THE GREAT WALL
Culture clash
released 12 JUNe 2017 | 12 | 4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray/dVd/ download/ VOd Director Zhang Yimou Cast Matt damon, Tian Jing, Willem dafoe, andy lau
A ton of chatter accompanied
The Great Wall on its theatrical release: it was the priciest film ever shot entirely in China (true); it was the tired old white saviour trope with a greenscreen makeover (not quite true); it was the official future of movies, a cross-cultural hybrid bred for maximum appeal to popcornmunchers in East and West alike (it was a genuine hit in China; it stumbled elsewhere).
It arrives on disc liberated from all that conversation. But maybe that conversation was the most interesting thing about it. Certainly the plot is barely more than a premise, designed to deliver bombastic, CGI-spritzed action scenes: during the Song dynasty, a secret army defends China’s Great Wall from a skittering mass of demonic green beasties. Matt Damon turns up as a European mercenary, stoic and a bit dull when bearded, a little more fun after a shave. He dazzles the Chinese with some Robin Hood moves and is conscripted to battle the invaders. Cue great, sloshing buckletloads of green blood and the creeping realisation that it’s possible to get very, very tired of swarming demonic beasties.
It is, at least, directed by a genius – Zhang Yimou, making his English language debut. This has none of the emotional lyricism of his best work – Raise The Red Lantern, House Of Flying Daggers
– but his eye for the epic, his sense of war as a bright, flamboyant circus, is intact, and makes you yearn for what could have been achieved with a script that sang.
Extras Deleted and extended scenes; a smattering of bite-sized featurettes – six in all, totalling 24 minutes – that short change what could be a fascinating behind-thescenes story. Nick Setchfield
Damon is stoic and dull when bearded but fun after a shave