The Great Wall

[GeneChing]

‘The Great Wall’ Isn’t Crumbling; Legendary East Pic Postpones Start Date Until Spring (http://www.deadline.com/2012/06/the-great-wall-pushes-production-start-until-spring/)
By MIKE FLEMING JR. | Sunday June 10, 2012 @ 6:05pm EDT

EXCLUSIVE: While Legendary Pictures just set Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter star Benjamin Walker on Friday to join Man of Steel‘s Henry Cavill in the Ed Zwick-directed The Great Wall, a decision has just been made to push from a fall start date until next spring.

Rumors have been racing this weekend that The Great Wall might be crumbling but I’m told that is not the case. In fact, casting on the film continues with Zhang Ziyi (pictured) and other Chinese talent is also being courted for the film.

The issue is weather. The film will shoot in locations in China and New Zealand, and logistically it will be easier to do this in the spring than if the picture keeps its fall start date. Insiders tell me the film will happen, even though a domestic distributor hasn’t yet been secured. It is meant to be the first major film to kick off Legendary East, and with every studio looking for opportunities to make films in China, the project certainly seems viable.

Set in 15th century China, The Great Wall is about British warriors who happen upon the hurried construction of the massive wall. As night falls, the warriors realize that the haste in building the wall isn’t just to keep out the Mongols — there is something inhuman and more dangerous. The picture is based on an idea by Legendary CEO Thomas Tull and Max Brooks.

Now, Legendary postponed the Alex Proyas epic Paradise Lost before eventually scrapping the picture over budget, but I’m persuaded the intention is to make The Great Wall happen.
Max Brooks is the son of Mel and the author of World War Z.

[GeneChing]

Andy Lau among idols joining Great Wall (http://www.filmbiz.asia/news/andy-lau-among-idols-joining-great-wall)

http://www.filmbiz.asia/media/BAhbB1sHOgZmSSIpMjAxNS8wMy8xMi8yMy80My81Ny8xNTQvYW 5keV9sYXUuanBnBjoGRVRbCDoGcDoKdGh1bWJJIg01MDB4MTAw MAY7BlQ?suffix=.jpg&sha=b4364190

By Kevin Ma

Fri, 13 March 2015, 14:50 PM (HKT)
Production News

The key international cast for ZHANG Yimou 張藝謀's The Great Wall 長城 has been announced.

A co-production between Legendary Pictures LLC, Universal Pictures Inc, China Film Group Corporation 中國電影集團公司 and Le Vision Pictures Co Ltd 樂視影業（北京）有限公司 , the Song Dynasty epic is about an elite force composed of European mercenaries and Chinese warriors battling a monster on the Great Wall.

Local media reported that Andy LAU 劉德華, Eddie PENG 彭于晏, ZHANG Hanyu 張涵予, JING Tian 景甜, Ryan ZHENG 鄭愷, former Korean boy band member Lu Han 鹿晗, LIN Gengxin 林更新, Cheney CHEN 陳學冬 and idol group TFBoys member WANG Junkai 王俊凯 make up the Chinese cast.

The casting was initially confirmed on the Le Vision Pictures' Weibo microblog, but the post was deleted. However, Lu Han's office confirmed the idol's casting on its own official Weibo account.

The Chinese actors will join Matt DAMON, Willem DAFOE and Pedro PASCAL. The film will be shot entirely in English.

With a reported budget over US$100 million, the film is set to begin production in the spring. Universal Pictures has set a 23 Nov 2016 release date in North America. LeVision and China Film Group will release the film in China.


I forgot about this project. Looks like it's building up some steam now.

[GeneChing]

Matt Damon's 'The Great Wall' Pushed to 2017 (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/matt-damons-great-wall-pushed-867421)
2:14 PM PST 2/18/2016 by Mia Galuppo

http://cdn3.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2016/01/gettyimages-504404638_0.jpg
Kevork Djansezian/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Zhang Yimou directs the Legendary project.

Universal is pushing The Great Wall to Feb. 17, 2017.

The Matt Damon action-adventure, which was originally slated to hit theaters on Nov. 23, will now rollout over next year's lucrative Presidents Day weekend. The move comes just days after Ryan Reynolds' superhero film Deadpool opened to a record-breaking $152.2 million, the biggest opening of all time for the holiday and the biggest ever for an R-rated movie.

The Great Wall will go up against Will Smith's Bad Boys 3 and the final film in the Maze Runner YA franchise, Maze Runner: The Death Cure.

The Legendary project is directed by House of Flying Daggers helmer Zhang Yimou and tells the story of an elite force making a valiant stand for humanity on the world’s most iconic structure. The pic is the first English-language production for Zhang and the largest film ever shot entirely in China.

The Great Wall also stars Pedro Pascal, Tian Jing, Andy Lau and Willem Dafoe.

Damon's gotta deliver Jason Bourne (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?68367-Jason-Bourne) to us first. :cool:

[PalmStriker]

:) Click on Video: http://io9.gizmodo.com/donald-trump-in-westeros-makes-a-disturbing-amount-of-s-1760418487

[GeneChing]

...if this is the film to breakthrough for China movies, with that title...Does anyone else see the humor in that?


How Matt Damon may kickstart China’s global movie ambitions (http://wtop.com/movies/2016/03/how-matt-damon-may-kickstart-chinas-global-movie-ambitions/)
By RYAN NAKASHIMA
March 7, 2016 1:16 pm

http://wtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/China-Hollywood-Ambitions-1880x1254.jpeg
In this July 2, 2015, file photo, movie director Zhang Yimou, right, speaks next to actor Matt Damon during a news conference of their latest movie "The Great Wall" held at a hotel in Beijing. If all goes according to plan, the film could be China’s first international blockbuster...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — China has a new ally in its campaign to turn itself into a global cultural superpower: Matt Damon. And, behind him, a good chunk of Hollywood as well.

Chinese leaders have long sought international cultural influence, aka “soft power,” commensurate with the nation’s economic might. That’s brought us official Confucian institutes scattered across the world, billions of dollars in development aid and awe-inspiring Olympic ceremonies. But China’s own film industry remains a mere flicker on the global screen.

Which is where Damon comes in. Early next year, the star of “The Martian” will headline “The Great Wall,” a historical epic filmed in China with Chinese and American stars, a famous Chinese director, a cast and crew of roughly 1,300, a $150 million budget and some nasty monsters. (Not to mention the support of the Chinese government.) If all goes according to plan, the film could be China’s first international blockbuster — one that might presage a wave of similar films intended to present a new face of China to the world.

That’s a lot to expect from a decidedly unusual action flick. In “The Great Wall,” Damon plays a wandering European mercenary in the pre-gunpowder era who stumbles across the titular structure and learns what it’s really for. (Hint: Those monsters might be involved.)

But film-industry types on both sides of the Pacific believe this kind of joint venture could open huge new opportunities for all sides. For Hollywood, it’s about expanding markets and investment; for the Chinese government and private companies alike, it’s about harnessing American stars and storytelling to help movies based on Chinese history, myths and cultural icons break out onto a global stage.

Chinese authorities “have not made any secret of their desire to spread and to encourage and to develop soft power,” says Rance Pow, president of Artisan Gateway, a Shanghai-based research firm that tracks the Chinese box office. Regaling the world with made-in-China blockbusters, he says, is one way to do so.

Hollywood naturally welcomes Chinese investment to help fuel its voracious movie-making machine. One Chinese company — conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group — snapped up an entire Hollywood studio, Legendary Entertainment, for $3.5 billion. Legendary just happens to be the studio behind “The Great Wall.”

