Carpenter definitely talked about it in original press for the film. Here are some clips from a variety of 1986 articles. In most of these, they only talk about Jack and Wang in terms of "an inversion of the hero/sidekick trope", but I feel like they are asking the reader to do the work of figuring out "oh the hero is usually white and people from a different race are usually the sidekick". In the last article, Carpenter comes right out and talks about the racism that Asian-Americans experience.
* Kurt Russell and The Hell Of A Thousand Pratfalls.To play Jack Burton, the "hero" of Big Trouble, Carpenter turned once again to Kurt Russell, as he did for Escape From New York and The Thing. Originally, he had wanted Clint Eastwood. But then Russell's performance in Escape was virtually an Eastwood impression.
As his inspiration for Jack Burton, however, Russell took a different tack. "I thought of guys I relate to," Russell explains. "Movie presences like John Wayne, which is I guess the most obvious one. And there was a rhythm that was at times like rhythms that were charming and really fun to watch out of Jack Nicholson.
"My underlying control of all these guys was Eddie Haskell (from Leave It To Beaver). He was this wise guy that was able to get away with stuff even though everybody in the room knew he wasn't."
Jack Burton, you see, is a hero with a difference, a tough-talking bumbler whose heroics are generally the result of sheer dumb luck.
"In the script he wasn't nearly as full of that as we ended up doing," Russell says. "The character just wasn't as broad. I thought, let's take a chance here and go with what's true to this movie, which is that this guy should fall on his ass a lot and he should be the butt of as many jokes as he's the giver of.
"Now you're really starting to ask a lot of an audience, because that's not been done before. But we felt the sidekick should emerge as the silent man of action and Jack should have to assume the duties of the traditional sidekick role."
* Dennis Dun and The Hell Of Unemployed Asian Actors.
For his part, "sidekick" Dennis Dun was more than happy to pick up the slack in the hero department. "I could have come off like a dumb, stupid regular sidekick," he smiles. "But this is different, offbeat. And I like playing offbeat characters."
Like the ill-fated undercover cop in the controversial Year Of The Dragon. Despite the outrage expressed by the Chinese community, Dun feels Dragon represented an important step for Asian actors.
"I don't regret doing the film," he says. "I understand the concerns of the community, violent images and all that, but I think Year Of The Dragon is part of an important transition. We're getting an opportunity to do things that we weren't able to do before. Just look at John Lone on the screen - I don't think anybody's ever seen an Asian actor in an American film with his charisma, his presence."
The growing Asian population in the United States has finally rung some bells in Hollywood's executive chambers.An increasing number of films now involve Orientals.
To be sure, the numbers are still small, but in relatively little time Asia and Asians have played prominent roles in ''Rambo: First Blood II,'' ''Year of the Dragon,'' ''The Killing Fields,'' ''The Karate Kid'' and ''The Year of Living Dangerously.''
Completed but unreleased are ''Gung Ho'' and ''The Karate Kid II.'' On the production schedules are ''Tai-Pan,'' ''The Last Emperor,'' ''China Marines,'' ''Empire in the Sun'' and ''The Golden Child.''
Most films involving the Orient are tailored not for Asian-Americans but for the rest of the nation. Many are flawed by inaccuracies, prejudice or stereotyped characterizations and events.
The Hollywood mentality has traditionally focused on the cliche of the ''inscrutable'' Chinese or Japanese going back to ''The Hatchet Man,'' ''The Bitter Tea of General Yen'' and ''The Mask of Fu Manchu.''
For years, there weren't enough Asian moviegoers in the United States to make a difference at the box office and too few of them to register a significant voice of protest. Consequently, producers and studios became careless in the depiction of Asian minorities.
During World War II every ''Jap,'' of course, was a heavy and usually a sadist.
But increasing trade and cultural relationships with Japan and detente with China, begun by President Nixon, have opened new vistas of understanding and respect for Asians.
The flood tide of boat people and others from Southeast Asia and the growing Korean and Filipino populations, especially in Los Angeles, have further exposed Americans to Eastern cultures.
At long last, Hollywood is catching up with the reality of the expanding Asian influence in this country.
Director John Carpenter, who recently completed ''Big Trouble In Little China,'' calls this the era of the Asian.
His fantasy film, starring Kurt Russell, involves a cast of 200 Asians in an adventure-drama about a mythical city beneath San Francisco's famed Chinatown.
The cast is principally Chinese but includes Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos.
To prepare for the film, Carpenter spent months of research and endless hours in conference with his associate producer Jim Lau (a scholar, master of martial arts and historian) and project coordinator Daniel Kwan (a journalist and actor).
''I wanted to be as accurate and fair as possible in representing Asians in this country as they really are,'' said Carpenter during a break in post-production work at the 20th Century Fox commissary.
''We are seeing more pictures about the Far East than ever before. There is a great deal of curiosity about that part of the planet thanks to renewed ties (with) China and (to) the Vietnamese War.
''I get the feeling Asians are coming into their own with their culture, mythology and a sense of (who) they are as people.''
Carpenter generally refers to the Chinese when he speaks of Asians but much of what he says pertains to other Eastern nationalities. Asked if he thought Asians were essentially different from Westerners, he hedged.
''Yes and no. They are different because they are deeper than any culture in the world -- especially the Chinese. They enjoyed a sophisticated civilization 5,000 years ago when Europe was populated by barbarian tribes. They developed science and art while the West was still a cultural desert.''
