Turns Out The Great Wall Of China Was Built To Keep Out Dragons… And Maybe Matt Damon
Apparently it's got nothing to do with rabbits.
It took 1700 years to build, stretches for 5,500 miles (that’s 8,900 km) and according to the trailer of the new epic fantasy film The Great Wall, it was built to keep the dragons out.
The film, which looks like a cross between The Lord of the Rings and House of Flying Daggers, stars Matt Damon as some sort of mercenary leading an army of Chinese soldiers on The Great Wall of China. The trailer doesn’t give away much about the film other than the fact that features a lot of fighting, some sort of terrifying monster (probably a dragon) and looks completely absurd.
This is apparently why The Great Wall of China was built.
Far and away the weirdest bit of the film is the fact that it’s set in China, during the Northern Song Dynasty, takes place on and around The Great Wall, features an overwhelmingly Chinese cast, is directed by Chinese director (Zhang Yimou, responsible for Hero and House of Flying Daggers) and yet somehow the main character is Matt Damon, an incredibly, incredibly white dude.
The film’s producers haven’t released many details about the plot, so basically all we know is that there is some sort of war going on, The Great Wall of China is crucial to the story for some reason and there is some sort of fantastical beast involved. We only see it’s foot, and it looks kind of like a dragon but it could also be large, scaly hippogriff (ok, that’s unlikely).
The underlying theme of The Great Wall seems to be that the wall wasn’t built keep Mongol hordes at bay, like most people have been led to believe, or even to keep the rabbits out, but to stop marauding dragons. But hang on, how is a wall supposed to stop giant flying monsters? Can’t they just… fly over it?
Very little about this film makes sense, whether it’s Matt Damon or dragons that struggle to navigate walls. But it is directed by one of the most successful directors of all time and features music by Ramin Djawadi, the guy behind Game of Thrones’ epic theme song, so it can’t be terrible, right? And look, it could have been a lot worse. With a title like The Great Wall, there was always a chance of it morphing into a documentary about Donald Trump’s foreign policy.
Luckily, there’s no lunatic politicians in sight. Just a lot of epic looking fight scenes, a dragon and Matt Damon. For some reason.
The Great Wall hits cinemas in early 2017.