Big Trouble in Little China – The W.D. Richter Screenplay
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For copyright reasons, I can’t post the full script, but here’s the first twenty pages of the screenplay to John Carpenter’s:
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA
Screenplay by W.D. Richter
First Draft – February 27, 1985
FADE IN:
EXT. HIGHWAY 101 – DAY
…where it’s raining like hell around Eureka, California, one hundred two miles south of the Oregon border.
Traveller’s advisories are in effect… but there’s always one guy ignoring them, either because he’s gotta be somewhere yesterday or because he’s just down-and-out reckless, like…
…the character driving that big FLOATING-CHROME PETERBILT through this particular monsoon, powerhousing his cargo of LIVE PIGS right into our face, the screen suddenly all title… WHAMMO!
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA
INT. PETERBILT TRAILER – DAY
PIGS squealing, bouncing, getting rained on under TITLES.
INT. PETERBILT CAB – DAY
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.
JACK BURTON
(chewing his CB)
Like I told my last wife, I said, “I
never drive faster than I can see.”
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…
JACK BURTON
You just listen to the ol’ Pork
Chop Express an’ take his advice on
a dark and stormy night when some
wild-eyed eight-foot tall maniac grabs
your neck an’ taps the back of your
favorite head up against a barroom wall.
An’ he looks you crooked in the eye
an’ he asks if you’ve paid your dues.
You look rihgt back at that big
sucker an’ remember what Jack Burton
always says at times like that. “Have
you paid your dues, Jack” “No, sir,
I’ve just charged ’em.”
EXT. HIGHWAY 101 – DAY
Ghostly headlights glowing, SLAMMING BY CAMERA, Jack’s massive ten-wheeler kicking up so much WATER the screen turns a hazy wash… and WE DISSOLVE THROUGH TO…
INT. PEKING AIRPORT – NIGHT
… the other side of the world, an environment at once as exotic and mysterious as the inside of Jack Burton’s truck is familiar. China’s flirting with capitalism, to be sure, but there’s still a heady aroma of a sinister, unforgiving Orient around this airport…
… a lot of harried CHINESE TRAVELLERS in quilted, blue garb, their cardboard boxes bound up with twine, doing the job of suitcases, everybody smoking these stubby little Chinese cigarettes and getting into long lines for not that many flights to very few places.
Thickly-accented, a few English words poke from the babble:
PUBLIC ADDRESS
…Bombay…San Francisco…London…
This mixed with mostly CHINESE ANNOUNCEMENTS as TITLES LET UP and we discover a great looking girl making her way through all the confusion…MIAO YIN. Barely twenty, there’s such determination in her face and purpose in her gait that when a noxious little BUREAUCRAT at Passport Control follows his lecherous instincts…
NOXIOUS BUREAUCRAT
You! Here. Passport.
…we know the guy’s bitten off more than he can chew. ALL THE DIALOGUE’S CHINESE, but so what? Miao Yin wants to board that flight to America… the bureaucrat wants to make a pretty girl squirm. He has her papers and all the time in the world.
PUBLIC ADDRESS
Hong Kong…Moscow…San Francisco…
Miao Yin reaches for her passport… and the bureaucrat slaps her hand playfully, studies her picture, something fascinating him. Miao Yin’s GREEN EYES… which he points out to his equally OILY COLLEAGUE… as the PUBLIC ADDRESS anounces the imminent departure of China Airlines Flight 2!
Miao Yin just grabs her papers, stamps them, and rushes off for the gate, leaving these two Passport Control idiots first startled and then amused at their own annoying cleverness.
INT. TRUCK STOP – NIGHT
MORE TITLES. Jack Burton’s at the counter, eating a piece of god-awful lemon meringue pie and holding forth to a handful of TRUCKERS come in out of the rain.
JACK BURTON
You don’ need sleep. Hell, sleep’s
something shoved down our throats when
we’re kids by the people that think
they run the world, parents, teachers,
you know, the type that likes to keep
us locked up tight in our place.
TRUCKER
Hey, Tommy, you gonna finish them
onion rings?
