This film is essentially a fairy tale writ large, and taken on that level, it’s a very enjoyable, if slight, cinematic spectacle.

Premise: Around a thousand years ago, a band of European thieves and mercenaries led by William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal) stumble into the middle of an ancient conflict between the secret army known as the Nameless Order, who man the Great Wall of China against attacks from otherworldly monsters known as the Tao Tei.

Verdict:

This film was something of an experiment, insofar as it is essentially the biggest Chinese/US co-production to date, and the first to marry a big-name Hollywood star (Matt Damon) with an acclaimed Chinese director (Zhang Yimou). Filmed in China with a predominantly Chinese cast, but made as an English-language film, this is the most expensive movie ever filmed entirely in China – and for that reason alone, it’s a historic accomplishment.

Making a film that will appeal to both Hollywood and Chinese audiences is no easy task, but I think this film does an admirable job. As events are seen through Matt Damon’s character’s perspective, it gives Hollywood audiences an easy way into the film, while Chinese audiences would (I imagine) be more familiar with the epic works of Zhang Yimou, or with the lead Chinese actress Jing Tian (soon to appear in more Hollywood films, including Kong: Skull Island this year and Pacific Rim: Uprising next year).

“…a heightened, primary-colour-saturated fairy tale world…”

The story itself is rather slight, and doesn’t contain much in the way of surprises – but if you view the film as being a huge scale fairy tale (which is essentially what it is, if you ask me), that goes someway to explain the very simplistic concepts of good versus evil, greed versus self-sacrifice, and a selfish man’s quest for redemption. The film is not striving for “realism” – it’s a heightened, primary-colour-saturated fairy tale world, where the Nameless Order wear colour coded armour (for each specialism) that looks more like it’s come from a romanticised book of myths and legends than any kind of factually accurate history textbook.

As far as the plot goes, William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal) are European mercenaries, looking to get rich by stealing “black powder” from China and then taking it back to Europe to sell. Although they have a great brothers-in-arms relationship with plenty of comical banter (one of the highlights of the film), it’s also made pretty clear that they are not particularly nice people. They stumble across the Nameless Order, led by General Shao (Zhang Hanyu), who are protecting China (and by extension, the rest of the world) from the Tao Tei – monstrous creatures that (depending on how you interpret the legend) are either aliens from a crashed meteor or creatures sent by the gods as punishment for mankind’s greed. William and Tovar also meet Ballard (Willem Dafoe), another European who came to the Great Wall years ago hunting for black powder, and Commander Lin Mae (Jing Tian) and Strategist Wang (Andy Lau), the only members of the Nameless Order to have learned English (from Ballard).

“…the epic battle scenes are a sight to behold…”

It probably won’t be a surprise to any viewer (especially as it’s given away in all of the trailers) that William begins to grow a conscience on the Wall, and questions if living selfishly and untrustingly is any way to live, and whether it is possible to find redemption for his past by fighting for a just cause now. But the point is, the film isn’t a reality-based character study – it’s a fairy tale, so the simplistic characters are just broad canvases used to explore moral and ethical concepts, and in this film, they are also just there to deliver an epic tale of brave warriors facing down endless hordes of apocalyptic monsters.

And say what you will about the two-dimensional characters or the straightforward plot, there’s no doubt that the film is visually stunning. The Tao Tei themselves are an interesting and creative CGI monster, and the epic battle scenes involving archers, acrobatic spear-warriors, swordsmen, flaming catapults and all manner of other engines of war are a sight to behold. The battle scenes are also very inventive and varied – one that stands out in particular involves a foggy battlefield where sound is the only warning of impending attack.

The film is no masterpiece, but there’s enough creativity and visual inventiveness to make the film an enjoyable couple of hours, despite its flaws (including Matt Damon’s “interesting” accent!).

(As a side note, the film does make use of one particular sci-fi/fantasy cliché that I am becoming increasingly sick of seeing, but (a) I can’t really discuss it without going into spoiler territory (although it is very obvious from very early on), and (b) The Great Wall is only one of many, many films in recent years to have abused this cliché, so to single it out would be unfair.)