning back down into the LAVA, into the Hell of Boiling Water and Red-Hot Sand as Wang Chi grabs the pulley and ZIPS UPWARD!

Remember Eddie and Margo. Boy, are they worried. Not Uncle Chu though.

16B

FIRE ALARMS RINGING OFF THE WALLS, EMPLOYEES clearing out ... SMOKE DRIFTING ...

... Jack, Gracie, Wang Chi and Miao Yin running after Egg ... Egg sliding toa stop as up ahead .•.

... ANOTHER SQUAD OF WING KONG HATCHET MEN sporting routine security uniforms, draws a bead, OPENS FIRE!

Employees scream, scatter! Our guys taking a fast alternate route down a back hall, sprinting for all they're worth, Jack catching something out of the corner of his eye that stops him in his tracks.

HIS TRUCK! His stolen Peterbilt sitting there bold as brass among all the Wing Kong vehicles.

Jack rushing for it, everyone following him, Jack leaping behind the wheel, Wang Chi insisting the two ladies get into the cab with Jack while he and Egg scramble into the cargo area.

Jack beside himself .•• Wing Kong Security pouring into the garage!

••• seat! Jack fishing it out, starting the big engine with a ROAR! Throwing his chrome monster into gear!

THE CAMERA SHAKES ••. THEBUILDING SHAKES ••• WingKong Security tossed about, hanging onto the walls, hanging onto anything.

16B

Jack floors the Peterbilt! Rockets it..• backward by mistake! Right out through the corrugated metal garage walls!

Jack's Peterbilt barrels out backwards through the buckling wall! Fishtails across the street and screeches to a stop!

It would seem. Jack jamming his stick forward, GRINDING HIS GEARS!

Yes, he does. The Peterbilt flying down the street, speeding away ••• passingSEVERAL FIRE TRUCKS AND A FEW POLICE CARS heading in the opposite direction, toward the Wing Kong Trading Company ••• wang Chi and Egg Shen hanging on for dear life in the back as:

Jack hauls them all to safety beyond Chinatown.

A RED LIGHT! Jack hits the brakes, burns rubber to a halt just in time at an ordinary, everyday intersection on a bay side street.

Jack's heart's in his throat.

Jack takes a deep breath, sees Wang Chi leaning into the passenger window, giving Miao Yin a great big kiss.

16B

REVl.SED - ''.blG'l..KOUBLE.LNLIT'l'LE(.;J:iJ.NA'-J.U/<.J./o:,J.UO

186-B CONTINUED: 186-B

But Jack's looking across the street •••

186-C P.O.V. FROM PETERBILT 186-C

OUT THE WINDSHIELD .•• ARED FIREBIRD pulls into a pier parking lot and drives out to the very end!

One Ear, Needles, and Joe Lucky, these three scurrilous morons too preoccupied with several cans of beer to notice ...

187-A JACK'S PETERBILT 187-A

ROARING ACROSS THE PIER PARKING LOT!

WHAMMO! Jack's Peterbilt snowplowing the Firebird, driving it right off the pier and into San Francisco Bay!

Deathly silence. Bubbles in the bay •••

No one else can even speak.

Wang Chi writing a check .•• whileMiao Yin stands over his shoulder, reaching forward to poke her nose into his books while •..

Uncle Chu feeds the whole gang, but Jack not eating, contenting himself with a beer. An American beer. While *

16B

Margo scribbles furiously, and Eddie Lee watches her every move .•.

1GB

,.

Jack looks at the check.

Jack smiles. And Gracie smiles.

He starts to go •••

Jack and Gracie staring at each other. It almost might work. Almost ••• finally •••

He nods to the rest of them, puts his check in his pocket.

Wang Chi and Miao Yin. The perfect couple. Jack starts out. But they always stop you at the door.

l6B

•

Jack turns.

Jack smiles, clears out.

Gracie at the window, watching Jack move through the SWIRLING FOG, stopping at his trailer hitch to check a coupling, staring at it for a beat before jumping up into the Peterbilt.

Jack, all alone, the way he likes to be, driving in a DOWNPOUR, jabbering in his CB, best friend a man ever had.

THE CAMERA, during this little ghost story that Jack's spinning, HAS BEGUN A SLOW PULL BACK, a real slick MOVE RIGHT ON OUT THROUGH THE DRIVER'S WINDOW, BACK ALONG THE LENGTH OF THE TRUCK, TO that troublesome couoling that connects the Peterbilt cab and its trailer •••

NOW CLOSE ON the coupling, and we're wondering if maybe something's wrong, when WHAM! From underneath the truck FINGERS ON A CLAW RECALLING ONLY DEATH REACH OUT AND TAKE HOLD! BREATHING with an unsettling feral rasp, something made of flesh and blood with long twisted locks of fire-red hair, yellow teeth and yellow eyes pulls itself up, moving toward Jack Burton in the cab. The Wild Man. Darkness. WHAMMO!

16B