Apparently not because they’re passed right through Jackand his nowhere story. Undaunted:
JACK BURTON
Your movers an’ your shakers average
four hours a night, tops. So every
week these guys are asleep twenty-eight
hours less than the rest of us. An’
since most people are only awake
sixteen hours a day, what these hotshots
got there’s the equivalent of nearly two
extra days a week. But call it one an’ a
half, okay, so there’s no nit-pickin’.
TRUCKER
Where in hell’s the ketchup at?
JACK BURTON
Now multiply that one point five
by fifty-two weeks per year and
what is it…
(does the math)
…five times two times carry the
decimal…is what, sixty-eight days,
I think. Or two entire extra months
a year! Which if you live to be
only fifty is one hundred extra
months to the good or something
like eight extra years jammed onto
your life!
A moment of silence while everybody ponders the astounding implications.
INT. CHINA AIRLINES FLIGHT 2 – DAY
Human sardines, a plane-load of CHINESE TRAVELLERS, most of them emigrants, smoking and eating their way westward.
Miao Yin crammed between a BUDDHIST MONK and a RED ARMY SOLDIER, her attention fixed downward at a small, ragged PHOTO OF A YOUNG CHINESE MAN. We’ll be meeting him soon enough.
EXT. GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE – NIGHT
FOG AND RAIN. Jack Burton’s pig-filled Peterbilt barreling into San Francisco in the quiet hours after midnight.
INT. PETERBILT – NIGHT
THE RADIO ON, some lunatic talk-show holding Jack’s interest.
RADIO CALLER
The point I’m makin’, Ray, is way
back in 1852 what we did was we
welcomed all them crazy Chinamen
into Frisco with open arms.
RADIO HOST
As I imagine this country did to
your great grandparents fifty
years earlier…
RADIO CALLER
Well, that is not the point I’m
makin’, Ray. I’m sayin’ the Gold
Rush is over. So why in hell they
still comin’? With their opium
dens and their…
RADIO HOST
What is your point, pinhead? This
is 1986 not 1852.
RADIO CALLER
My point is the same point The
Workingmen’s Party of California
been makin’ for one hundred years!
“The Chinese Must Go!”
JACK BURTON
Can’t stand the fire, get your ass outta the kitchen.
EXT. WHOLESALE MARKET – NIGHT
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…
…ITALIANS buying from BLACKS and CHINESE MERCHANTS mixing with CHIC RESTAURANTEURS, making deals as fast as they can, counting money, guzzling coffee, backslapping, bullshitting, and gambling under cardboard and canvas canopies as…
…here he comes with his pigs, Jack Burton rolling into the thick of it all…
INT. PETERBILT – NIGHT
Jack’s view of this mad house. His kind of world… a carnival with rules made to bend.
EXT. WHOLESALE MARKET – NIGHT
Jack off-loading the little swines into the waiting arms of a FEW PACKING HOUSE BUYERS, their trucks backed up to Jack…
… 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… Jack on 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 hills at a contest called fan-tan, a kind of Chinese shell game where each guy grabs a handful of beans from a pot, takes away four beans, everyone betting on whether the remaining beans in everyone else’s pile is an odd or even quantity. Or something like that. The point being this is all second nature to Jack, and he’s taking these Chinese to the laundry…
…one fella in particular catching our attention, a hand-some young Chinese we’ve seen before… in that photo in Miao Yin’s hands. WANG CHI. He’s got some style: a fedora hat, a baseball jacket, a red shirt and a narrow black leather tie.
JACK BURTON
(of Wang Chi’s pile)
Odd.
WANG CHI
(of Jack’s pile)
Odd.
Both men count. Jack’s right. Wang Chi’s wrong. More money for Jack.
EXT. FRENCH CHARTER TERMINAL – NIGHT
The outback of a large Parisian airport. PASSENGERS from that Chinese airliner crossing the tarmac, clearing an open-air Customs, boarding an Air France charter flight… the whole operation eerie and lonely…
Miao Yin. This girl’s a survivor, lugging her cardboard box of belongings like a commando off to war.