Working with Chinese partners also offers a shortcut past rules that limit the distribution of foreign movies in China’s booming film market. That could open up a vast new territory to U.S. studios — at least so long as they play by China’s rules.

“For U.S. industry, these concessions are really about market access,” says Thilo Hanemann, an economist with Rhodium Group, a research firm focused on global trade flows and government policies.

Of course, plenty could still go wrong. There’s no guarantee that either “The Great Wall” or another half-dozen or so would-be Chinese blockbusters will wow either Chinese or global audiences. Some previous efforts along these lines have been global flops.

This time, both Chinese and American movie executives think they’ve got the formula right. The most successful attempt so far is “Kung Fu Panda 3,” which has pulled in $314 million, including an outsized $149 million in China. Unlike its predecessors, the third movie in the series was produced by a joint venture between the series’ original studio, DreamWorks Animation and Chinese investors, including state-backed China Media Capital.

The biggest draw for Tinseltown is China’s huge and expanding film market. Cinema attendance in the U.S. and Canada has been flat for a decade, but Chinese moviegoers are on a tear, snapping up tickets worth $6.8 billion in 2015, up nearly 50 percent from a year earlier. At that pace, China could eclipse the U.S. as the world’s largest film market as early as next year.

But tapping that market has been a challenge. Chinese regulators allow no more than 34 foreign films to screen in China every year — far fewer than filmmakers release in the U.S. every month — and impose multiple “blackout” periods during which none at all can be shown. Regulators vary the length of the blackouts so that Chinese-made films eke out a majority of the market every year, Artisan Gateway’s Pow says.

Films like “Kung Fu Panda 3″ and “The Great Wall,” however, get ushered to the front of the line. Because of their Chinese backers, the films qualify for prime release dates. Their backers also get to keep a bigger share of the box office than they ordinarily would.

So Hollywood has eagerly welcomed Chinese partners. From 2000 to 2015, Chinese direct investment in U.S. entertainment firms amounted to $4 billion, according to Rhodium Group. That pace then skyrocketed in January with Wanda’s purchase of Legendary, which almost doubled that total by itself.

Chinese studios and investors have pledged another several hundred million dollars for Hollywood film slates. Warner Bros., DreamWorks Animation and Universal have linked up with state-owned enterprises and private companies such as electronics maker LeEco and Internet giants Alibaba and Tencent.

That flood of Chinese cash makes possible epic films like “The Great Wall,” helmed by internationally acclaimed director Zhang Yimou and filmed at a multi-billion-dollar production facility still under construction in Qingdao on China’s eastern seaboard. Legendary plans eight more Chinese-themed projects with similar budgets, says Peter Loehr, CEO of Legendary’s wholly owned subsidiary Legendary East.

“We’re hoping this is a model that works and that we can recreate it often,” he says.

But the Western appetite for China-centric films remains uncertain. Consider “The Flowers of War,” a 2011 film about the Japanese army’s vicious 1937 sack of Nanking. Despite star Christian Bale and a $94 million budget, the movie pulled in less than $500,000 in the U.S., according to Box Office Mojo.

The brutality portrayed in the film turned off foreign audiences as a “kind of propaganda,” says Peter Li, managing director of CMC Capital Partners, a unit of China Media Capital.

Foreign co-productions could suffer a similar fate if they grow too heavy handed in an attempt to satisfy Chinese censors, who oversee all films released domestically. “If you promote socialist core values, you’re not going to succeed overseas,” says Stan Rosen, a University of Southern California political scientist.

___

Follow AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima at https://twitter.com/rnakashi . His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/ryan-nakashima

[GeneChing]

...but I just can NOT resist posting this here. :o


Why Trump's comparison of his wall to the Great Wall of China makes no sense (http://www.standard.net/National-Commentary/2016/03/09/Trump-GreatWallofChina-Mexico-border-wall-column-factchecker-Lee.html)
WEDNESDAY , MARCH 09, 2016 - 6:00 AM

http://www.standard.net/image/2016/03/08/800x_a16-9_b0_q80_p1/GOP-2016-Trump-Border-Wall.jpg
Image by: AP
In this March 7, 2016, photo, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Concord, N.C. Can Trump really make good on his promise to build a wall along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexican border to prevent illegal migration? What’s more, can he make Mexico pay for it? Sure, he can build it, but it’s not nearly as simple as he says. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

MICHELLE YE HEE LEE, The Washington Post

"The wall is going to cost $10 billion. It's so easy. . . . They say you'll never be able to build a wall. Well, it's 2,000 miles but we really need 1,000 miles. The Great Wall of China, built 2,000 years ago, is 13,000 miles, folks. . . . They didn't have cranes. They didn't have excavation equipment. The wall is 13,000 miles long. We need 1,000 miles and we have all of the materials."

— Donald Trump, news conference at Mar-a-Lago, March 1, 2016

"Two thousand years ago, China built the Great Wall of China. This is a serious wall. And they didn't have Caterpillar tractors. . . . But they didn't have the equipment. And they built a wall. Think of this: 13,000 miles long, and this is a serious wall, okay? This wall is wide."

— Trump, campaign event at Liberty University, Jan. 18, 2016

As we all know by now, Trump wants to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. China did it, after all, and Trump's wall will only be a fraction of what the Chinese built, he frequently explains. And the Chinese didn't even have the building materials we do now!

We get why it's easy to hearken the world heritage site whose name contains two of Trump's favorite words ("great," "wall"), as it may seem like an iconic physical barrier erected to protect a country's borders. But this is a moot comparison, as history buffs know.

Trump keeps making the comparison anyway, and he has done so since early on his campaign, joking that he would name the wall the "Great Wall of Trump." And he insists on a questionable estimate for the cost of his wall, which we have debunked. Let's look at the facts.

The Facts

Unlike what its name implies, the Great Wall of China is actually a non-contiguous series of walls, trenches, natural barriers and fortresses built in different locations along the border between northern China and southern Mongolia.

It took a long time to build — over dynasties. The earliest construction of fortifications dates to the Warring States period from the 7th through the 4th century B.C., and the Qin Dynasty of 3rd century B.C. to protect against foreign invaders. The fortifications and castles were used to control commerce or prevent rebellions under Mongolian control of China.

The majority of what we consider now as the Great Wall was built over some two centuries from 1368-1644 during the Ming Dynasty, after Beijing was made the new capital of China.

The Ming Dynasty wall measures at 5,499 miles — of which 3,889 miles (70 percent) were actual wall. The figure that Trump uses (13,000 miles) is the updated calculation of the entire wall system combined, including watchtowers, trenches and natural defensive barriers like rivers and hills.

Ming rulers invested in its construction to prevent future attacks from Mongols from the north and to deny a trade relationship with barbaric nomads attacking Chinese farmers for grain and other products.

"They are better understood as capital rather than national defenses. Vast amounts of money were spent and they had some effect. But late in the [Ming] dynasty, a genius of a minister decided to permit markets to serve the nomads — and defense expenses collapsed," said Arthur Waldron, University of Pennsylvania historian in Chinese studies and author of "The Great Wall of China: From History to Myth."

Plus, it wasn't an effective security barrier. As our colleague Ishaan Tharoor wrote: "The Great Wall of China, for all its majesty, was very porous. While a towering monument to Chinese civilization, it was hardly impregnable. The Mongols, Manchus and others all breached this great defense and went on to establish their dominion behind its ramparts. Perhaps that's the best way for Trump to understand the Great Wall's significance — not as a security barrier, but as a work of political propaganda."

Trump says the Chinese were able to build the wall even without imported equipment, like Caterpillar tractors. Sure. The Chinese didn't have tractors, but they did use forced labor of peasants, criminals and soldiers.

