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The Great Wall review: Chinese fantasy epic a refreshing new step for Hollywood

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★★★½
(M) 103 minutes

There have been US-Chinese co-productions before, but Zhang Yimou's The Great Wall feels like something new, a fantasy blockbuster targeted at the entire planet. As in Guillermo del Toro's Pacific Rim, the plot suggests that different cultures can be brought together by the mutual need to fight monsters – though how this lesson might be applied in the real world is open to debate.

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Trailer: The Great Wall

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

Matt Damon plays William, leader of a band of 11th-century European mercenaries who venture east in search of a fabled "black powder". Upon reaching the Great Wall of China, he and his sidekick Tovar (Pedro Pascal) are taken prisoner by a warrior sect known as the Nameless Order. But before long differences are set aside, as the newcomers join in repelling an attack by the Taotie, giant ravenous reptiles who swarm towards the wall every 60 years.

This gives rise to a series of large-scale battle sequences, choreographed in fanciful, imaginative ways. The order is divided into various units, such as the all-female Crane Troop, whose method of defending the wall resembles a form of bungee jumping: their commander Lin (Jing Tian) explains that men are too heavy to take part.

While Zhang is a long way from his art cinema beginnings, he hasn't lost his gift for nearly abstract spectacle, which becomes literally inhuman in the scenes of the Taotie racing across the desert or leaping at the camera. Every shot is designed for impact: the warriors wear brightly coloured armour that contrasts with the grey of the wall itself, and movement is often along sharp diagonal lines.

The Taotie have roots in Chinese mythology, but this is still essentially a Hollywood film, in some respects a pleasantly old-fashioned one (six American writers worked on the screenplay, developed over a number of years). Even the Chinese characters mainly speak English, which they conveniently learned from Sir Ballard (Willem Dafoe), another Westerner captured by the Nameless Order long ago.

As a filmmaker Zhang has always been willing to change with the times, but there's a degree of consistency to his grimly pragmatic world view. None of the characters here are exactly admirable: William is a killer for hire, the Nameless Order have little compassion for outsiders and the Taotie appear to represent mindless consumption incarnate. Still, this is a rousing, pacey entertainment – and perhaps a preview of a future world film industry where Hollywood no longer has things all its own way.