FRENCH AUTHORITY
Arretez-vous ici, s’il vous plait.
Said to an OLD CHINESE who doesn’t understand…
FRENCH AUTHORITY
Non, non! Here. Stop! Wait! Arretez-vous ici!
Miao Yin sticks her nose in, explains to the oldster in Chinese what the Frenchman’s saying.
FRENCH AUTHORITY
Merci!
MIAO YIN
Don’t mention it.
EXT. WHOLESALE MARKET – DAWN
Those first tracings of daylight in the sky. The rain over, the market thinning out…
… but Jack Burton and his Chinese friends are still at it, fan-tan having long since given way to a spirited game of pai gow, fueled by bottles of Chinese beer and steamed dumplings.
JACK BURTON
What’d he say? What’d he say? Gimme it in English.
WANG CHI
Something about beginner’s luck.
It doesn’t translate, but he quits.
JACK BURTON
He quits? Why? It’s a brand-new
day an’ the man’s still got a hundred
bucks…
Not only does the guy quit, but the dominoes they’re playing with are his and with him they go.
JACK BURTON
Hey, suit yourselves, fellas. I’m
not gonna complain cause I bet in the next
twenty minutes, I’da lost my shirt.
Yeah, right. Jack’s packing up his winnings, stuffing money into his pockets … Wang Chi emptying a bottle of beer, eyeing Jack who, as usual, can’t shut up…
JACK BURTON
Breaks my heart to do this, guys,
but I figure next time I’m down
here you’ll gang up on poor ol’
Jack so fast he won’t know what
the hell…
WANG CHI
No.
JACK BURTON
Ah, sure, easy come, easy go, Wang.
WANG CHI
No. Not next time. Now.
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 that empty beer bottle.
THE OTHER CHINESE, from Jack’s point of view, backing off just a bit here.
JACK BURTON
Is this gonna get ugly? I hope not
cause I thought what we were, racial
differences notwithstandin’, was all
friends here, all Californians.
Wang Chi slams the beer bottle onto their ratty little table, makes those pai gow dominoes jump!
JACK BURTON
Ah shit, Wang, it’s only a game.
Said while Jack slips his own hand below the table, unzips the ankle seam of his canvas pants … revealing a Gerber Mark II SURVIVAL KNIFE laced to his calf with leather thongs.
WANG CHI
Nothing or double.
Jack looks at him.
JACK BURTON
Nothing or double what, you
inscrutable son of a bitch?
WANG CHI
This knife… chops this bottle
in half. Nothing or double.
JACK BURTON
Bullshit.
WANG CHI
Nothing or double, Jack.
JACK BURTON
Why, man? Don’t be stupid.
WANG CHI
I need the money.
There is something kind of desperate about Wang Chi.
JACK BURTON
Double? I got near a thousand
dollars in my pocket.
WANG CHI
One thousand, one hundred forty-eight.
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 BURTON
Tell you what … not-that bottle.
This bottle.
Jack empties his own beer. Just in case Wang’s got a trick bottle up his sleeve here.
WANG CHI
Okay.
JACK BURTON
You’re outta your mind, Wang, but
God bless you.
Jack steps back a pace. Wang Chi sets himself in the chair, moves that big blade against the beer bottle, taking its measure …
…all the Chinese step back.
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.
JACK BURTON
You idiot.
Wang Chi looks at his big knife, mystified.
WANG CHI
It always works at home.
JACK BURTON
Yeah, well, have me over for dinner some
year an’ prove it. Meantime, pay up.
One thousand one hundred and
forty-eight bucks. Times two.
Jack puts his bottle back on the table in front of Wang Chi, towers over the poor Chinese …
WANG CHI
I don’t have that kind of money, Jack.
JACK BURTON
I didn’t hear that, Wang.
WANG CHI
I’m just a poor Chinese.
JACK BURTON
Wang, you own a restaurant.
That’s more than me.
WANG CHI
Oh, yeah, right. I meant I don’t
have that kind of money on me.
JACK BURTON
That’s what I thought you meant.
