The end of Zhang Yimou?


So sad! The director who made many masterpieces (To Live, Shanghai Triad; Hero; Curse of the Golden Flower) and then this shallow want-to-grab-more-money movie is so disappointing.

Matt Damon is not even the worst part of this movie.
http://www.businessinsider.com/china-the-great-wall-failure-2016-12

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It was not that bad. It's certainly not a masterpiece but the critics have been way too harsh with it.

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This, unfortunately, was not his finest work. My theater was filled with Chinese people and the entire crowd was whispering about why a white guy was starring in this movie...

But Zhang is a great director and will bounce back, I'm certain of it. What's he working on next?

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"But Zhang is a great director and will bounce back, I'm certain of it."
I hope so. Gui Lai (aka Coming Home) from 2014 is quite good drama.

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Bah!... It's a really good action movie and well directed. I went in with no expectations, not even checking the name of the director, and I was pleasantly surprised. The movie doesn't take itself too seriously and the action is fun. For once, I was really glad that I could follow the action and didn't have to put up with the shaky cam that so many untalented Hollywood directors favor these days. The visuals are great, and so is the 3D. What's not to like?

Of course, if you expect some sort of "art film", you will be disappointed. But it's a movie about monsters attacking the Great Wall! It's not like they tried to deceive you with false advertising.

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Yeah, It’s just like watching a kung fu movie. A fun entertainment, filled with battles. More interesting to me than those endless Lord of the Rings battles that were all focused on elf-y British ginger people.

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Agreed - it was a fun little film. Not a masterpiece, but as far as action adventures are concerned, it was decent enough.

But yes... the white guy, who saves the whole kingdom - that will not bode well for the Chinese nationalism, so I'm not surprised this film didn't do so well in China. On a more serious note, the white guy is way too overpowered in this film. He proved himself to be a good marksman, but we didn't see a whole lot of power behind those arrow shots. Yet, the Chinese peeps shoot 20 arrows at the alien creatures and the creature walks on, Matt Damon shoots one, and the creature dies. this happened like 10 times.

Also, it seemed like there was a potential for a bit of a romance subplot, yet that did not materialize, which was a bit disappointing. In that sense, the ending felt a bit meh.

In the end, this film should not have cost as much as it did - it didn't feel quite as epic as it should have been.

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I thought the reason why his arrows worked so well was because he had the stone?

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They have to aim for the eyes.

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