The film opens like a spaghetti western in the Gobi Desert, as mercenary soldiers William Garin (Damon) and Pero Tovar (Chilean-born actor Pedro Pascal from “Game of Thrones”) flee the attack of Khitans, and Damon’s character procures the claw of an unknown creature by fluke.
While its marriage of Hollywood production values with Asian elements may skew the film toward a more culturally open-minded audience, the generic storytelling and lack of iconic characters will make it a tough sell stateside when Universal releases it on Feb.
With a reported $150 million budget, the film rolls out in China mid-December with little competition in cinemas, boosted by a massive marketing campaign, which should draw full houses in the first week at least - though “The Great Wall” has a lot to recoup and will be hard-pressed to beat Stephen Chow’s charmingly lo-tech romantic fantasy “The Mermaid,” which still holds the record as China’s top-grossing film with nearly $489 million. In between the cultural cheerleading, there are some highly watchable war and monster spectacles, though none so original or breathtaking as to stop one from associating them with the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy or its imitators. Those who ranted against the project as another case of Hollywood “whitewashing” in which Matt Damon saves China from dragons may have to bite their tongue, for his character, a mercenary soldier who stumbles into an elite corps fighting mythical beasts, spends the course of the film being humbled, out-smarted, and re-educated in Chinese virtues of bravery, selflessness, discipline, and invention.
Commanding China’s most expensive production, with probably the biggest input from Hollywood talent ever, blockbuster Chinese director Zhang Yimou capably gives period fantasy-action “ The Great Wall” the look and feel of a Hollywood blockbuster, but his signature visual dazzle, his gift for depicting delicate relationships and throbbing passions are trampled by dead-serious epic aspirations.
0 kommentar(er)