Where’s your truck parked?
EXT. MARKET LOT – MORNING
Jack Burton and 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.
WANG CHI
Jack, first I have to go some where, Jack.
JACK BURTON
Oh, yeah?
WANG CHI
Yeah. So why don’t I meet you at the restaurant
in a few hours, You know?
JACK BURTON
Boy, I can think of a thousand reasons.
Where you gotta go?
WANG CHI
The airport.
JACK BURTON
I can think of a thousand and one reasons.
I’ll follow you.
WANG CHI
You don’t trust me, Jack. That makes me sad.
It reminds me of an old Chinese joke.
JACK BURTON
Save it. I’ll give you a lift. Get in the truck.
WANG CHI
You were going to follow me, Jack.
JACK BURTON
I know, then I came to my senses.
It’s getting foggy out again.
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
Jack and Wang Chi cruising along, the Oriental appearing increasingly nervous as the seconds tick by… and the fog gets thicker.
JACK BURTON
So who we pickin’ up?
WANG CHI
A girl.
JACK BURTON
A girl? Where from, L.A.?
WANG CHI
Peking.
JACK BURTON
What…in China?
WANG CHI
This is a big day in my life. I should have
gone home and gotten forty winks.
(pause)
The fog is too thick to land.
JACK BURTON
A girl from China. I never done that.
I picked up girls from everywhere else,
but not from China. Is she pretty?
WANG CHI
I’m going to marry her.
JACK BURTON
Are you kidding?
WANG CHI
I’ve known her since we were fifteen.
I haven’t seen her for five years, Jack.
I came here, I made something of myself,
and I sent for her. Now she’s coming.
She’s gonna put my life in order.
JACK BURTON
You look nervous, pal.
WANG CHI
That’s why the bottle didn’t slice.
My mind and my spirit are going north and south.
As usual, Jack understands only about half the guy says.
JACK BURTON
Whatever.
INT. SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL – DAY
A charter terminal. Jack Burton following Wang Chi inside, the little Chinese walking on his toes, alert, looking for some Arrival information…
WANG CHI
She’s on schedule. That’s just like her.
She’s very pulled together.
JACK BURTON
She’s a pilot?
WANG CHI
No. An accountant. She’s gonna put my
books in order too.
JACK BURTON
First thing she does then is she
subtracts one thousand, one hundred and
forty-eight bucks times two…
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL – DAY
The Air France charter carrying Miao Yin taxis into its berth…through fog so dense you can chew it.
INT. TERMINAL – DAY
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 white AMERICAN GIRL, moving through the crowd, catching Jack’s roving eye because not only is she tall, she’s sexy.. . in a wholesome, no-nonsense way.
WANG CHI
She has green eyes.
JACK BURTON
(watching the American girl)
How can you tell from here?
WANG CHI
Miao Yin. Beautiful green eyes like creamy jade.
JACK BURTON
Miao Yin…?
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.”
INT. U.S. CUSTOMS – DAY
Miao Yin in the congestion around Baggage Claim, locating her cardboard box.
INT. TERMINAL – DAY
Jack standing with an anxious Wang Chi, using his height to search the crowd for that sexy, illusive American girl… spotting instead THREE SHADY CHINESE KIDS with Fu Manchu beards, ski vests, jeans, and heavy-duty black engineer boots.
JACK BURTON
Wang…check out those three…
Wang Chi sees them, shakes his head.
WANG CHI
Lords of Death.
JACK BURTON
Street gang…?
WANG CHI
Punks. From Hong Kong.
Jack’s eyes follow the Lords of Death over to…the American girl. They shove past her, making a rude point of it.
JACK BURTON
What the hell’re they doin’ here?
WANG CHI
Hey, they got relatives too, you know,
people to meet, places to go. They’re
assholes, Jack.
INT. U.S. CUSTOMS – DAY
Maio Yin…
MIAO YIN
Good morning.
U.S. CUSTOMS
Good morning. Your first visit here?
MIAO YIN
Yes.
U.S. CUSTOMS
You speak English?
