History Headscratchers / BigTroubleInLittleChina

* So, what ''is'' "Black Blood Of The Earth?" Jack guesses it's oil (which makes sense) but Egg just [[CrypticallyUnhelpfulAnswer reiterates that it's Black Blood Of The Earth.]]

* So, what ''is'' "Black Blood Of The Earth?" Jack guesses it's oil (which makes sense) but Wang just [[CrypticallyUnhelpfulAnswer reiterates that it's Black Blood Of The Earth.]]

** To have a stab at clarifying what is, ultimately, magic in a fantasy movie: the "furies" are presumably a form of energy related in some way to chi, the vital life-force in Taoism believed to be inherent to all things (given the theme of the film around East Asian beliefs, I'm assuming the "furies" in this case have no relation to the Ancient Greek mythological beings). They come in both positive and negative forms, which, given the nature of much eastern philosophy in general, the positive presumably being more tranquil (related to inner peace and harmony, that kind of thing) and the negative presumably being more violent and aggressive in nature. All "movement" -- any action, decision, consequence etc. -- is controlled by either the positive side or the negative side; so for instance, if you get into an argument with some jerk at the bar your decision to either punch him in the face (negative) or just give up and walk away (positive) is the result of the furies. Most people are a general mixture of positive and negative, and so are your baseline human -- even people with anger management issues are calm sometimes, even the most peaceful and mild-natured people get a bit frustrated and irritated in a long queue, and so on, and this governs their actions. To become imbalanced, however, means you have more of one type of "furies" than the other -- and thus, assuming you are able to control it, the more powerful you become with that particular type of fury. As we see, the end result of being imbalanced with one type of the furies and managing to control the end result is to become an immortal ghost creature, though equally presumably the nature of this ghost creature may change depending on which type of furies you are imbalanced with (positive furies result in basically achieving inner peace and harmony and becoming one with the universe; negative furies result in becoming an angry smashy ghost monster). Simple, really.

** The Emperor altered the energy wavelength of his molecular structure and put him out of phase with normal matter. Look, I translated it from metaphysics to technobabble!

*** Because that was the curse. You really don't get this whole "magic used by higher powers" thing, do you?
*** Are you always an ass, or does being on TVT just turn you into one? Go drink piss, you pathetic monkey.

* Lo Pan obviously DidntThinkThisThrough in his long quest to become flesh and blood again. Didn't Lo Pan realize that making himself flesh again would render him vulnerable to disease, poison, injury, etc? [[spoiler:This ultimately [[HoistByHisOwnPetard did turn out to be Lo Pan's undoing]].]]

*** Even then, Lo Pan might have been able to handle him if not for the fact he (not unjustifiably) considered Jack a complete joke and Jack's knife trick taking him by surprise.
** The marriage to a girl with green eyes will make him flesh and blood, the sacrifice of his green-eyed wife will grant him immeasurable power, he says as much in the movie. One of the powers he'd get from sacrificing Gracie would presumably be immortality, but without the drawback of being immaterial/old.
* Likewise, Lo Pan didn't seem to have much of a plan to rule the universe either, besides "become mortal and the rest will follow". He may be a powerful sorcerer, but as a mortal it only takes a knife to stop him. His mooks are tough, but the lesser ones die to gunfire and it seems like a decent military force could stop his plans for universal domination easily.

* Before Lo pan completes the marriage to make him corporeal, he is corporeal enough to take a needle and draw blood from his brides to make him flesh again. This is never explained.

*** His body is clearly made of some sort of ethereal energy, since all his powers show bright light shining out from inside him. He probably turns into the little old basket case on wheels by condensing all of that energy, and by expanding it out into his "true" form becomes immaterial; since his body's just energy and he can obviously manipulate energy, he can probably form whatever clothes and accessories he wants.

*** Lightning did seem like he was more suped-up in his final appearance, like he was gradually losing control of his power... the bolts he flung around might have been as much him trying to bleed off excess as showing off or trying to block off escape routes. Maybe Lo Pan granted them their abilities, and now without him to regulate them they're going out of control. Thunder's was just sudden and intense, while Lightning's is on a slow build.
* Why didn't Lo Pan try marrying a white woman before he chanced upon Gracie Law? Surely it's easier to find a green-eyed white person than an Asian one.
** Well it's explicitly an attempt to find a ''Chinese'' woman with green eyes. Gracie Law, due to her interest in Chinatown and constant attempts to lecture Jack about it, is implied to be of mixed European and Chinese ancestry. Despite, well, being played by Creator/KimCattrall. You're right, though, that a woman of Chinese/European descent would be the best solution as Gracie proves. It's a ProphecyTwist and Lo Pan would probably be kicking himself for it if not for the fact it provided an "out" for him to not have to sacrifice a woman he desired.

** He pisses off God A. He wants to do something to please God B, so that God B will undo part of God A's punishment. Once the punishment is undone, he can then also do something to apologize to God A and get the rest of the punishment undone. Pretty simple really.