Labor conditions were so appalling that some 400,000 people are estimated to have died building the wall. The longest human construction project in history was also called the "longest cemetery on Earth" when it was being built.

In Chinese poetry and through most of Chinese history, the wall was a negative symbol of oppression, cruelty and death, Waldron said — the wall as a symbol of strength and resourcefulness is a part of the myth and misconception of its true history.

Trump says he would only need to build 1,000 miles of new walls along the U.S.-Mexico border because there are "natural barriers." Border security experts say he is most likely is referring to the deserts along the border, where many migrants have died.

Trump continues to assert that the wall would cost $10 billion, without providing any serious discussion of the costs. But that's simply not credible.

For major government projects, $10 billion is not a huge sum. The cost of 1,000 miles of fences — not even a concrete wall — is at least $3 billion. That's not even including the upkeep and maintenance. The Corps of Engineers estimated that the 25-year life cycle cost of the fence would range from $16.4 million to $70 million per mile; the total cost of the fencing so far has been $7 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.

A concrete wall would cost much more than that. We updated calculations done by a structural engineer in an article in The National Memo and found raw materials alone would cost $2 billion. A retired estimator and economist for one of the nation's largest construction firms worked through some of the math and said a wall of this type would cost at least $25 billion. That's not even counting the video system to keep watch on the border.

The border is much harder today to cross than in the past, experts said, thanks to a mix of the proliferation of fencing and walls, increased Border Patrol presence, aerial surveillance and ground sensors. New walls alone wouldn't help increase security, as a physical barrier is just one portion of border security.

Increased enforcement efforts along the border may explain about 35 to 40 percent of the decline in illegal immigration flow, said Edward Alden, trade policy expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. Trump's wall is "a rhetorical talking point and a half-thought-out idea that sounds good to people who don't understand what they're talking about," Alden said.

The focus on building a wall overlooks many of the other reasons that have led to the number of unauthorized migrants in the country, experts say. Walls are not impregnable — as shown in the example of the Great Wall of China — and simply putting more of it up doesn't help. "You're dealing with symptoms. You've really got to look at the deeper issue of immigrant labor that our economy uses," said Nestor Rodriguez, University of Texas at Austin professor and immigration researcher.

The Pinocchio Test

Unless Trump is running to be the emperor of the United States and plans to build a series of fortresses, walls and trenches that will be added on to for dynasties to come beyond a Trump Dynasty, he should really drop this nonsense assertion. It is an apples-to-oranges comparison that shows the Republican front-runner's lack of understanding of the history behind the Great Wall of China, which was built over many millennia to meet a variety of commerce and defensive needs of certain dynasties. And as a security measure, it was not an effective barrier.

Moreover, Trump continues to assert a questionable estimate for his wall that is much lower than experts have calculated. As we've said before, we welcome a serious discussion of costs and benefits of building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, rather than wild rhetoric. Neither his comparison to China nor the wall estimate is rooted in any factual basis.

Three Pinocchios.

Michelle Ye Hee Lee reports for The Fact Checker at The Washington POst. Twitter: @myhlee.

[GeneChing]

This sounds great! I love monsters, especially out of Chinese mythology.


Matt Damon's Olympic Monster Movie (http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/movie-news/matt-damons-olympic-monnster-movie-932241.html)
25 March 2016

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/image-library/partners/bang/land/500/m/matt-damon-da06c431624775838bc62dfbd5e6485602eb5167.jpg
Matt Damon

Matt Damon thinks 'The Great Wall' is like "the Beijing Olympics with monsters".

Damon may not be able to communicate directly with director Zhang Yimou but has always understood his vision for the historic fantasy and thinks their project is "next-level insane".

He said: "It's amazing. Zhang Yimou doesn't speak a lick of English and I don't speak any Mandarin. But we both have made movies our entire adult lives, so I always know where he's coming from. The guy is a genius.

"It's basically a historical fantasy monster movie but with Zhang Yimou directing.

"It's next-level insane. The shot making is so exciting.

"Having done this for 25 years, to watch hi work is just amazing. He directed the Beijing Olympics [opening ceremony in 2008]. It's like the film version of the Beijing Olympics but with monsters."

Matt - who stars alongside Pedro Pascal, Andy Lau and Willem Defoe in the film - plays a mercenary who gets captured and wants to help defend China against the rise of mythical monsters.

He explained to Total Film magazine: "It takes place around 15AD and I play a mercenary who has gone to northern China to steal gunpowder.

"The movie starts with him being pursued by these nomad tribesman who are going to kill him.

"They are a group of Chinese soldiers whose job it is to defend the wall because every 60 years these monsters out of Chinese mythology rise up and assault the wall, and try to break through to take over and kill everyone.

"Some of these soldiers living and die without ever seeing these beasts. They live to defend China.

"Pedro and I get captured by the army on the eve of an attack and prove ourselves worthy of helping in the defence of the wall."

[PalmStriker]

:) This movie has already attained BlockBuster Status as far as I can see. They know they can't botch this one with an overplayed hokey storyline. Will be awesome !

[GeneChing]

2016 Cannes is on - official site (http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en.html)

We'll start with a Chinese Cannes darling, Zhang Yimou. :cool:


Zhang Yimou’s ‘Great’ Adventure (http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/zhang-yimous-great-adventure-1201771409/)
Vivienne Chow

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/zhang-yimous-great-adventure-matt-damon.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
Zhang Yimous Great Adventure Matt Damon AP IMAGES

MAY 11, 2016 | 09:44AM PT

At an age when most men might prefer to slow down, Zhang Yimou is set to take on a string of global-scale projects that will venture beyond cinema.

These projects aren’t just ambitious and lucrative for Zhang, according to China film observers. They’re also widely viewed as key projects capable of exporting China’s soft power and competing for high-profile accolades. The latter goal would seem to be well within reach of Zhang, a two-time Golden Lion winner at the prestigious Venice Film Festival.

The iconic Fifth Generation director is in post-production on “The Great Wall,” his first English-language film. With a budget of $135 million, it stars Matt Damon, Andy Lau and Zhang Hanyu.

Zhang previously enjoyed great box office success with his 2003 martial arts epic “Hero,” which raked in 250 million yuan ($41 million) in China — more than three times what he had expected — and $177 million worldwide. Afterward, “House of Flying Daggers” and “Curse of the Golden Flower” followed a similar formula of major box office success as well as enthusiasm from the world’s critics, especially “Daggers,” which grossed nearly $100 million worldwide and boasts a 95% Rotten Tomatoes rating.

But Zhang’s current large-scale productions also require the popular success that may have left some fans of his earlier, more artistically daring films wishing for a return to his auteur roots. But Zhang’s priorities are clear. “The ultimate purpose of a film is to enchant the audience. If it scoops up many awards, but attracts very few moviegoers, it is still a failure,” Zhang told UCLA’s Asia Pacific Arts.

Zhang’s upcoming projects also include directing the opening and closing ceremonies of the November G20 Summit in Hangzhou, China, and a new company, SoReal, which Zhang says will develop interactive games and possibly VR films.

Ma Fung-kwok, who was a producer of one of Zhang’s most acclaimed films, “The Story of Qiu Ju,” says as China grew into a world economic powerhouse, the country was in pressing need to “showcase its soft power.” Ma, now a politician, says, “Zhang’s strength in visuals can help bring the images of China to an international audience.”

