For how beloved the cult martial arts action comedy is these days, it’d be odd for it have anything less than a stellar opening weekend, right?

Actually, Big Trouble in Little China earned its high status amongst cult movies for good reason. It was believed, in the early stages of production that it’d be a big franchise tentpole, but big rewrites, limited ad budget, poor initial reviews, legal battles, etc. made this 80s gem fall short of those lofty expectations.

Uproxx put together a solid oral history of how all of that happened including the filmmakers’ perspective of the film’s rise from the ashes, providing Kurt Russell with one of his more iconic roles that he has ever played.