Review of The Great Wall (2016)
Seen in 2022.
It turns out the Great Wall of China was built to stop aliens who wake up every 60 years.
As science fiction, it’s inane. As a dumb blockbuster epic, it’s mediocre. As propaganda for the PRC, it’s good.
Large collectives of choreographed soldiers put on a show while unnaturally superior individuals rise to prominence and power. This is especially apparent when the Unnamed Order’s hundreds of super-soldiers are broken by one Tao Tei reaching the top of the wall, while Matt Damon’s mercenary character saves the day. In the context of selling a blockbuster, it’s important that the Western mercenary is a superhero, but in the context of propaganda, it doesn’t matter that the mercenary is Western. The objective is to celebrate individuals in military authority, not Chinese culture. In consistence with this objective, the emperor of China is shown as weak because he is not a warrior. The Communist Party formally rejected the emperor while taking power by force and (since Deng) trading with the rest of the World, so the international flavour and English dialogue make sense both commercially and politically. It’s a smooth operation to have six Westerners write and Zhang Yimou direct this multiculturally open salute to autocracy. Also, thankfully, there is no reference in it to Marco Polo.