[GeneChing]

Netizens in uproar over man destroying Great Wall (http://english.chinamil.com.cn/news-channels/2016-07/21/content_7166988.htm)

Source: ECNS.CNEditor: Ouyang
2016-07-21 10:513

http://i2.chinamil.com.cn/i2/attachement/jpg/site2/20160721/8cdcd430086f18fa7e941b.jpg

A screen shot of the six-second video

A six-second video of a man knocking two bricks off a section of the Great Wall of China has caused a stir online, with netizens expressing strong criticism, the Legal Evening News reported on Tuesday.

The short-haired man, who wore a white shirt, light grey shorts and brown sandals, screamed nine times in six seconds as he knocked off one brick with his hands and another with a kick of his right foot.

The section of the Great Wall in the video looked desolate and in a state of disrepair.

At the end, the man posed to conclude his "feat". Another man, who stood nearby to shoot the video, commented: "It was not easy for Emperor Qin Shihuang to build the Great Wall, and he has come to destroy it."

The Chinese Law on Protection of Cultural Relics stipulates that those who willfully or negligently cause damage to the country's cultural relics can be charged and punished according to law.

Dong Yaohui, the vice president of the China Great Wall Society, said the section of the Great Wall in the video could be the Dapanying Great Wall located in Huailai County, Hebei Province.

According to Dong, the Dapanying Great Wall was built during the Ming dynasty, not the Qin dynasty. It is a wild section of the Great Wall that has not undergone repair and does not have around-the-clock monitoring.

idiots. everywhere. the headline below makes it worse. :o


Video: Brazen vandal filmed 'kung fu' kicking a section of Great Wall of China (https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/world/video-brazen-vandal-filmed-kung-fu-kicking-section-great-wall-china)
Sat, Jul 23 Source:One News
Police in China are looking for a brazen vandal who was filmed destroying part of what appears to be the Great Wall of China.
In footage posted online on July 19 the man is filmed kicking at a crumbled section of the centuries-old stone structure while pulling kung fu poses, the People's Daily Online has reported.
It all seemed to be a great joke for the man, who also tore away sections of the wall and let them tumble to the ground while his friend behind the camera laughed.
The section of the Great Wall in the video looked desolate and in a state of disrepair.
Another man, who stood nearby to shoot the video, commented, "it was not easy for Emperor Qin Shihuang to build the Great Wall, and he has come to destroy it".
The Chinese Law on Protection of Cultural Relics stipulates that those who wilfully or negligently cause damage to the country's cultural relics can be charged and punished according to law.
Dong Yaohui, the vice president of the China Great Wall Society, said the section of the Great Wall in the video could be the Dapanying Great Wall located in Huailai County.

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dr7LYG9E8VM

Official site (http://www.thegreatwallmovie.com/)

[PalmStriker]

:) UPGRADE STATUS : http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36921328

[GeneChing]

While I respect Constance Wu, I think she jumped the shark on this one. Who knows if Damon will be the great white hope? Take Netflix's Marco Polo (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?62877-Marco-Polo-Netflix-Original-Series), the ultimate historical whitewashing (especially if you've actually read Travels) but I wouldn't call that project whitewashing. If anything, Polo's character is downplayed. He's second stage to the Asian leads.


Matt Damon Movie Slammed For 'Whitewashing' (http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/movie-news/matt-damon-movie-slammed-whitewashing-970593.html)
31 July 2016
http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/image-library/partners/bang/land/500/m/matt-damon-at-the-martian-premiere-ee1e598d32ec3f5326d0abb8d.jpg.pagespeed.ce.kMde2Wj Eud.jpg
Matt Damon

Matt Damon has been slammed for his new movie 'The Great Wall'.

Damon plays a soldier in ancient China, who helps to battle against an ancient monster, in the English-language film directed by Zhang Yimou, and the movie has been accused of "whitewashing".

Taiwanese-American actress Constance Wu took to Twitter to insist, "We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world.

"Can we all at least agree that hero-bias & "but it's really hard to finance" are no longer excuses for racism? TRY (sic)."

And 'Fresh Off The Boat' star Constance posted a lengthy statement, which read: "On The Great Wall. Our heroes don't look like Matt Damon. They look like Malala. Ghandi. Mandela. Your big sister when she stood up for you to those bullies that one time. We don't need salvation. We like our color and our culture and our strengths and our own stories.

"Money is the lamest excuse in the history of being human. So is blaming the Chinese investors. (POC's choices can be based on unconscious bias too) Remember it's not about blaming individuals, which will only lead to soothing their lame "b-but I had good intentions! but...money!" microaggressive excuses (sic)."

She also hit out at "implied racism", explaining: "It's about pointing out the repeatedly implied racist notion that white people are superior to POC and that POC need salvation from our own color via white strength. When you consistently make movies like this, you ARE saying that. YOU ARE. Yes, YOU ARE. YES YOU ARE. Yes, dude, you f**king ARE. Whether you intend to or not. We don't need salvation. We like our color and our culture and our own strengths and our own stories. (If we don't, we should) We don't need you to save us from anything. And we're rrrreally starting to get sick of you telling us, explicitly or implicitly, that we do.

"Think only a huge movie star can sell a movie? That that has NEVER been a total guarantee. Why not TRY to be better? If white actors are forgiven for having a box office failure once in a while, why can't a POC sometimes have one? And how COOL would it be if you were the movie that took the "risk" to make a POC as your hero, and you sold the s**t out of it?! (sic)."

'The Great Wall' is set for release in China in February, 2017, and in the US two months later.

[GeneChing]

This has also become our Great Wall thread by default. Maybe some day, I'll split them.



JULY 30, 2016
THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA IS DISAPPEARING, BRICK BY BRICK (http://www.inquisitr.com/3364519/the-great-wall-of-china-is-disappearing-brick-by-brick/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+google%2FyDYq+%28The+Inquisit r+-+News%29)
ANNE SEWELL

The Great Wall of China is a well-known UNESCO site and popular tourist destination. However, the wall is gradually being eroded away, as people steal bricks as souvenirs, or to build homes. Now China is taking action to stop this erosion.

While the Great Wall is not a single, unbroken structure, it is estimated to extend some 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) in total. The wall stretches for thousands of miles in sections, from the east coast of China all the way to the edge of the Gobi desert.

Construction of the massive defense wall started in the third century BC, but almost 6,300 kilometers were built during the Ming Dynasty from 1368-1644, including the most-visited and popular sections just north of China’s capital, Beijing.

After bricks started to go missing from the Great Wall around ten years ago, China introduced protection laws, but the problem still continues. The protection campaign, dubbed the “Great Wall Protection Code,” was launched after the rise in tourism and the idea of stealing bricks to build houses took away around a third of the UNESCO site. Natural erosion has also left its mark.

As reported by the Guardian, further and more stringent laws were introduced, but according to Chinese state media, around 30 percent of the wall has disappeared over the years.

While the country handed out fines of 5,000 yuan to anyone taking Great Wall bricks, poor villages in Lulong county in the northern province of Hebei were known to knock out thick, grey bricks from a section of the wall in their village in order to build homes.

There’s also vandalism. As reported recently by the Inquisitr, destruction of part of the Great Wall was captured on video. The footage, which went viral, showed an Asian man kicking at the wall. In other parts of the video footage, the man could be seen forcibly removing a brick from the wall, kicking it, thus causing another brick to fall and portions of the structure to crumble.

