The Great Wall

"1700 years to build. 5500 miles long. What were they trying to keep out?"

2016 1h 43m EN

😐

6.0

MID

★6.0TMDB · 5,701

ActionAdventureFantasy

Synopsis

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European mercenaries searching for black powder become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures.

“1700 years to build. 5500 miles long. What were they trying to keep out?”

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Cast

Matt Damon
William
Jing Tian
Commander Lin Mae
Willem Dafoe
Ballard
Andy Lau
Strategist Wang
Pedro Pascal
Tovar
Zhang Hanyu
General Shao
Lu Han
Peng Yong
Lin Gengxin
Commander Chen

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Zhang Yimou
Writers: Marshall Herskovitz, Max Brooks, Edward Zwick
Languages: Mandarin, English, Spanish
Countries: China, United States of America

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

MONEY

Did you know

$150M budget — tentpole studio territory.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Released 10 years ago.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 3 languages: Mandarin, English, Spanish.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

International production across 2 countries: China, United States of America.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Zhang Yimou, shot by Zhao Xiaoding. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Ramin Djawadi. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor Mary Jo Markey shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Matt Damon and Jing Tian and Willem Dafoe carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Zhang Yimou directs. Zhao Xiaoding behind the camera. Ramin Djawadi scores. Mary Jo Markey cuts. Profitable at the box office. Produced in China, United States of America. Dialogue in Mandarin, English, Spanish.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

1$150M budget — tentpole studio territory.
2Released 10 years ago.
3Dialogue crosses 3 languages: Mandarin, English, Spanish.
4International production across 2 countries: China, United States of America.
5Directed by Zhang Yimou, shot by Zhao Xiaoding. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
6Original score by Ramin Djawadi. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
7Editor Mary Jo Markey shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
8Matt Damon and Jing Tian and Willem Dafoe carry the top of the cast.
9Marketing tagline: "1700 years to build. 5500 miles long. What were they trying to keep out?".
10IMDB entry: tt2034800 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
11Classified under 13 themes, including "monster", "china", "archer", "female soldier".

The technical file

Cinematography: Zhao Xiaoding
Original score: Ramin Djawadi
Editing: Mary Jo Markey
Production design: John Myhre
Costume design: Mayes C. Rubeo
Makeup / hair: Maralyn Sherman
VFX supervisor: Phil Brennan
Sound: Kyrsten Mate
Stunt coordinator: Brad Martin
Runtime: 103 min · 1h 43m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Budget: $150,000,000
Box office: $331,957,105
Return: 221% of budget
Original language: EN
Certification (US): PG-13
IMDB: The Great Wall (2016)

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Zhang Yimou

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Community reviews

What people are saying

ColinJ2017-02-18
★ 6/10
Entertaining nonsense. I went in expecting gorgeous junk and that's exactly what I got.
CraigJamesReview2017-02-19
Impressive in it's visual style as many Zhang Yimou films are. He has this fascination with weaponry and following it as it soars through the air. Also loved the color of the armor on the soldiers. The characters are pretty bland, really just doing things because the script requires them to do it. The monsters are also crappy looking CGI iguanas. Overall the whole thing just comes off silly. For a full review: Trying to create a channel based on interpreting, reviewing, and even giving you something to laugh about film. Hope you feel like giving my channel a chance. https://youtu.be/6yTGEw3Agzw
Dark Jedi2017-05-31
★ 10/10
This is a movie that made me soooo happy that I decided to jump and fork out some money (way too much actually, I’m on a bread and water diet now) for a nice OLED screen. This movie is a stunning visual adventure. The two main characters are described as mercenary warriors but the terms thieves and rascals are probably better suited. They do know how to fight though and they get plenty of opportunity to prove it in the menu. This is another one of those movies that live and die by the visuals. The plot is a basic enough adventure story with some additional twists, like mysterious meteorites and really really nasty monsters, thrown in. It is not bad but not exactly groundbreaking either. The same with the characters. They are perhaps not exactly flat but not really fantastic either. What makes the movie great is the action and the visuals. The story and the characters are just there to prop the visuals up and they are doing a perfectly adequate job of it. The movie starts off in a rather dry and deserted landscape. The first scenes are actually rather dark and somewhat blurry. Luckily we rather quickly arrive at The Great Wall and the colors explode onto the screen. The Chinese army in their shining colored armor is really visually impressive. It does not take very long for the action to start and apart from the usual arrow flinging, acrobatic stabbing and slashing the Chinese army starts to deploy their various contraptions for fighting the oncoming swarm of nasty creatures. I found all the things that they had cooked up quite fascinating and contributing nicely to the visuals and the fun. For example, bungee jumping into a hord of jumping and snapping monsters wanting to take a (huge) bit of you armed with a spear. Is that cool or what? Heck, I want to do that. Well, without the monsters of course … and the bungee part. Okay, I confess, I was just watching the girls. Did I mention that all the bungee jumpers where hot chicks? And if any of you go all feminist and gender crap on me for those remarks you can shove it somewhere. If you think the bungee jumping stuff sounds like I was watching a silly comedy then trust me, it makes sense … kind of … in the context of this movie at least. Then there are rotating knifes sticking out of slits in the wall, fireball throwing catapults, various applications of gunpowder (that was after all why the two scoundrels where there in the first place) etc. etc. All accompanied by various acrobatics by the different combattants. Each scene was both cool action and a great symphony of elegance and colors. The one part of the movie that I thought was a bit of a letdown was the parts where the emperor of China appeared. Why portray him as an arrogant, lazy thundering idiot? It is really not funny. The chain of events that he caused could really had been started in a more intelligent way without going down that overused and boring route. The movie works itself forward to a nice final, desperate, fight to defeat the monster queen and her hord of baddies. It is a nice fight, as visually stunning as the rest of the movie, filled with lots of stunts of all kinds. The huge hords of beasts climbing, jumping and moving in big patterns on command from the queen was really cool. For me this was one hour and forty minutes of much enjoyment.