The Great Wall (2016) - Review by Amanda Kragelj

History of the Film:

The film, The Great Wall (2016), was produced by Hollywood and the Chinese film industry as an experiment to explore how North American audiences would react to films that included Chinese culture. It was directed by Zhang Yimou, while the storyline was created by Max Brooks, Edward Zwick, and Marshall Herskovitz. The majority of the film was shot almost entirely in Qingdao, China. While being unable to film on the Great Wall itself, a small portion of the wall was reconstructed for filming. The cast included North American actors Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, and Willem Dafoe, alongside a number of Chinese actors such as Jing Tian, Andy Lau, Zhang Hanyu, and Lu Han among a number of others. The synopsis of the film: Damon and Pascal’s characters were European mercenaries in search of gunpowder, are captured by the Nameless Order that guarded the Great Wall during the Song Dynasty period, where they encounter Jing, Lau, Zhang, and Lu’s characters that command the wall. The European merceries discovered that aliens, the “Tao Tie,” that they encountered earlier in the day, were part of a larger colony, that attempted to pass the Great Wall to capture humans to provide for their Queen, and consume. Through the help and leadership of Damon’s character, the Nameless Order were able to kill the alien Queen, with a fist-sized meteor rock that his character happened to have, which paralyzed the aliens and saved the Song Dynasty civilization. While the film had been praised for representing China and Chinese culture, it felt a heavy impact in regard to Damon’s character. The impact of Damon’s character, the “white saviour” figure that saved the Song Dynasty civilization, illustrated Hollywood’s desire for a popular white actor to bring in sales from the box office, but also complemented the Chinese film industries desire to represent their culture. Due to the lack of knowledge in North America about Chinese culture, the Chinese cultural aspects, and the Chinese characters, were over shadowed by Damon’s character, since he was recognizable to audiences. While a historical analysis of the film depicted varying accurate and inaccurate aspects about the Song Dynasty, it did depict an almost entirely ethic Chinese act for a Hollywood movie, an impressive feat as Hollywood still struggles with diversity and representing characters’ ethnicity within films.

Historical Analysis of the Film:

In regard to the historical analysis of The Great Wall, there were a number of cultural aspects that were accurate in the film’s setting, and a few aspects that were also inaccurate. The film’s setting was described to have taken place during the Song Dynasty, which would have been around 960-1126 CE, when the dynasty still held control over the Great Wall in the North. Additionally, the film depicted the great importance of gunpowder, which was invented during the Song Dynasty around 1000 CE. The film depicts the various ways that gunpowder was adapted to Chinese weaponry within the film. However, there were also additional complaints about the lack of inaccuracy within the film. In contrast to the reality of Song women during the Song Dynasty, the film inaccurately depicts a group of female warriors who are the first to sacrifice their lives in battle. This was historically inaccurate, since Song women were typically restricted to the domestic sphere and in charge of financial aspects of the family household. It seemed unrealistic that a group of female warriors would actively be the first line of defense in battle during this time period. However, there was also historical issues with the “aliens” that were attempting to destroy civilization past the Great Wall. These aliens are commonly known as the Taotie, and were historically mythological creatures that appeared on Shang Dynasty bronze ritual objects from 1600-1046 BCE. This historical inaccuracy was simply the fact that these creatures were added to the film to provide some form of science fiction element to an ancient imperial dynasty in Eastern Asia, all the while given a back story that they arrived from outer space thousands of years before. However, there is no historical record that described these creatures existed. While the historical analysis of the film was a mixture of accurate and inaccurate historical details, the film over all depicted ethic Chinese actors to play Chinese characters. Despite being over shadowed by a white actor, Chinese representation was still evident.