It turns out that person was just trying to gain attention on social media and handed himself in, but more damage continues on a regular basis.



https://o.twimg.com/2/proxy.jpg?t=HBh_aHR0cDovL3d3dy50ZWxlZ3JhcGguY28udW svY29udGVudC9kYW0vbmV3cy8yMDE2LzA3LzI4L0dyZWF0X1dh bGwteGxhcmdlX3RyYW5zKyt0OWNRak5nUVhIQlkzZ1J3TTZUVG puWTVBX3RRWnVZdS1KYm56emZ4WmZvLmpwZxTCDxSOCBwUhAYU lAMAABYAEgA&s=PpLqIjZcqd_x34w5vBDrlt6aveRCaa_rM0yieblH4ig
The Great Wall of China
[Image via Flickr by Vin Crosbie/CC BY-ND 2.0]

While this problem continues, China is now taking action to prevent the loss of any more of its UNESCO heritage site. The State Administration of Cultural Heritage is forming “inspection groups to investigate the conservation situation of the Great Wall in each province,” according to a notice on the body’s website. With concerns that the country’s greatest historic site is being eroded away, the project will last until October this year.
As reported by the Telegraph, local culture official Li Yingnian told the Xinhua state news agency, “We need to invest more resources and money to conserve the Great Wall, particularly in those areas which have not been developed and are unable to make a profit (from tourism).”

However, it is not just loss of bricks from the Great Wall that is worrying. According to China’s Great Wall Society, they released a survey back in 2014 that warned that many of the towers along its expanse were also becoming increasingly shaky.

“It doesn’t have large-scale damage, but if you accumulate the different damaged parts, it is very serious,” said the society’s vice-chairman, Dong Yaohui. “The problem is we spend a lot of money on repairing the Great Wall instead of preserving the Great Wall.”

As the wall passes through 15 provinces and regions of the country, the checks will be carried out throughout, according to regulations, in an effort to prevent the further deterioration of the UNESCO world heritage site.

[GeneChing]

Hollywood Keeps Hiring White Men to Do an Asian's Job (http://www.vice.com/read/hollywood-keeps-hiring-white-men-to-do-an-asians-job)
By Chin Lu
July 31, 2016


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVw9YdP1O-0

Last week, Legendary Pictures released the trailer for The Great Wall, a new film about the Great Wall of China... starring Matt Damon. The plot appears to revolve around Damon's character, a white male protagonist, saving the Chinese people from the mythical doom that lurks beyond the wall.

It shouldn't be shocking that yet another "white man saves foreigners" Hollywood story is ****ing people off. We've been through this before (Gran Torino, City of Joy, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), not to mention all the examples of white people starring in films about Asian culture (Tom Cruise in The Last Samurai, Emma Stone in Aloha, Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell, and on and on). Just scroll through Twitter, and you'll find hundreds of people expressing their frustration—including Taiwanese American actress Constance Wu, who wrote: "We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world... When you consistently make movies like this, you ARE saying that."


Constance Wu ✔ @ConstanceWu
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CojN7lWUkAAz6Ak.jpg

Can we all at least agree that hero-bias & "but it's really hard to finance" are no longer excuses for racism? TRY
11:03 AM - 29 Jul 2016
15,063 15,063 Retweets 21,597 21,597 likes

While The Great Wall has secured Chinese director Zhang Yimou and the majority of the actors are Chinese, the six credited writers are all white American men. And in the trailer, even though there are plenty of Asian faces in the background, the only voice we hear is Damon's. It's not just about representation—it's about white people writing, starring in, and claiming stories about Asian culture.

In the wake of The Great Wall, Chinese Singaporean writer J. Y. Yang is hoping to flip the script. Yang is writing an alt-history novel centering on a Chinese Joan of Arc–type heroine saving white people—which she says is directly in response to the whitewashing of Asian culture in films like The Great Wall.I talked with Yang about her novel, representations of Asian culture in popular media, and why it's so important to let Asian people star in their own stories.

https://vice-images.vice.com/images/content-images-crops/2016/08/01/great-wall-of-china-matt-damon-whitewashing-body-image-1470068997-size_1000.png?resize=*:*&output-quality=75
Matt Damon in 'The Great Wall' trailer

VICE: Tell me a little bit about your background.
J. Y. Yang: I'm a Chinese Singaporean currently doing my master's in creative writing. I've been writing fiction professionally since 2014, and I just sold two novellas for the first time earlier this year. I write mostly sci-fi and fantasy.

How did you come up with the idea of writing a book with a storyline that's the opposite of The Great Wall?
I found out about the upcoming Matt Damon film through a friend who's Malaysian Chinese, and I assumed at first that he was a sidekick, which already made me sad. The Great Wall is one of China's great achievements! Then I watched the trailer, and it felt like a cloud of anger rolled over me, and I wanted to do something about this. Then it hit me: I should write a historical fiction out of spite.

What about the trailer made you the most upset?
I think a lot of people were really excited about the prospect of a monster film about the Great Wall of China; then they found out about the casting, the screenwriters, and the plot summary. It's such an old story trope: A white person demonstrating superiority over Asians. I've been annoyed by this centering of white narratives for many years, and there's the context of Hollywood being a racist industry with whitewashing as well.



jen yamato ✔ @jenyamato
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Coi4VPaXgAERtrl.jpg

1700 years to build, just for Matt Damon to come save it. How problematic is #TheGreatWall? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/29/matt-damon-whitewashes-chinese-history-in-the-great-wall.html …
9:13 AM - 29 Jul 2016
377 377 Retweets 377 377 likes

What would you say to those who argue, "Hey, this is not a documentary—it's a fantasy film."
Yes, I know this story is not real. But the context here is the history of Western imperialism in Asia, and how white narratives are always centered even in stories set in Asia. This status quo devalues Asian cultures. Part of the reason I want to write fiction about a Chinese woman saving Europeans was to mess with one of the "sacred cows" of Western history and culture, Joan of Arc, because I know people will react with: "That is disrespectful! You can't do this!" Yet it seems like Western heroes are valued, while apparently Asian cultures can be something randomly picked and chosen from like Memoirs of a Geisha. The industry doesn't seem to care about the authenticity of Asian cultures represented yet when it comes to Western cultures; it's all about preservation. For instance, Hollywood movies about World War I make sure to be historically accurate.


"It's such an old story trope: A white person demonstrating superiority over Asians." — J. Y. Yang

What about the fact that Zhang Yimou is the director? Does that change anything?

I read in an interview with Zhang that he's trying to use this film to bring Chinese culture to America through this blockbuster, but [we saw that] done years ago with his House of Flying Daggers and with Crouching Dragon, Hidden Dragon—both of which were cast with all Chinese actors and written with all Chinese characters, and did well at the box office.

This is not a new thing. This has been going on for years along. There was that movie [The Impossible in 2012 with Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor] about a real tsunami that happened in South Asia, yet the story was centered on the white people vacationing there. Recently, we've had so much whitewashing, too: Ghost in the Shell and Dr. Strange. There were so many that I cannot remember all of them right now.

I looked into how the local Chinese press was covering the Great Wall film, and I found this interview where lead producer Peter Loehr was asked how the idea for the film came about: He said the chairman of Legendary Pictures, Thomas Tull, was on a plane, looked outside the window, and saw the Great Wall of China. And he thought it was such an impressive structure that it should be turned into a film, so Tull contacted screenwriter Max Brooks to write a rough storyline. This seems troubling to me—as if Loehr had never considered the Great Wall's existence before—and his first instinct was not to contact a Chinese or Chinese American screenwriter.
Right. And again, it's not just about white actors taking Asian roles. It's also about the centering of white narratives. The appeal for me to start writing my own historical fiction is to base it on actual history, and I'm so excited to do all the research about 15th-century European history for Joan of Arc and the Ming Dynasty. This is part of my Chinese heritage, and this would be a new way for me to connect to my heritage.

For those who are upset but are not writers or filmmakers themselves, do you have any advice on how to channel their frustrations constructively?
Buy my book when it comes out! I'm only kidding. Please support writers and filmmakers who are marginalized. Talk and debate about the importance of diversity. I think one of the best ways to influence is with your money is to let Hollywood know that we don't accept this, that we want genuine stories from authentic perspectives.

