Enhancing the overall lavishness is an impressive score composed by Ramin Djawadi. The Great Wall is an extravagant work whose spectacular features include the serpentine Wall itself the atmospheric mountain/desert landscape a drum corps that performs with frightening precision masterfully choreographed battle scenes and vibrant costumes and set pieces, such as a brigade of hot-air balloons dotting a sizzling sky. Predictably, only the pure of heart and mind can repulse the invaders and rebalance the universe. They will be joined by Ballard (Willem Dafoe), another European and seeker of gunpowder, who was taken prisoner 25 years earlier. Tovar disagrees and wants to proceed with their plan to escape with enough of the black powder to make them rich. William (an expert archer) observes that previously “I fought for greed … this is the first war I’ve seen worth fighting for.” They “rise every 60 years to feed upon humanity and punish mankind’s greed,” and they are intent not only on conquering China, but the entire world.Īt first, William and Tovar appear as mere backward ruffians to their polished, well-trained and well-equipped captors until the Tao Tei launch an attack, and the European duo (Damon’s Irish accent is questionable) prove their worth as valiant fighters.
Its disciplined fighters (males in red, females in blue) are in the throes of their preparation for a life-and-death showdown with a monstrous enemy, the Tao Tei-giant bearded dragon-like aliens. The battalion comprises five corps named after the crane, bear, eagle, deer and tiger. Stumbling upon the Great Wall, they are taken prisoner by the Nameless Order, an elite army regiment led by General Shao (Zhang Hanyu) and the young female Commander Lin (Jing Tian). Set upon by Khitan nomads and then attacked by a mysterious creature, the original group of 20 is reduced to William Garin (Matt Damon) and Pero Tovar (Pedro Pascal). Set in the era of China’s Song dynasty (960-1279), the film opens with a group of European mercenaries crossing the Gobi Desert in search of a new type of weapon called “black powder” (i.e., gunpowder, whose first confirmed use occurred in China in the 800s). It is a visually arresting, large-scale action film that, unfortunately, does not transcend the fairly primitive boundaries of the genre. Zhang’s The Great Wall is the critically acclaimed director’s first English-language production.
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