Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fantasy action violence
By Derrick Bang
According to report, this film
cost $150 million.
Rarely will you see money spent
so well. Every dollar is visible on the screen.
Mayes C. Rubeo’s costumes alone
probably stretched the budget to the limit. If she doesn’t win the 2017 Academy
Award for costume design, there is no justice.
The Great Wall is one of the fabled “cast of
thousands” sagas that we’ve not seen for decades. Director Zhang Yimou’s period
adventure is a stylish, rip-snortin’ thrill ride that hits the ground running
and never lets up: an exciting and thoroughly entertaining blend of Aliens and 1964’s Zulu, with the athletic grace of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
It is, and well deserves to be
called, a true epic. And we also don’t get those
very often, these days.
Granted, the deliberate inclusion
of Western actors — apparently essential, to court the all-important American
market — is a bit of an eyebrow-lifter. Placing Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal in
12th century China, with little more than a token explanation of how their
characters could have gotten there,
is quite contrived; no surprise that this film’s six (!) credited scripters
didn’t try hard to explain it.
But once beyond that hiccup, the
story zips right along; Zhang paces and choreographs the complex action
sequences with the authority of a master conductor. That’s no surprise, coming
from the director who similarly entertained us with Hero and House of Flying
Daggers, along with equally compelling “straight” dramas such as Raise the Red Lantern and The Flowers of War.
Even the establishing tableaus
are breathtaking, as cinematographers Stuart Dryburth and Xiaoding Zhao
traverse the expanse of John Myhre’s production design. We’ve not seen world-building
on this scale since Peter Jackson’s Lord
of the Rings trilogy.
That comparison is apt for
another reason, since Damon’s amazing bow-and-arrow skills can’t help evoking
fond memories of Orlando Bloom’s Legolas.
The story begins with a prologue of
sorts, as William Garin (Damon) and his quintet of battle-scarred mercenaries
attempt to outrun a much larger desert tribe. Our mercenary heroes (?) have
come to Northern China in search of a fabled “black powder” that is capable of
making great weapons.
They successfully escape, camping
down for what they hope will be a restful night. But they’re suddenly attacked
by an unseen something that quickly
eviscerates all but William and Pero Tovar (Pascal). William manages to hack a
limb off the beast, which then plunges to its doom down a deep canyon. But the
severed claw is terrifying in its own right: huge, reptilian and unlike
anything they’ve ever seen.
The persistent desert riders
reappear the next morning, forcing William and Pero to flee ever higher up the
mountains, until...
...they crest a ridge and find
themselves facing China’s Great Wall, arrayed with thousands of bow- and
sword-wielding soldiers. All with their weapons trained on these two
interlopers.
A suggestion to quickly kill
William and Pero is countermanded by Gen. Shao (Hanyu Zhang), Strategist Wang (Andy
Lau) and Commander Lin Mae (Tian Jing), all high-ranking officers of The
Nameless Order. When we further learn that the Order is tasked with defending
the Great Wall, which stands between a hideous enemy and the massive city
surrounding the nearby Imperial Palace, we can’t help thinking of Game of Thrones, with its similar
Night’s Watch soldiers guarding the huge ice wall that separates the Seven
Kingdoms from the monsters beyond.
Homage ... or bald theft?
Not that it really matters, but
the similarities are pretty blatant.
Anyway...
William and Pero learn that the
claw belongs to a Tao Tei, an ancient, mythical species that lives deep within
the Jade Mountain, and rises every 60 years for eight days, to feed upon
humanity as a punishment for mankind’s greed. (Seems like we could use the Tao
Tei these days, but that’s another story.) The creatures always drag their dead
away, so nobody has ever held a claw such as the one William has brought along.
And anybody who can slay a Tao
Tei, in close combat, must be a great
warrior.
It’s a little more complicated
than that, William having benefited from some geological luck, but the upshot
is that he and Pero are allowed to live long enough to witness — and
unwillingly participate in — the first en
masse Tao Tei assault. After which, well, Gen. Shao and the others view
their visitors with even more respect.