MIAO YIN
Some, yes.
U.S. CUSTOMS
Welcome to San Francisco.
A MOMENT LATER…MIAO YIN pushing forward toward her side of those wired-glass doors.. .passengers already going through..
INT. TERMINAL – DAY
Wang Chi pushing forward toward his side of the doors, through friends and relatives reuniting.. . Jack on his heels, getting closer to the American girl…and the Lords of Death…
JACK BURTON
Good morning.
The American girl surprised to hear English, turning to look Jack’s way…catching his wink…but too smart to give a stranger the time of day. Plus she’s got too much on her mind, looking at several small SNAPSHOTS.. . matching one up to a young CHINESE GIRL just emerging from Customs…
AMERICAN GIRL
Tara!
Hearing her name, the Chinese girl and the Lords of Death close in at 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…SKY CAPS look the other way…
. . . and Jack sees all this…just as Wang Chi makes eye contact with his beloved Miao Yin coming through that wired door…
WANG CHI
Miao Yin!
. . . and WHAMMO! 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! His pals, JOE LUCKY and ONE EAR, pounce on Jack’s head!
Miao Yin moving tbward Wang Chi moving toward Miao Yin…
…the American girl seizing upon the uproar to grab Tara and spirit her off…
…as Needles, picking himself up, sees his buddies trading punches with Jack Burton…sees Tara vanish.. .sees Miao Yin… closer to him than to Wang Chi in 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 heel square in the back!
Wang Chi, practically climbing over people, Miao Yin dragged away kicking and screaming by the Lords of Death!
WANG CHI
Jack! Come on, Jack!
JACK BURTON
Where?! What?!
EXT. AIRPORT PARKING – DAY
Lords of Death on the run, One Ear pausing to muzzle Miao Yin’s complaints with a round-house right, Needles catching the unconscious girl, heaving her over his shoulder like a rice sack…
ANGLE ON Wang Chi and Jack Burton exploding out of the terminal! Which way did the bastards go!?
JACK BURTON
There!
ANGLE ON a brand-new PONTIAC FIREBIRD… the Lords of Death and their getaway car.. .into the trunk with Miao Yin!
Jack and Wang Chi running like maniacs past bewildered BYSTANDERS…
JACK BURTON
Call the cops!
The Firebird starting up with a violent lurch, wheeling out of its space and screaming right at them out of the fog! Wang Chi paralyzed, Jack rushing forward, diving at his friend, knocking him down against the pavement as the Firebird bears in…
INT. FIREBIRD – DAY
One Ear at the wheel…flooring it…Jack and Wang Chi lying side-by-side dead ahead.. . WHAMMO RIGHT OVER THEM!
EXT. PARKING LOT – DAY
Flat as pancakes…Jack Burton and Wang Chi.. .but miraculously alive! Jack lifts his head.
JACK BURTON
Son of a bitch must pay.
It’s gonna be that kind of movie.
INT. FIREBIRD – DAY
The Lords of Death on a real high, speeding out onto the freeway toward San Francisco, jamming some loud, demented ROCK ‘N’ ROLL into their overblown sound system, laughing like hyenas…
. . .when it looms up behind them in the fog… A MONSTROUS GRILL…
NEEDLES
Hey…some idiot…
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
. . . named Jack Burton at the wheel, Wang Chi riding shotgun and hanging on for dear life!
EXT. EMBARCADERO FREEWAY – DAY
The Firebird swerving left, right, evasive action! Jack hanging in there, staying an intelligent fifteen yards back, it certainly not being his plan to run these morons off the road and extinquish Miao Yin…
INT. FIREBIRD – DAY
One Ear beside himself, unable to shake the big truck…
JOE LUCKY
Get off, man! Get off!
So he does, practically rolling the damn car hard right down the nearest available off ramp! The Peterbilt on his heels…
EXT. EMBARCADERO FREEWAY – DAY
WANG CHI
Be careful, Jack!
JACK BURTON
Okay!
EXT. STREETS – DAY
Remember BULLIT? Forget BULLIT. This truck has wings! The Firebird screeches around a corner, blasts across a vacant lot! And so does Jack.
