Nothing GREAT about it

Johnson Thomas

Matt Damon’s $150 million China Epic is up for high stakes, but will it endear and endure at the box-office?  While the Chinese production houses have managed to make a big budget epic, a la Hollywood, they have also managed to waylay their own integral story-telling craft along the way. 

Westerner William Garin (Damon), who, while fleeing from the hill tribes in northern China, alongside mercenary Tovar (Pedro Pascal of Game of Thrones), gets captured by a military garrison at one of the main outposts along the Great Wall. Their claim to be traders is debunked and the only thing that saves them from death is William’s proffering of a giant paw that he had chopped off from a beast, which attacked him and Tovar in the steppes.

The paw is supposed to be that of a reptilian monster christened Taotie, a deadly paranormal species that has been reproducing in alarming proportions in order to invade China. It’s because of these monsters, it is revealed, that the Great Wall was built. And the battle that ensues during the preliminary attack is quite a spectacle! The first attack gets repelled, many lives are lost, the Chinese army has to regroup and William leaves his ‘soldier of fortune’ antecedents behind to support the Chinese army in their war against the monstrous terror.

This is the world famous Zhang (Crouching Tiger Hidden dragon, Hero) Yimou’s first-ever predominantly English language production. The story basically represents a legend, one of the many, told about the Great Wall. 

Beyond the diversity in casting and the never-ending onslaught of special effects, this film has little to impress. We’ve seen it all before in ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and the flood of lame copies masquerading as epics. The cinematography, production design, background score measure up to the best standards, but it’s the scripting and the narrative that plays out as no more than a hollow representation of an artistic endeavour.