To illustrate the essence of being Asian, Carpenter cites a line from the film that was written by a Chinese writer: ''China is in the heart and wherever they go, China goes with them.''
''Their basic difference from Westerners is manifested in subtle ways … in all areas of religion, philosophy and interpersonal relationships.
''I find the differences fascinating. There is a major struggle going on with most Asian-Americans. They would like to be perceived as ordinary Americans, professionals or working people. Yet they also want to preserve their culture and maintain their distance from the rest of the population.
''It is an interesting ambivalence that frustrates Asians in this country a great deal.''
Asian-Americans also must deal with ''the additional problem of anti-Asian violence increasing enormously in the past two or three years,'' said Carpenter. ''It's racism and (it's) getting stronger than the anti-black bigotry.
''The mood in this country is that it's okay to be a racist.''
The various Asian groups seldom coalesce for a common cause. Los Angeles is dotted with enclaves of Asian communities: Little Tokyo, Chinatown and Korea Town. Orange County has become a Vietnamese stronghold.
But then the same was true of the Irish, Italian and German immigrants who gathered in ethnic pockets in New York City in the last century.
According to Carpenter, Asians are increasingly disenchanted with their image in Hollywood movies. He cites protests registered last year over Michael Cimino's unsuccessful ''Year of the Dragon,'' starring Mickey Rourke as a New York cop busting up crime in the Chinatown underworld.
''That picture insulted a lot of Chinese,'' he reported.
''From what I gather, Hollywood's treatment of the Orient perpetuates stereotypes'' like those of blacks before the civil rights movement, Carpenter said. ''Now Asians want their version of 'The Defiant Ones' or 'The Heat of the Night.'
''One of the great cliches is the 'inscrutable' element ascribed to Asians. It began in the West when Chinese laborers came here to build the railroads. Most were from Canton. They assumed passive attitudes to separate themselves from the cowboys and others who shot up the streets at night. They didn't show their emotions in order to survive.''
Carpenter reported that he ''had no trouble communicating with the Asians on this picture. There was an open forum on the set. I welcomed suggestions to give the picture texture and reality.
''I didn't want the picture to come out looking like a white man making a film about Chinese.
''To give you an example, in one sequence a character, played by Victor Wong, drives a tour bus through Chinatown. Victor delivered his lines in a dialect different from the rest of his dialogue. He told me his grandfather used the same dialect when he drove a tour bus. It was a sing-song speech that added the right amount of humor to the scene.
''Asians, after all, are like people everywhere with the same emotions and individuality. It's their sense of history and culture that makes them somehow more distinctive.''
Many Asian-Americans are indifferent to Hollywood's movies about the East and Asians simply because they speak no English and rarely see films.
Others think of themselves as Americans first and Asians second.
Los Angeles dentist Yin Kim, a first generation Korean-American, said, ''I think Asians are fairly represented in movies and TV. There is a good balance between Asian villains and good guys. Even the anti-Japanese flavor of World War II movies didn't bother me because I think like a white American who simply comes from Korean parents. I don't even speak Korean.
''Keye Luke always did well as 'Charlie Chan's' number one son, and my brother-in-law, Keye Chang, played a U.S. Navy admiral in a picture.
''I used to see Philip Ahn, Richard Loo and Anna Mae Wong play Asians. They did good jobs in characterizing a variety of individuals and nationalities. I always laughed when I saw Philip play mean Japanese villains. He was Korean and one of the sweetest guys I ever knew.
''No, I don't see any prejudice against Asians in films,'' Kim said. ''Being born a Korean-American is better than being born … as a less ethnic American because I have the culture of both East and West instilled in me.
''A lot of people in this country are ashamed of their ethnic background. But not Asians.''
Real estate investor John Kanagaye, a Japanese-American, said, ''I don't care how Asians are depicted in movies. I'm American-born and the mystique of Asia is as much a mystery to me as it is to other Americans.
''I am thorougly integrated in this culture, perhaps because of my children (bringing) all their friends around. I don't see many movies and I have no idea how bad or good they depict Chinese or Japanese characters.''
Keye Luke, dean of Hollywood's Chinese actors -- who is not in ''Big Trouble In Little China'' -- has mixed emotions about Asians in American films.
He is happy Asian actors are finding work but doubts whether the Asian image has improved much in the new spate of films. He also questions whether the trend will endure.
''It's the same old wine in a new bottle,'' he said. ''Only this time the bottle is Chinese. There is an upsurge of interest in Asians but the content of stories and characters aren't much different from other films based on minorities.
''I doubt if there will be good results socially. Most Americans are aware that Asians are generally hard-working, industrious citizens who have compiled a good record in this country. Their daily acceptance has little to do with motion pictures. Relationships between Asians and other Americans are good.
''My objection to films about Asians is that the stereotypes still exist about the mysterious, often menacing Oriental bad guys. Asians are no more mysterious than anyone else.''
Luke, a native of Canton who came to the United States with his parents when he was 3, feels he is fully integrated in the American mainstream but adds, ''The Chinese culture is so deeply ingrained in us that we cannot escape it. It's been going on for so long. As American as I am, I feel Chinese and love it. It is the richest part of my life.
''I spoke at UCLA recently to a group of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino and Vietnamese students. I told them they have a rich culture behind them and the best of Western civilization in this century. I said take the best of both and make something of your lives.
''To be honest, depicting Asians on film may change the thinking of other Americans, but to Asians it really doesn't make that much difference.''