To test the hypothesis, William suggests they capture a Tao Tei alive and agrees to help. Wang believes the stone William carries enabled him to slay the Tao Tei he fought at the cave. Around this time, an envoy from the capital arrives with an ancient scroll which suggests that the monsters are pacified by magnets. General Shao is killed, placing Commander Lin in charge of the Nameless Order. That night, two Tao Tei reach the top of the Wall. The three Europeans secretly plan to steal gunpowder and flee during the next monster attack. This earns William and Tovar the Order's respect. William and Tovar display amazing battle skills, saving the life of young warrior Peng Yong, then slaying two monsters that scale the Wall. Detained, he now serves as an English and Latin teacher. During the battle, William and Tovar are freed by Ballard, another European who ventured east, twenty-five years earlier, in search of gunpowder. While examining the severed monster arm, the Order's commanders are surprised by the first assault from the monster horde, one week early.īoth sides sustain heavy losses before the monsters' queen aborts the attack. The Tao Tei came to Earth when a meteorite came down from the heavens. The Nameless Order exists to combat a horde of alien monsters called Tao Tei, which attacks once every sixty years. The next day, reaching the Wall, they are taken prisoner by soldiers of the Nameless Order, led by General Shao and Strategist Wang. They cut off the monster's arm and bring it with them. Resting in a cave a few miles north of the Great Wall, they are attacked by a monster, leaving only William and Tovar alive. With that said, if you need a flat and easy action movie to watch a Sunday night I won’t stop you! There’s a reason why I gave the movie 4,5/10 instead of 1/10.A band of European mercenaries, including William Garin and Pero Tovar, travel to China during the reign of the Renzong Emperor, in search of the secret to gunpowder. This makes all the dialogues throughout the movie oddly empty, like they’re reciting it all before filming the real deal.Ī lot of scenes didn’t make any sense, especially some of the action scenes that obviously wasn’t well thought-out, but solely made to look good on the screen. There’s no real build up between the main characters and their friendship, which once again fails to make you engaged in the story. Even though there’s a lot of great actors in the movie, you can’t really tell because of how lacking the movie is. You never really care who lives or dies, if the wall would fall or the entire capital for that matter. The concept was pretty interesting but fell flat because of the shallow characters and boring, overdone storytelling style. Rewatch Value 1.0 "The Great Wall" didn’t really deliver much except for a decent, all too simple story and some good actors wasted on dull characters. The monsters looked like relatives of the alien species in the Alien movies.
Lu Han did a very good job as the apprentice soldier, whose work experience was in the kitchen.
Andy Lau should have received third billing.
I was very impressed that the scriptwriter entrusted a lot of English dialog to his character, the military strategist. Jing Tian was credible as Commander Lin Mae.Īndy Lau showed his competency in the second language. Damon's only flaw was the American accent, that did not match the job title. Matt Damon stepped up the plate in his first Chinese movie, as an European mercenary in China during the Song dynasty. I looked forward to this movie because of Andy Lau and Lu Han. The movie was fast-paced, and the two hours zipped by quickly. The CGI was amazing, and took me back to the advent of Lord of the Rings. I describe it as fantasy versus historical, because the monsters did not exist in historical times. Rewatch Value 8.0 This is Zhang Yimou's epic fantasy movie, and he pulled off an incredible feat of the imagination.