The great wall netflix

“Imagine defending against monster beasts on the Great Wall. Imagine the Crusaders came to steal gunpowder from the Chinese during the Northern Song dynasty,” says Zhang Yimou of the period of history that inspired his latest feature The Great Wall.

“It’s whimsical and ingenious, beyond imagination and totally out of the box.”

At $135m, The Great Wall is billed as the most expensive film ever shot entirely in China. And while the film has been gathering plenty of buzz, its East-West storyline, China-US co-production structure, and the fact it has been shot in English are also under close scrutiny.

“It’s impossible for everyone to like the film,” says Zhang.

“But I hope there’s something for each audience, something the Chinese audience finds acceptable and the foreign audience feels comfortable with.”

Epic undertaking

Zhang was sent the script by Peter Loehr, CEO of Legendary East, the Beijing-based division of US-based Legendary Entertainment, in which China’s Dalian