Initially bent on getting what he wants - some mysterious gunpowder that will earn him a fortune back home - his conscience is soon awakened (this is Matt Damon, after all), and his head turned by Lin (Jing Tian of Special ID), the only female and English-speaking commander at the outpost. Having saved a soldier in the battle and showcased his archery skills, William is welcomed into the life of the garrison. “This is one of the legends,” the text reads, offering a disclaimer geared toward detractors readying to question the extraordinary premise to follow. Using computer-generated images of the Great Wall, the film begins with short onscreen texts explaining that, as the wall enters its third millennium in existence, there are both facts and legends about it.

For the international market, however, the film perhaps would best be positioned as a novelty for monster-flick fanboys or those interested in Zhang’s brand of cultural exotica. Still, Damon has certainly lent the whole enterprise a certain pedigree, and his presence (alongside Willem Dafoe and Chinese A-listers Andy Lau and Zhang Hanyu) should propel the film to box-office success in China. Telling the fantastical story of a massive battle waged to stop paranormal beasts from invading China, The Great Wall is easily the least interesting and involving blockbuster of the respective careers of both its director and star. The result, however, has turned out to be much less exciting than all the hype might have suggested.īeyond the casting and the ceaseless onslaught of diverse special effects, Zhang and his Hollywood screenwriters have delivered nothing more than a formulaic monster movie - albeit one transposed to a historically undefined China where generals dressed like Terracotta warriors already have mastered anesthetics, air travel and American-accented English. The Great Wallhas long been talked up as a landmark of sorts: It’s Matt Damon’s first foray into China, Zhang Yimou’s first predominantly English-language production and the first film to come out of Legendary Pictures’ continent-hopping strategy.

The great wall movie wiki