James Hong Wants To Return For Dwayne Johnson's Big Trouble In Little China Remake

"Black Adam" star and wrestling legend Dwayne Johnson has spent years eyeballing a continuation of John Carpenter's "Big Trouble in Little China," a genre-blending action film that provided Kurt Russell with one of his all-time great performances. The film was originally supposed to be a traditional Western focusing on a sharpshooter in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show who becomes a buffalo hunter to help feed the Chinese workers on the railroad, but was updated into a larger-than-life genre spectacle boasting high-octane action, romance, mystery, gunplay, mystical sorcery, martial arts, scary set pieces, and one of the coolest action heroes in history. The film featured a career great performance by James Hong as David Lo-Pan, the villainous ancient Chinese sorcerer who has to marry and sacrifice a green-eyed girl to regain a healthy form, bringing him one step closer to his dream of taking over the universe.

Johnson has noted that his take on "Big Trouble in Little China" will be a continuation of Carpenter's story, and while it's unlikely anyone on the planet wants to see this project actually come to life, James Hong told ComicBook.com that he'd be willing to give his blessing to the project on one condition — The Rock needs to ask Hong to return as Lo-Pan. The 93-year-old actor is still actively performing, having appeared in the smash-hit "Everything Everywhere All At Once," and lending his voice to the animated film "Wendell and Wild," showing no signs of stopping anytime soon. "Without Lo-Pan? How dare he," Hong joked in the interview.

Hong told ComicBook.com that he'd prefer if the classic film was left alone, but wouldn't say no if given the opportunity to return to the character. "I'd like to reappear in the new one and do something spiritually, like 'Star Wars; where the characters come back and do a reprieve of some kind," he said. "Obviously, because let's admit it, Lo-Pan is a huge part of that first one, so how can you forget him?" We named Lo-Pan one of the 10 greatest John Carpenter characters in his filmography, so we certainly haven't forgotten him.

There's still no official word on whether or not the project will actually even happen, but John Carpenter has been vocally against the idea since day one. "They want a movie with Dwayne Johnson, that's what they want, so they just picked that title," Carpenter said in a 2018 interview with CinemaBlend. "They don't give a s*** about me and my movie ...that movie wasn't a success." At the very least, James Hong is one of the most decorated voiceover performers currently working today, so it's not outside of the realm of possibility that he could be incorporated as a figureless entity and serve as an ominous voice. After all, Lo-Pan is a supernatural being, so he can sort of do whatever he wants.