The Great Wall (2016)
[长城]
Director: Zhang Yimou
Starring: Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal
Synopsis:
A European expedition to China in search of gunpowder stumbles into an ancient war between man and monster.
Impressions:
I mostly overlooked this film when it came out, though I did note all the frothing online about Matt Damon leading a Chinese story. Of course, this is an American-Chinese coproduction, so all the whining was, as usual, pretty pointless. If you were concerned, though, Matt Damon's character isn't portrayed as being superior to his Chinese counterparts but rather competent enough to stand toe-to-toe with them against the Tao Tei. (To be fair, upon seeing the film, most critics at the time debunked the whole white savior narrative that got the chattering classes all up in a lather.) The Nameless Order is rather stylishly portrayed, even if their tactics may not be the best in practice. The dynamic between Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal is pretty good, similar to Nicolas Cage and Ron Perlman in Season of the Witch, which I happened to watch as a double feature with this film. Also, Damon plays well off Jing Tian. The story isn't anything amazing, but there are some nice action set pieces, so if you want a big action adventure romp, you could do worse. It was better than I was expecting, which is enough to me to recommend giving it a watch.
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