More news on Legendary today here (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?69324-Wanda-amp-AMC&p=1295268#post1295268).

[GeneChing]

The Great Wall director addresses Matt Damon whitewashing controversy — exclusive (http://www.ew.com/article/2016/08/04/great-wall-director-addresses-whitewashing-controversy-matt-damon)
The movie 'is the opposite of what is being suggested,' Zhang Yimou tells EW
BY JOE MCGOVERN • @JMCGVRN

http://www.ew.com/sites/default/files/styles/tout_image_612x380/public/i/2016/08/04/zhang-yimou.jpg?itok=GIV3GJW2
(Chris Weeks/Getty Images)
The Great Wall
Posted August 4 2016 — 12:50 PM EDT

On July 28, acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) released the first photos and trailer of his — and his country’s — most expensive movie ever. Many audiences were surprised to see that The Great Wall was not about the construction of China’s 5,500-mile long Wonder of the World, but instead a full-fledged monster movie.

But many more were surprised and disappointed that the film, set about 1,000 years ago, starred white American actor Matt Damon. In a lengthy tweet posted one day after the trailer debut, Fresh Off the Boat star Constance Wu criticized the project for “perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world” and wrote, “Our heroes don’t look like Matt Damon.”

In a statement provided exclusively to EW, Zhang addresses the controversy, explaining that Damon’s character serves an important plot point, and defends his film against charges of racism. Read his full statement below.


In many ways The Great Wall is the opposite of what is being suggested. For the first time, a film deeply rooted in Chinese culture, with one of the largest Chinese casts ever assembled, is being made at tent pole scale for a world audience. I believe that is a trend that should be embraced by our industry. Our film is not about the construction of the Great Wall. Matt Damon is not playing a role that was originally conceived for a Chinese actor. The arrival of his character in our story is an important plot point. There are five major heroes in our story and he is one of them — the other four are all Chinese. The collective struggle and sacrifice of these heroes are the emotional heart of our film. As the director of over 20 Chinese language films and the Beijing Olympics, I have not and will not cast a film in a way that was untrue to my artistic vision. I hope when everyone sees the film and is armed with the facts they will agree.

As I suspected....

[GeneChing]

If nothing else, this film is buzzing with silly superlatives.


'The Great Wall' star Eddie Peng touted as the next Bruce Lee (http://en.yibada.com/articles/151713/20160815/great-wall-star-eddie-peng-touted-next-bruce-lee.htm)
Maolen E. | Aug 15, 2016 02:40 PM EDT

http://images.en.yibada.com/data/thumbs/full/120624/685/0/0/0/eddie-peng-poses-for-a-picture-on-the-red-carpet-at-the-18th-shanghai-international-film-festival-on-june-13-2015-in-shanghai-china.jpg
Eddie Peng poses for a picture on the red carpet at The 18th Shanghai International Film Festival on June 13, 2015 in Shanghai, China. (Photo : Getty Images/Kevin Lee)

Taiwanese actor Eddie Peng, who is set to star in "The Great Wall" film, has been touted to be the next Bruce Lee. Interestingly, the 34-year-old actor has his sights set on breaking into Hollywood as the next enormous martial arts film export.

Peng, who was born in Taiwan before moving to Canada at the age of thirteen, had been making clamor in the Hollywood and China's film industry. In a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph, Peng admitted that he has huge plans in Hollywood.
"A couple of years ago I started to learn martial arts and Kung Fu basically because of the role I took," he explained. "You know we all have a Kung Fu dream, right. We all like Bruce Lee. I grew up with Bruce Lee, I grew with Jackie Chan movies, so when I got the chance to do Kung Fu, I was like, 'I've got to do something here, I've got to learn something'."
Although learning Kung Fu is not easy as it seems, the "Rise of the Legend" actor expressed how fortunate he is to learn something from it. He then revealed that he does all his own stunts, stressing, "In Asia, they really want to see your face, it is not like Hollywood movies where you have the stuntmen and four doubles for one shot."
Peng will star in the upcoming American-Chinese 3D epic science fantasy monster adventure action film, "The Great Wall," alongside Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Jing Tian, Andy Lau and Willem Dafoe. The film apparently allowed Peng to showcase some of his martial arts expertise.
Peng also hopes that "The Great Wall" film will open ways to a Hollywood industry that is looking at off the inexorably lucrative Chinese market. Set in the Northern Song Dynasty, "The Great Wall" revolves around an elite force of soldiers, who make a last stand for mankind against a slew of legendary creatures.
With a reported total budget of $135 million, the upcoming epic science fantasy film is said to be the most expensive and the greatest American-Chinese co-production to date.
"This is the biggest movie I've ever been involved with," Los Angeles Times quoted Damon as saying before a group of reporters, adding that the viewers will surely be in for some "fun surprises" once they see the film's version of the Great Wall.

[Jimbo]

"The Next Bruce Lee"? Really?

There can never be another Bruce Lee (or Jackie or Sammo or whoever). And even if there could be, it certainly wouldn't be Eddie Peng. I thought his movie Rise of the Legend was pretty good, but on second viewing it was obvious how they used quick-cut edits, wirework and CGI to mask his rather limited MA skills, double or no double. Of course, an actor does not need to be a high-level MA expert to look passable or even quite good on film. However, to even be considered in the same light as Bruce Lee, your ability at performing MA onscreen cannot rely on clever editing and FX.

And it's also quite common for very legitimate MAists to come across as mediocre in movies. I'm betting that the majority of top MMA fighters, as well as top Kung Fu teachers, would probably not look very spectacular onscreen, either, as screen fighting, screen charisma and at least fair acting ability for the camera are very different (in many ways opposite) from fighting in a ring/cage, or mastering a MA over a lifetime. Being a really good screen fighter, just like any type of acting or performing, requires a certain knack that not everybody has the potential for.

[GeneChing]

While I respect Constance Wu, I think she cried 'wolf' on this one. She jumped on a bandwagon, a bandwagon that I'm firmly riding, but fingered the wrong film. She wasn't looking at the whole picture, as we have been with this particular film, since 2012. She should really join our forum here. We'll allow her, even if she isn't a martial artist. ;)


‘The Great Wall’: Why The Matt Damon Whitewashing Is No Big Deal In China (http://www.indiewire.com/2016/08/the-great-wall-matt-damon-whitewashing-china-1201721259/)
Contrasting Chinese and U.S. reactions to Matt Damon's casting in "The Great Wall" underscore the difficulties co-productions have appealing to audiences in both countries.

Aaron Fox-Lerner
Aug 30, 2016 4:27 pm

http://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/the-great-wall1.jpg?w=780
Matt Damon is the star of “The Great Wall.”

It seems reasonable to expect that a movie called “The Great Wall,” billed as the biggest production in China’s filmmaking history, would feature Chinese actors. Instead, when Universal and Legendary released the trailer for Zhang Yimou’s film, the first face viewers saw was that of the decidedly white Matt Damon, fighting monsters atop the Middle Kingdom’s most famous monument.

In America, it was a call to arms in the battle against whitewashing, that curious tendency to insert Caucasian faces where history tells us there were none. “We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world,” wrote comedian and “Fresh Off the Boat” star Constance Wu in a lengthy, impassioned statement posted to Twitter. “Our heroes don’t look like Matt Damon.”

China had another take. There, the prevailing sentiment over the trespass on their national identity might best be described as a Whatevs.