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
Bouncing like a paint mixer…
JACK BURTON
Where… they… going?!
WANG CHI
Chinatown!
EXT. GRANT AVENUE – DAY
Gateway to Chinatown…early-morning TOURISTS 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 postcard thoroughfare…
INT. FUNNY BUS – DAY
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…
EGG SHEN
From Peking and from Canton, from all over
China the men flooded into California, to
Gum Shan… America, Mountain of Gold..
with gold-rush fever they came. Leaving
behind their wives and children…
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO STREET – DAY
The Firebird bearing down on us, BLASTING PAST CAMERA…
INT. FUNNY BUS – DAY
EGG SHEN
…working for years, building the railroad,
they saved their pennies until they were able to
send for their families to help build the
beautiful, serene Chinatown you see right
outside your window this morning…
EXT. SAN FRANCISCO STREET – DAY
Jack Burton’s Peterbilt thundering through the same intersection that Firebird just negotiated!
INT. FUNNY BUS – DAY
EGG SHEN
…the old and the new side-by-side,
open-air markets, Chinese vegetables,
fresh pork, fresh fish, sausages and
winter melon soup. How many of you have
tried shark’s fin soup?
Only one FAT MAN raises his hand… Egg’s PASSENGERS firing off INSTAMATIC FLASHES at the street..
EGG SHEN
Then later I take you to special
restaurant for… Chinese cheese-burger.
Watch out, Egg! The Firebird suddenly coming right at him!
EXT. FIREBIRD – DAY
Needles and Joe Lucky duck! But One Ear saves the day, skids harmlessly around the bus, which itself has swerved…
EXT. GRANT STREET – DAY
… and wound up on a diagonal halfway across the road… smack in the path of…
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
. . . Jack Burton and Wang Chi! This looks bad. Jack’s only hope a desperate right-hand turn up Washington, the wrong way on a one-way street!
EXT. WASHINGTON STREET – DAY
Look out! Jack’s big rig sails in.. . between things, around things, nothing and nobody getting knocked aside or over-turned for a change! Only about twelve hair-breath near misses in six seconds!
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
JACK BURTON
Which way?!
WANG CHI
Not this way!
A fast left onto Kearny, going with the flow again, screeching to a halt at a RED LIGHT.
JACK BURTON
Holy shit…
WANG CHI
Go left, go back into Chinatown,…
JACK BURTON
Back? Aren’t we still in it? We’ll never
find ’em. Where the hell are we?
WANG CHI
Go left now, Jack!
EXT. KEARNY STREET – DAY
So Jack runs the light.
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
WANG CHI
Down that alley.
JACK BURTON
Why?
WING CHI
Lords of Death. Down that way!
JACK BURTON
(steering into the alley)
What, you mean a clubhouse?
EXT. NARROW LANE – DAY
None of the public, touristy hustle and bustle back here. In fact, it’s suddenly so foreign, so forbidding that we might easily be in Hong Kong… Jack’s big truck the last American element on the scene, slouching along like a dinosaur… its days numbered.
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
JACK BURTON
What’s goin’ on, Wang? Why’d they steal
your girlfriend?
WANG CHI
I have no idea. They’re crazy,
these gangs. They’re hoodlums.
JACK BURTON
It looked to me like first they wanted somebody
else, then they settled for… what’s her name?
WANG CHI
Miao Yin. I must find her, Jack, before they…
SLAM! Jack hits the 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.
EXT. FOGGY ALLEYS – DAY
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…
INT. PETERBILT – DAY
WANG CHI
Hatchets and cleavers.
JACK BURTON
What…?
WANG CHI
A fighting tong. They’re Suey Sings…
The rest of the screenplay includes:
– The missing Storm lines
– The missing Miao Yin scenes and lines
– Extra Jack Burton monologues
– An even less serious tone than the existing film
– Explanations regarding the conflicts between the Bing Kong (Wing Kong) and Suey Sings (Blue Turbans)
– A different and less satisfying ending