The Great Wall

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Movie
German title The Great Wall
Original title The Great Wall
The Great Wall Film logo.svg
Country of production People's Republic of China ,
United States
original language English , Chinese
Publishing year 2016
length 103 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Zhang Yimou
script Carlo Bernard ,
Doug Miro ,
Tony Gilroy
production Jon Jashni ,
Peter Loehr ,
Charles Roven ,
Thomas Tull
music Ramin Djawadi
camera Stuart Dryburgh ,
Zhao Xiaoding
cut Mary Jo Markey ,
Craig Wood
occupation

The Great Wall is a Chinese - American Action - Fantasy film by Zhang Yimou from the year 2016 with Jing Tian and Matt Damon in the lead roles. It opened in Chinese cinemas on December 16, 2016. The German theatrical release was January 12, 2017.

action

At the time of the Song Dynasty , the Irishman William Garin wanted to go to the Chinese Empire together with his Spanish companion Pero Tovar and other mercenaries to look for the legendary black powder . At the beginning of the film, the last survivors of the group are hunted down by Mongolian Kitan , and finally, except for Garin and Tovar, they are killed by an unknown monster. Garin and Tovar can cut off a claw from the creature.

The next day they come to the Great Wall of China , which is manned by the highly trained, selfless soldiers of the "Nameless Order". The Europeans are captured and interrogated. Its severed claw causes a stir: it comes from a Taotie , a man-eating four-legged monster. Since a meteor strike 2000 years ago, the Taotie have attacked the inhabited regions by the thousands every sixty years and have to be stopped at the wall with great sacrifices. In doing so, the gods punish the greed of the Chinese emperors. The Nameless Order has been training for the coming attack for generations and is equipped with a variety of military equipment, including explosive projectiles. If the wall doesn't hold, it will mean the end of the world. The trophy of the Europeans proves that the time has come again.

In the first attack, Garin and Tovar support the Chinese soldiers and earn the respect of General Shao and the suspicious young officer Lin Mae. You can now move freely in the wall. Together with a third European named Sir Ballard, who has lived by the Wall for 25 years, they are planning an escape; They want to steal black powder weapons and take them with them. As more and more of the disciplined and selfless soldiers die in combat around him, Garin questions his former greed. He wants to give up his criminal life. Lin, the commander in chief after the death of the order general, senses this and feels drawn to him. She accepts the advice of the experienced mercenary. Thanks to the cooperation of the Chinese and Europeans, it is actually possible, for the first time in history, to catch one of the monsters alive. Experiments show that a magnetic stone (which Garin and Tovar happened to own) calms it down completely - information that is immediately sent to the emperor. The fight seems to be won.

When Tovar and Ballard use an attack by the Taotie to escape, Garin tries to stop them. Still, Lin is deeply disappointed by the breach of trust. She stands alone again when the disaster that has been feared for thousands of years occurs: the Taotie, who are increasingly acting systematically and intelligently and controlled by a “queen”, secretly dug a tunnel during the fighting and got over the wall. You will reach Kaifeng , a city of over a few hours .

There is only one chance to follow them in time: with newly developed hot air balloons (large sky lanterns ). Lin and shortly after her Garin manage to reach the city during the monster attack. Together they want to attack the Taotie Queen directly, using the captured Taotie. He is fed, mined and is supposed to explode if he in turn feeds the queen. After two failed attempts with incendiary arrows from Garin, Lin finally makes it with an explosive spear. The queen is killed and all monsters freeze.

Ballard, who cheated on his accomplice Tovar after his escape, is caught alone by the Mongols and dies with them in a negligently triggered explosion. Tovar is captured by the Chinese.

Lin is promoted to general of the Northwest Territories. Garin is given the choice by the Emperor of leaving Tovar to be executed and returning to Europe with the black powder or traveling home with Tovar but without the black powder. He opts for the latter.

Publication and box office results

The film opened in Chinese cinemas on December 16, 2016. In the first ten days, the film grossed $ 120 million there.

The film opened in Germany on January 12, 2017, and in the United States on February 17, 2017.

reception

According to Rotten Tomatoes , the film received mixed reviews, scoring a 35% rating based on 182 movie reviews, with an average rating of 4.9 / 10. In order to appeal to both the Chinese and Western audiences, he relies on the simplest dialogues, woodcut-like figures, and computer-animated action. Interesting minor characters were neglected. After all, the actors delivered a decent performance. Also on Metacritic, the film did not do particularly well with a rating of 42 out of 100, which is based on 40 film reviews. In the Internet Movie Database, however, the film has a rating of 6.0 with 112,579 votes. Maggie Lee from Variety praised the "competent" direction, but criticized the very "mechanical" script and especially criticized the lack of a background story for many of the interesting supporting characters.

literature

In February 2017, Titan Books published the novel adaptation The Great Wall - The Official Movie Novelization , written by Mark Morris .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of Approval for The Great Wall . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ^ Age rating for The Great Wall . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ Patrick Frater: China Box Office: 'Tomorrow' and 'Tigers' Climb Over 'Great Wall' . In: Variety, December 25, 2016.
  4. ^ The Great Wall (2017) . Rotten tomatoes. Retrieved March 25, 2017.
  5. ↑ The Great Wall reviews . Metacritic . Retrieved March 25, 2017.
  6. ↑ The Great Wall in the Internet Movie Database (English) ; accessed on July 20, 2019
  7. ↑ Maggie Lee: Film Review: Matt Damon in 'The Great Wall'. In: Variety . December 15, 2016, accessed January 14, 2017 .
  8. ↑ The Great Wall - The Official Movie Novelization In: titanbooks.com . Retrieved March 31, 2017.