Krishna
This movie is a co-production of China and Hollywood. It stars some Hollywood stars (Matt Damon, William Defoe) and some Chinese megastars (Jing Tian, others).
It tells a famous legendary story related to how the Great Wall protected China from some monsters. It was adopted from a book. I have not read the story but the popular view was that the movie does not do justice to the story and mainly focuses on the action part rather than the story part.
What I can tell you is that it is a visual candy to see with lavish sets and breathtaking scenes. The whole movie is a period extravaganza, on the lines of Devdas from Bollywood or Clash Of The Titans of Hollywood. The action is good, the story sizzles and the whole movie has been made with no expenses spared in the setting or the special effects.
And Jian Tian is very easy on the eyes and does a great portrayal of the warrior maiden too. She plays Commander Lin Mae in the Chinese Imperial Army to Matt Damon as William Garin. Let us see the story.
William Garin, his friend Pero Tovar are riding in a desert. Spotted by bandits, they are pursued and hide out in a cave. We learn that they are after the Chinese secret of gunpowder, unknown to the western world then. They evade their pursuers but before they can leave, they are attacked by an apparently otherworldly being, and only Will and Pero survive. They manage to hack off an appendage of the creature (which was so fast that they could hardly see it) that looks roughly like a tentacle of an octopus.
They ride on towards the Great Wall and are arrested by the Nameless Order, the army of Imperial China. General Lin with others interrogates them and she finds it hard to believe that just two people could cut off the ‘hands’ of the monster that attacked them. They suspect them of stealing it but before they can meet out justice, they hear of the monster horde approaching to attack. They bind them and take them with the army to the top of the wall, where we see a massive horde of monsters coming to attack. Shorthanded, they are unbound when they offer to fight and they prove their worth in the battle.
There are spectacular scenes of the fight where the girls go down through some chords resembling bungee jumping to kill some of the monsters before being yanked back safely. They do it in unison a la synchronized swimming and with different coloured costumes for different soldiers, the effect is fantastic to watch.
OK, now I see why they say the film lacks depth or gravity but you cannot deny the visual excellence of the sets and the action scenes.
They have now proved their worth and are treated as guests rather than prisoners and there is a great feast held in their honour. There they meet Ballard, another Britisher(?) who had come before – also in search of the secret of the gunpowder – and was captured and kept. The trio hatch plans to escape with the gunpowder.
In further interrogation they realize that one of the things that differentiated William from the others in his lone fight with the monster earlier was the fact that he had a powerful magnetic stone in his pocket.
Right around this time, there is another attack by the monsters, who we learn are called Taotie and in that attack, though they manage to repel the invasion, General Shao who is in charge dies, naming Lin Mae as the new Commander. They also manage to capture one of the Taotie, mainly due to William’s daredevilry (Of course, he is the Hollywood hero Matt Damon; what did you expect?)
They try an experiment and realize that magnets temporarily immobilize the beast. They manage to trap one of the monsters and try the experiment on it, with success.
Now, there are lots more twists and actions in the movie. For instance there is the ‘emperor’ who is really a nine year old (reckless) boy who is simultaneously drawn to and is afraid of the captured monster.
We learn that William and Tovar are just bandits who wanted to sell the secret of gunpowder to the West to make money. They are not the heroes that we (and the Chinese army) thought. William is reluctant to leave when the army is in trouble – and he is very interested in Ling. Ling and he grow closer – but in respect to Oriental sentiments, there are no intimate scenes. The mutual attraction is implied rather than realized.
With William reluctant and even trying to stop them escaping, Ballard knocks him out and leaves during the frenzy of the battle. William is found by Lin who is furious that he is just a thief and wants to have him summarily executed. But a young soldier, who was previously saved by William, testifies to the fact that he saw William trying to stop the other two and being knocked unconscious before they left.
Tovar and Ballards escapade does not end well. They are pursued by the army and Ballard ditches Tovar to be captured and escapes. But he is ambushed by the original bandits – yes the ones we met in the first scene – and they, not knowing what his cargo contains, accidentally drop fire on it and blow everyone including themselves up.
We learn that the massive horde of Taotie is a horde with a single consciousness and is controlled by the Queen. The Queen is protected fiercely by the horde but she is the force that drives the full consciousness of the horde, somehow managing to communicate with them telepathically.
How they try repeatedly to immobilize and destroy the queen, how they fail repeatedly and how they succeed in the end is the rest of the story, every bit as wonderful to watch as the rest of the movie.
Incidentally, William is offered enough money to be rich for the rest of the life or the life of Tovar, and he chooses the latter. He also decided to leave with Tovar despite his growing attraction to the Commander, and hers to him. He is a hero after all, despite starting life as a thief.
Great sets, lovely heroine, good acting, lavish animation – what is there not to like? Too bad it was a ‘commercial failure’.
8/10
– – Krishna (March 2020)