On Weibo, essentially China’s Twitter (the social media service is banned there), searches relating to “The Great Wall” and whitewashing in Chinese turn up only a few dozen responses at most. Many posts are simply articles explaining the American controversy for Chinese readers. Even of those, most are focused on director Zhang Yimou’s defense of the film, rather than Wu’s criticism of it.

Why the collective shrug? “In China, Chinese are the majority,” said Sally Ye, a Chinese-American producer who has worked in China for more than a decade. “They don’t have this feeling of representation which people of minority backgrounds would feel in the United States.”

Added Wang Xiaoyi, film editor for the Chinese-language Time Out Beijing, “So out of five heroes, there’s one who’s not Chinese.”

However, while the US perceives the film is about Matt Damon saving China, people in China think he’s just one character out of many. Early marketing in the two countries has been markedly different.

In the US, Damon’s face occupies most of the poster, with the titular wall merely a detail over his shoulder. The film’s synopsis on the official website also puts the American actor front and center: “Matt Damon leads humanity’s greatest fight for survival in ‘The Great Wall’ from Legendary and Universal Pictures.”

By contrast, China is much more interested in the screen debut of Chinese boy-band idol Wang Junkai, who appears alongside fellow boy-band-member-turned-actor Luhan and popular star Andy Lau. The Chinese trailer mixes in images of local actors early on, and a teaser poster from Zhang Yimou’s Weibo account also positions Damon in equal proportion to his co-stars.

“It’s just like how the new ‘Independence Day’ used Angelababy,” said Wang, referring to a popular Chinese star whose bit-part casting in the latest “Independence Day” movie was a clear play for the Chinese market. “Zhang Yimou chose Matt Damon because he didn’t want the movie’s audience to be limited to China.”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHLOEuUmd5M

The Damon comparison is a bit generous; Hollywood films ranging from “Mission Impossible – Rogue Nation” to “Iron Man 3” pander to China by creating marginal roles for Chinese stars (a move that’s inspired mockery both in the US and China). However, co-productions allow foreign companies to dodge barriers that prevent them from participating in the world’s second-largest moviegoing market. China has a 34-film quota on foreign productions, and also allows foreign studios to claim only 25% of a movie’s box office. If a movie has some Chinese participation, companies can circumvent these limits.

One of the few domestic hits in China this summer has been “Skiptrace,” an English-language action-comedy directed by action journeyman Renny Harlin (“Die Hard 2,” “Deep Blue Sea”) starring Jackie Chan and Johnny Knoxville. In the U.S., the film went to DirectTV July 28, with a theatrical run via Saban Films September 2; in China, it’s already has made over 800 million RMB (about 120 million dollars). Other co-productions have been even more explicitly aimed at Chinese audiences: 2015’s “Hollywood Adventures” was co-written and co-produced by the Taiwan-born Justin Lin and featured Chinese stars and dialogue, but it was directed by an American, Timothy Kendall, and shot almost entirely in Los Angeles. That film was also a success in China while remaining largely unknown outside it.

Other movies have gone “The Great Wall” route of shoehorning foreign stars into ancient Chinese settings. “Dragon Blade,” a 2015 epic about warring Roman factions in Han Dynasty-era China, featured John Cusack phoning it in, Adrian Brody hamming it up, and Jackie Chan sporting dreadlocks. It proved a box-office smash in China, while going practically unnoticed in the US. The critically maligned “Outcast” (2014) also sent stars Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen into historical China, this time as disillusioned medieval Crusaders.

Even for purely Chinese productions, foreign roles ranging from token to central have become commonplace. “When I first came to China, the people making movie and TV shows didn’t know any foreigners in real life,” Jonathan Kos-Read, a Chinese-speaking white actor who was born in Southern California but makes his living in films like “Mojin — The Lost Legend” and “IP Man 3” — productions targeted to the Chinese audience. “But now because there’s so many foreigners, most of the writers know a real foreigner … And the practical, artistic upshot of that is that they write better, more sophisticated foreign characters who are people before they’re foreigners.”

The trajectory of Kos-Read – who described himself to me as a “minority actor” – from stock clichés to more complex characters would be the envy of many Asian-American performers who find themselves faced with frustratingly stereotypical roles. While “The Great Wall” has been a flashpoint in America over the lack of Asian representation, for the Chinese film industry the main issue has been whether the movie will show growing internationalization can lead to success outside of China.

“The fact that you’re writing an article about ‘Great Wall’ is kind of a genuine change,” Kos-Read said. “If it works, that’s going to be great. It means a lot more of that is going to happen, and as an actor, it’ll mean a lot more work.”

Still, even with an American star and a Western writing team (among them Max Brooks, Tony Gilroy, and Marshall Herskovitz), Ye believes “The Great Wall” is aimed mainly at China, with the US as a secondary bonus. “I think they took China as priority,” she said, “but they don’t want to not have the US distribution, because it’s a huge, big-budget film.”

Censorship may be another reason why “The Great Wall” is not controversial in China; as a state-approved production, the government’s involvement might be enough to presume national respect. “I think that media in China, at least the ones who are going to drive word of mouth for ‘The Great Wall,’ will want ‘Great Wall’ to be a success,” said one Asian-American working for a large Chinese film company who wished to remain anonymous. “Right now SARFT [the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television] is more invested in showing that Chinese filmmakers can make a movie of Western standards than they are in undermining the kind of ideological fiber inside the movie itself.”

“The Great Wall” is clearly aimed at a level of international success beyond any prior Chinese film or co-production — and with it, a previously unknown level of scrutiny. As the anonymous film worker put it, even without its whitewashing controversy, “The Great Wall” is “a glaring example of how much people are willing to spend to make the co-production prove its viability.” The U.S. controversy over the movie’s casting shows just how hard that viability may be to achieve.

[GeneChing]

The Great Wall Poster is Here And Matt Damon Learned How to Fly (http://www.fiz-x.com/great-wall-poster-matt-damon-learned-fly/)
By FizX on September 8, 2016@fizx

http://i1.wp.com/www.fiz-x.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/great_wall_ver2_xlg.jpg?w=1015

Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures‘ The Great Wall new international poster is here, Starring Matt Damon.

The Great Wall tells the story of an elite force making a valiant stand for humanity on the world’s most iconic structure. The first English-language production for Yimou is the largest film ever shot entirely in China.

When a mercenary warrior (Damon) is imprisoned within The Great Wall, he discovers the mystery behind one of the greatest wonders of our world. As wave after wave of marauding beasts besiege the massive structure, his quest for fortune turns into a journey toward heroism as he joins a huge army of elite warriors to confront this unimaginable and seemingly unstoppable force.

The Great Wall will hit 3D screens on February 17, 2017.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around what this film is about, but I trust Zhang Yimou to deliver something engaging.

[GeneChing]

srlsy? oh man...


World's worst restoration? China's Great Wall covered in cement (http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/21/asia/great-wall-china-cement-repair/index.html)
By Ben Westcott and Serenitie Wang, CNN
Updated 9:47 AM ET, Wed September 21, 2016

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160921173651-01-china-great-wall-cement-repair-exlarge-169.jpg
A photo posted on China's internet showing the Great Wall repaired with cement.

Story highlights
Cement repair widely denounced online by angry netizens
Expert said the repairs had taken away "history"

(CNN)It's the repair job that's so ugly you can probably see it from space.
A 700-year-old "wild" stretch of China's Great Wall has been covered in a smooth, white trail of cement under orders from Suizhong county's Cultural Relics Bureau, Sina reported on Wednesday.
The repairs were carried out in 2014, but they only came to public attention recently.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160921180338-04-china-great-wall-repair-cement-medium-plus-169.jpg
Dong said the repair was done "very badly."

