The Great Wall

I was browsing through the Max streaming service the other day looking at available movies and television series when I came across the film The Great Wall. I had never heard of it before but was immediately drawn to it because of it's title and pictures of the Great Wall of China which I had always been interested in since I was a kid. Then I was surprised to see that it was a Chinese film, released in 2016, that was made in English with some American actors along with a mainly Chinese cast. Big name actors too. The film starred Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal and William Dafoe too. 

I started watching the movie and was initially concerned that it would be either dubbed or have subtitles. It was actually a good combination of English spoken by the main actors with some Chinese subtitles. The story was about a couple of European mercenaries in China looking for gunpowder to take back to Europe. The story takes place in the 1000's during the Sung Dynasty of Northern China. The opening credits indicated that the story was about the Great Wall of China and one of the legends for why it was built.

However, what really surprised me was that the Chinese army on the wall were there to defend against alien monsters that arrived on Earth via a meteorite. They attack the wall every 60 years and were about to do it again. So the story is about these couple of captured mercenaries fighting with the Chinese against the alien monsters. It was actually very entertaining and well done with the special effects. It just wasn't something I was expecting seeing this film titled The Great Wall. 

I watched it in two segments over a couple of days. I finished it this evening.