Four decades after Big Trouble in Little China first hit cinema screens, James Pax still knows exactly how to electrify a crowd. The actor behind Lightning, one of the unforgettable Three Storms serving David Lo Pan, is celebrating the film’s 40th anniversary with an international retrospective tour, pairing John Carpenter’s cult classic with 1993 Hong Kong superhero film The Heroic Trio, in which Pax appeared alongside Michelle Yeoh, Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui.
For Pax, Australia is particularly exciting because it marks his first visit Down Under.
“We had quite a few requests through the years, in the last five years, asking me to go,” Pax tells Movieland. “I said, ‘Let’s just take it to Australia.’ Although it’s a new land for me, you never know. Let’s be daring and see if it works.”
It is a remarkable legacy for a character Pax wasn’t originally expecting to play. When he auditioned for Carpenter in New York, Pax believed he was chasing the role of Wang Chi, eventually played by Dennis Dun. He arrived with a sparring partner and performed a ten-minute demonstration incorporating fist fighting and weapons.
“After ten minutes non-stop fighting, John was really clapping his hands and said, ‘Wow, this is the best audition I’ve seen in New York so far when it comes to action.’”
Two weeks later, his agent called. Pax had landed a role, but it wasn’t Wang.
“They said, ‘You didn’t get Wang Chi, but you get this part called Lightning.’ I said, ‘Lightning? What is Lightning about?’”
At the time, Pax was also considering a far more lucrative television opportunity on General Hospital. His agent convinced him that Carpenter’s Hollywood production was the opportunity to take. “The rest was history.” Lightning ultimately became something greater than Pax could have imagined. Watching the finished movie on the big screen, he was stunned by the visual effects artists’ work.
Without modern CGI, Lightning’s electrical powers were painstakingly created by hand, frame by frame. Pax had deliberately altered the speed and timing of his movements while filming, giving the effects artists pauses where the electricity could explode across the screen.
“To this day, you’re not going to find another Lightning character in Marvel or Mortal Kombat to have that same lightning effect as mine, simply because mine is hand-drawn.”
Then there was the costume.
The Three Storms’ enormous hats became one of the movie’s defining images. Pax remembers his own being almost twice the width of his shoulders, paired with an elaborate black costume featuring gold trim and lightweight aluminium plates.
“My costume was just amazing,” he says. “The way they designed it with the costume and everything just worked so well together. That’s why it’s so impressive.”
Pax also has enormous admiration for Kurt Russell’s wonderfully overconfident Jack Burton, a supposed action hero who spends much of the movie completely out of his depth.
“Jack Burton is a fish-out-of-water kind of character,” Pax says. “Kurt is such a great actor. I don’t think there’s another Hollywood actor who can make that character alive the way he does.”
Pax remains connected to his fellow Storms. He fondly remembers the late Peter Kwong, who played Rain, as an accomplished martial artist, while Carter Wong, who played Thunder, has remained in contact with him.
Unfortunately, one important member of the Three Storms disappeared years ago: Lightning’s gigantic hat. Pax once possessed one of the original hats, but after moving from Los Angeles to Asia and travelling extensively, it was apparently lost from storage. Other surviving hats have since fetched thousands from collectors. He did, however, find a replica of Lightning’s spinning blade, modelled after the weapon seen in the film, and regularly brings it along for fan photo opportunities.
And what about the Pork Chop Express?
According to Pax, Jack Burton’s iconic Peterbilt truck still exists and ended up with a British collector involved in the transportation business.
“The truck is great. Absolutely,” he says. “It’s an iconic truck now. Everybody’s asking.”
Perhaps most excitingly, Pax believes Big Trouble in Little China still has unfinished business.
“I really think it deserves a sequel or prequel,” he says. “There should be a second instalment, third instalment, a long time ago.”
Pax revealed he was preparing to reunite with Russell at a convention and hoped to discuss an idea for a television continuation that he could potentially write and direct. He is also interested in the long-discussed project associated with Dwayne Johnson, offering his experience as a martial arts choreographer if it moves forward.
His ambitions don’t end there. Pax has also written an original action project titled Vortex, which he describes as being in the world of films such as The Matrix and Kill Bill. He hopes to bring together Hollywood and Hong Kong talent for the project.
But whatever comes next, Lightning remains the character that changed everything.
“It means a lot because it really changed my career and became my claim to fame,” Pax says. “Lightning is my signature character.”
Forty years later, fans are still building homemade Three Storms hats, recreating Lightning’s movements and approaching Pax with stories about discovering Big Trouble in Little China. For an actor who once wondered whether he should have been playing Wang Chi instead, it turns out John Carpenter knew exactly where lightning should strike.
And four decades later, it hasn’t stopped.
Book tickets now to catch JAMES PAX in AUSTRALIA in November 2026 at the Astor Theatre in Melbourne. Don’t miss this once in a life time experience, plenty of ice cream at the candy bar – and probably some girls with green eyes?! We’ll see!
Just remember what ol’ Jack Burton does when the earth quakes, and the poison arrows fall from the sky, and the pillars of Heaven shake. Yeah, Jack Burton just looks that big ol’ storm right square in the eye and he says, “Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.”