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He isn’t a white saviour despite having the unmistakable sheen of one (this is an Edward Zwick script, after all), he’s more of a co-saviour, really.
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Contrary to what the trailers would have you believe, this is as much Pascal and Jing’s film as it is Matt Damon’s. Their midnight encounter with an unseen creature leaves them with a dead crew, a severed dragon talon, and whole lot of explaining to do when they stumble upon the world’s longest military outpost, led in part by Jing Tian’s Commander Lin Mae. Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal play unkempt westerners William and Tovar, mercenaries on a mission to steal the secrets of gunpowder. That alone should be enough to sell you on it. It's an idiosyncratic product of American and Chinese interests, drenched in colour and mysticism while offering just enough peeks into a fantasy world, just enough eye-popping, audacious design, and just enough semblance of character to function, hovering somewhere on the border of blockbuster entertainment and state propaganda. Zhang Yimou has created something strange with The Great Wall, a film not quite befitting of a simple “good” or “bad” label but one ultimately worth your attention.