Monsters, Ghosts and Sorcery

I’m a Big Trouble in Little China fan and run the page @biggertroubleinlittlechina on Instagram. The opening scene of the movie is one of my favourites. It takes place in the office of a lawyer, between Egg Shen played by Victor Wong and the Pinstripe Lawyer, the characters called play by Jerry Hardin. A fantastic scene with two great actors.

 

The scene sets up the movie really well and brings us into the story, and that we are entering a world where there are monsters, ghosts and sorcery. The scene wasn't in the script and was added later after the studio had watch the movie. They weren’t happy with it and didn’t think Jack Burton came across as heroic enough. They wanted to build up his character.
 
The movie doesn’t need this scene at all for that reason, but I’m so pleased it does have it. Although when you think about is afterwards, it does change parts of the story. I like to think of Egg Shen leaving the restaurant at the end of the movie, saying his goodbyes and walking away into the fog to go on his holidays, not to have legal problems.
 
In the scene we see Egg Shen have the power to make lightning come out of his hands. Which he doesn’t use this power at any other time in the movie. When Lo Pan uses magic, he just uses his hands. When Egg Shen uses magic, he has to use something from his six-demon bag. He has explosive marbles to kill the sewer demon and magic potions to drink. 

When he fights Lo Pan at the end of the movie with the magical warriors. Egg is holding crystals, were Lo Pan is just wiggling his thumbs. You could argue that he didn’t have the power then. 

The only other character we see using lightning is Lightning one of the three storms. Who Egg kills so maybe the power can transfer between people like in Highlander? Or maybe because Lo Pan is dead Egg Shen can now use the powers Just something to think about.