Films like Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower are each prime examples of his visual style and storytelling. Acclaimed writer/director Yimou Zhang has created some of the most beautiful and provocative foreign films about Chinese folk tales. The narrative wasn’t the only thing that felt hijacked in this film. The character’s motivations are only ever explored on a very basic surface level so they never move past one-dimensional even the film is in 3D. The mythology presented is never fully explored, and the origin of the creatures (whether foreign, domestic or Ninja Turtle-esque in origin) remains a mystery well past the end of the film.
The story ultimately suffers and turns into little more than a convoluted mess with gaps so big it should be renamed The Big Hole. Unfortunately, any intelligent person can see through the “I have a friend so I can’t be racist” defense. Why? Because it has a lot of Asian actors in it of course. The Great Wall has more issues than just a white savior because it spends the entire trying to convince the audience that it is not at all racist. No matter how set in fantasy or unintelligible the reasoning behind having such a character even present may seem right, it will always be irrevocably wrong. You could almost admire such obstinance for inserting a white savior into every film if it weren’t so fundamentally disgusting. Like many unsuccessful films about establishing a ridiculous alternative history that came before it, The Great Wall stand in the not-so-great leagues of films like the ones I named earlier, but especially the most recent disaster, Gods of Egypt. Taking a closer look into the story and screenwriting team behind The Great Wall will show you the cracks in the foundation that stems from past films like Prince of Persia and The Last Samurai. Even if a film comes off with a certain tone or a confused plot, a closer examination of what led to that will reveal the film’s true intention. It’s not uncommon to have a disconnect between intention and execution. The difference between A Dog’s Purpose and The Great Wall is the dog abuse ended up being false. You have to give the film a chance and watch it with an open mind so you can draw your own conclusions. We had that dog abuse allegation for A Dog’s Purpose earlier in the year, and we had the whitewashing controversy for The Great Wall.
It’s unfair to go into a film with a firm idea of the film before you’ve seen it. Whenever possible, you should go into a film with as little bias as possible.
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