One of the mystery behind the wonders of the world is hidden behind the Great wall of China. Some mercenaries are out to get it even when its army prepare to battle an enemy it has prepared for in that 60 years.
To watch it is to be aware of how little movies this size have to do with art and how much they are product, the result of a calculation involving actorly appeal and spectacle, because spectacle, not story, has the... most universal draw.
Zhang's moments of visual splendor-a battalion of hot-air balloonists, the queen-monster and her royal guard of fan-frilled monstrosities-are weighed down by a script and performances almost dutiful in their dullness.
[At first,] we learn the Great Wall of China was originally erected to protect the Chinese from marauding forces embodying the depths of human greed. Shortly afterward, we realize The Great Wall was made for precisely opposite reasons.
Gloriously, fantastically stupid from beginning to end, Fifth Generation legend Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall is also, you know, not terrible on the grand scale of terrible things.
The film feels so far removed from the Zhang I have grown up respecting that it feels like it is less his film and more the product of heavy Hollywood studio influencing.
Director Zhang Yimou, the darling of art-house cinemas the world over, tries his hand at a fantasy adventure epic and achieves only low camp, albeit with his customary eye for brilliant color and striking tableaux.
The battle scenes are spectacularly choreographed, and the narrative hinges on a Westerner who shifts his own perspective from being self-centred to self-sacrificing.
Ultimately, a handful of eye-popping Yimou flourishes can't compensate for filmmaking so line-toeing and occasionally cartoonish that it makes the idea of a wall between Hollywood and Chinese interests actually sound kinda great.
Zhang's enviable eye for color and composition is somewhat occluded by the gargantuan scale; still, he finds beauty in the chaos (a climactic interior action sequence is splashed with rainbow beams from stained-glass windows).
The real stars of this film are the Chinese actors. 28-year-old Jing Tian is wonderful as a female leader within the Order who commands a strong presence.
Damon's wild-haired gringo claims to have soldiered under "many flags," which would explain his shape-shifting accent that's Irish except for when it sounds beamed from Mars.
Damon's wild-haired gringo claims to have soldiered under "many flags," which would explain his shape-shifting accent that's Irish except for when it sounds beamed from Mars.
To watch it is to be aware of how little movies this size have to do with art and how much they are product, the result of a calculation involving actorly appeal and spectacle, because spectacle, not story, has the... most universal draw.
Zhang is more interested in ceremonies than combat sequences. Ranks of soldiers in exotic uniforms march into position atop battlements, while both feast and funeral are played out as spectacles.
In these days when so-called resistance, from D.C. to the streets, uses dishonorable methods, The Great Wall offers a conscientious reminder of artistic principle, the respite of an aesthetically powerful comic book.
In other words, it's another tedious special-effects-fest that has flimsy wisps of completely pat and predictable story blowing around interminable swaths of stuff that would 100% kill people but doesn't, and none of the characters are that interesting.
