The Great Wall
Short description
The Great Wall follows two European mercenaries who travel to China in search of black powder, the early form of gunpowder they hope to carry back to Europe. After surviving an encounter with a savage creature, they are taken prisoner inside a fortress on the Great Wall. There they learn that the wall was not built only to keep out invaders, but to hold back the Taotie, monstrous beasts that swarm against humanity at long intervals. The mercenaries end up fighting alongside the Chinese imperial army, commanded by General Shao and Commander Lin Mae, against the coming assault.
Zhang Yimou directed the film, the seventeenth of the twenty-five features listed for him, following Coming Home and preceding Shadow. The screenplay is by Tony Gilroy, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard, and the cast includes Matt Damon as William, Jing Tian as Commander Lin Mae, Pedro Pascal as Tovar, Willem Dafoe as Ballard, Andy Lau as Strategist Wang and Zhang Hanyu as General Shao. Twenty-two cast members and 167 crew members are credited. The production cost 150 million US dollars and returned 332 million worldwide, a modest result relative to its scale.
Audience responses were mixed: on IMDb it holds 5.9 out of 10 from about 159,000 votes, and on TMDB 6 out of 10 from roughly 5,700 votes. A film critics' rating of 4.9 out of 10 from 237 reviews sits below both audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- At the time of production, this was the most expensive film ever made in China. Only some scenes were filmed in New Zealand.
- Andy Lau's Hollywood debut.
- James Horner was supposed to compose the music for the film, but he died.
- The tagline states that the construction of the Great Wall took 1,700 years. The entire construction process could well have taken that long. The Great Wall was built in sections by order of successive ruling dynasties. Building each such section of the wall took from 10 to 20 years.
- Negotiations for filming were held with Bryan Cranston, but Willem Dafoe was eventually approved for the role intended for him.
- At one point, Edward Zwick was considered as the film's director, and Henry Cavill was slated to play the main role.
- Alexander Skarsgård was once considered for one of the roles in the film. Later, Benjamin Walker was approved, but he soon left the project.
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