The action notwithstanding — and
it’s spectacular, edge-of-the-seat stuff — the Order’s operational structure is
fascinating in its own right. The massive army is divided into five factions,
easily identified by color. Commander Chen (Lin Gengxin) leads the red-garbed Eagle
Corps of crossbow marksmen, who also wield super-sized, impressively nasty
“repeater crossbows.” Gen. Shao leads the close-quarter combat soldiers of the
silver Bear Corps.
Lin Mae leads the balletic,
blue-garbed, all-female Crane Corps, whose gravity-defying aerial assaults must
be seen, to be believed: an incredibly imaginative style of fighting. Commander
Deng (Xuan Huang) heads the purple Deer Corps, the Order’s cavalry and infantry
unit.
Commander Wu (Eddie Peng Yu-Yen),
finally, leads the gold Tiger Corps, the fortress’ engineering and artillery
forces. The latter unit is responsible for some massive, way-clever gadgets —
including ingeniously enhanced trebuchets — that certainly never existed in the
12th century, but look like they could
have.
Each one of these factions gets
plenty of screen time, allowing us to appreciate the wealth of detail that went
into distinctive weapons, battle garb and even behavior. We cannot help being
impressed.
As for the Tao Tei, they’re like Jurassic Park raptors on steroids. The
multitudinous drones — thousands upon thousands of them — are the primary
attack force, moving with frightening speed, and quite difficult to kill. Their
viciously intelligent assaults are coordinated telepathically by a single
queen, which is protected by a surrounding phalanx of about 20 “guardians”: a
third gender (?) with armor-plated headgear that, when raised in concert, can
deflect all weapons.
The problem, Gen Shao explains to
William and Pero, is that the beasts have evolved over time, becoming smarter,
larger and more numerous, in part because of the humans they’ve killed every 60
years. Should this new wave breach the wall and devour all the helpless people
in the nearby city, the Tao Tei would become an unstoppable force that could
take over the entire world.
Which sorta-kinda makes it
William and Pero’s fight, as well. Not that William minds too much, since he’s
soon smitten by Lin Mae. Pero, though, is a tougher sell ... particularly when
he and William encounter Ballard (Willem Dafoe), an earlier Western visitor
whose presence has been tolerated for 25 years, and who now hopes that his new
“friends” will help him escape. With some of the fabled black powder.
Nothing like a little
behind-the-scenes intrigue, to further goose an already exhilarating story.
Damon holds focus reasonably
well, as the heroic interloper whose bow and close-combat skills prove
beneficial on numerous occasions. (“Matt Damon saves Asia,” quipped one of the
viewers, during Wednesday evening’s preview screening.) William also displays
some shrewd battle smarts, which is a welcome touch.
Pascal’s Pero gets all the best
one-liners, his hardened cynicism in contrast with William’s flutters of
long-disused integrity. Damon and Pascal share an enjoyable dynamic, which
Zhang exploits well. On the other hand, Pero’s absence from most of the
third-act climax is a glaringly missed opportunity, and I can’t imagine what
the writers were thinking.
Jing is appropriately stern,
resourceful and regal as Lin Mae: every inch the sort of battle-hardened female
warrior much beloved in Chinese legends. We don’t doubt her skills for a
second.
Lu Han makes a strong impression
as Peng Yong, a young Bear Corps soldier whose willingness to serve can’t quite
conceal fear and nervous clumsiness; he will, needless to say, get a chance to
shine as events proceed. Lau, finally, lends authoritative snap as Strategist
Wang, the Order’s chief scientist and historian, whose close analysis of Tao
Tei behavior might prove useful. (Let’s hear it for the resident bookworm!)
The film’s 103 minutes zip right
along, Zhang and editors Mary Jo Markey and Craig Wood in total command of both
their film, and our emotions. If the first Tao Tei assault is awesome — and it
is — what follows is even more suspensefully spectacular. Zhang doesn’t exhaust
all the good stuff in the first act. The visuals and effects work are simply awesome.
I
very much hope that The Great Wall
finds an appreciative audience, here in the States; it certainly deserves to.
Goodness knows, we can use this sort of grand-scale cinematic entertainment
during the big-screen winter doldrums.
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