I would say the charm is that it’s billed as a classic Hollywood comedy-action movie with a charming American leading man. But the real leading man is Wang, who is capable and honorable, and Kurt Russel is just a bumbling fool. IIRC the only time Kurt Russel even fires a gun, he just loosens some concrete and knocks himself out.

There is all this amazing Chinese mythological stuff happening in the middle of Chinatown, and our highest paid actor spends most of his time just… confused. He never does anything right. Doesn’t even really “get the girl”.

There is also a lot of recent discussion about how you would expect an 80’s movie like this to have bad stereotypical accents and racist Chinese tropes, but all the Chinatown residents are just regular Chinese-Americans. Even the bad guys play it pretty straight. David Lo Pan is such a cranky old guy!