It was an effort to restore parts of the wall which have fallen into disrepair and are not open to the public, but the restoration has been met with condemnation by social media users and advocates.
The repair work took place near the border of Liaoning and Hebei province and photos of the results were widely shared by Beijing News on Weibo this week.
CNN has reached out to the local Heritage Conservation Bureau for comment.
Restoration 'took away history'
Chinese internet users have slammed the repair job, with the Weibo hashtag "The most beautiful, wild Great Wall flattened" trending online.
"Glad Venus de Milo is not in China, or someone would get her a new arm," one user said.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160921175409-03-china-great-wall-repair-cement-medium-plus-169.jpg
A photo from before China's Great Wall was cemented.

Great Wall of China Society deputy director Dong Yaohui said the restoration work had been done "very badly". "It damaged the original look of the Great Wall and took away the history from the people."
Dong said it was important for the Chinese government as a whole to regulate and streamline Great Wall restoration efforts.
"Although the local government was well intentioned and wanted to restore the bricks of the Wall, the result turned out to be the opposite."
Since 2006, the Great Wall Protection Ordinance in China introduced strict rules for the development of tourist destinations.

[GeneChing]

Here is the other side of the whitewashing wall.


Asian Films Looking to Cast More Hollywood Names (http://variety.com/2016/film/festivals/more-western-actors-courted-for-asian-films-1201880670/)
Vivienne Chow

http://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/matt-damon-the-great-wall.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
Matt Damon The Great Wall UNIVERSAL
OCTOBER 7, 2016 | 02:00AM PT

As China is eager to export its soft power to the world, more Hollywood faces have been cast in Chinese blockbusters in the hope of scoring global releases and winning the hearts of international audiences.

Despite China’s box office slowing down by 21% in the first half of 2016, the country’s film market saw a staggering rise over the past five years on its way to challenge the North America’s position as the world’s No. 1 movie market.

Chinese money is also set to reshape Hollywood through various acquisitions, such as Dalian Wanda Group’s 2012 buy of the AMC theater chain and purchase of Legendary Entertainment in January.

But there is only so much that money can buy. Chinese productions earned little recognition abroad in recent years. The only Chinese-language film that has ever won a foreign-language Oscar was 2000’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” but the Ang Lee film was billed as a Taiwanese film. The last mainland production that earned a nomination in the race was Zhang Yimou’s “Hero” in 2002.

“China wants to export its films to the world — especially the U.S. — as an achievement of its soft power, but no one wants to watch its films,” says producer and director Peter Tsi, who has helmed projects in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. “On the other hand, Hollywood is excited about getting into the China market, but the only way to achieve that is through co-production, and they must find subject matter that can resonate with the Chinese audience.”

The controversy surrounding the casting of Matt Damon as the lead in “The Great Wall” is the latest example. Helmer Zhang Yimou had to defend the decision to cast the Hollywood star in his first English-language production — also the first project emerged from Legendary Entertainment’s Legendary East and which cost $135 million — against “whitewashing” criticisms.

Tsi says in order to get Chinese productions distributed in North America and elsewhere, Hollywood faces are needed. “The only way to make it work is to arbitrarily cast a Hollywood actor or two so that U.S. distributors and exhibitors might consider screening them,” he says.

Even though it is China’s first film to reach the $500 million B.O. benchmark and the all-time highest-grossing film in the country, Stephen Chow’s fantasy blockbuster “The Mermaid,” which has a primarily Chinese cast, only had a limited release of 35 screens in the U.S. under Sony’s distribution.

Nevertheless, “The Great Wall” isn’t the first time a Western star has turned up in a Chinese movie. In fact the “Americanization” of Asian productions could be traced back to a 20-minute segment starring Raymond Burr that was edited into the original Japanese “Godzilla” (1954) before it was introduced to American audiences as “Godzilla: King of Monsters!” (1956).

Hong Kong led the trend in the early 2000s as partnerships with U.S. players began. Paul Rudd played an FBI agent in Hong Kong action blockbuster “Gen-Y Cops” (2000), which was produced by Hong Kong’s Media Asia and Regent Entertainment. The film was released in the U.S. in 2002 as “Metal Mayhem.” The 2000 action thriller “China Strike Force,” which had American company Astoria Films on board as one of the production companies alongside Asia’s Golden Harvest, starred Grammy-winning musician Coolio as a drug dealer.

Hong Kong-based Australian actor Gregory Rivers says many Western characters look arbitrary in Asian stories. “Sometimes [the story] doesn’t make sense,” says Rivers, who’s been working on Hong Kong films and TV for nearly 30 years. “Writers [in Asia] were not used to writing Western characters into their stories.”

But when it came to breaking into more and bigger markets, it became inevitable that characters of various nationalities had to be included in Chinese films. As mainland China began to cultivate its commercial cinema more than a decade ago, Donald Sutherland starred in Feng Xiaogang’s comedy “Big Shot’s Funeral” (2001), a collaboration between Columbia Pictures’ Asia arm, based in Hong Kong, and a string of Chinese companies including Huayi Bros.

More Hollywood faces appeared in Chinese productions over the past few years. Christian Bale starred in Zhang’s “The Flowers of War” in 2011. Adrien Brody was cast in Feng’s “Back to 1942” (2012), a Huayi Bros. production that got a U.S. release. Brody returned to China to join Jackie Chan and John Cusack in “Dragon Blade” (2015). Boxing legend Mike Tyson was cast as a crooked property developer in “Ip Man 3” (2015) and had fight scenes with Donnie Yen, who played the title wing chun master.

But before any conclusion can be drawn about “The Great Wall,” which will be released in China in December and in the U.S. by Universal in February, the casting of Bruce Willis in WWII epic “The Bombing” will get attention first. Jointly backed by the state-operated China Film Group and private investors, “The Bombing” has a reportedly $90 million budget. Willis is joined by Brody and an ensemble Asian cast including Korean star Song Seung-heon, Hong Kong actor-singer Nicholas Tse and mainland actor Liu Ye. It was scheduled for release on Sept. 30 in China.

“You want a movie that hits all markets at the same time and so you want to add a Korean or an American in the cast,” Rivers says. “But sometimes it doesn’t work like that.”

[GeneChing]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiGrLrj6gd4

[GeneChing]

'a f–king bummer'


Matt Damon Responds to ‘The Great Wall’ Whitewashing Controversy (http://screencrush.com/matt-damon-responds-great-wall-whitewashing-controversy/)
Erin Whitney | 2 days ago

http://screencrush.com/442/files/2016/10/great-wall-matt-damon.jpg?w=720&cdnnode=1
Universal Pictures

When the first teaser trailer for The Great Wall debuted this summer, much of the internet responded in a collective thinking face emoji, wondering, why is a white dude the hero of an action movie set in China?

It’s an criticism that’s circulated a lot this year Hollywood, especially around the the casting of Tilda Swinton in Doctor Strange, Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell, and Finn Jones in Iron Fist. The Great Wall, from Chinese director Zhang Yimou, is the most expensive movie ever made in China and follows Matt Damon defending the 13,000-mile wall against a monster attack. The Atlantic called out the film for whitewashing, while actress Constance Wu tweeted that the films need to “stop perpetuating the racist myth” of the white savior narrative.

During the press conference for The Great Wall following the film’s New York Comic-Con panel on Saturday, Damon was asked about his response the controversy. “It was a f–king bummer,” he said. But Damon wasn’t expecting the backlash, which he says he and the cast felt “wounded” by. “To me, whitewashing, I think of Chuck Connors when he played Geronimo.” The actor went on to defend the teaser, saying it’s too brief of a look to speak for the entire movie and shouldn’t be subjected to the same level of criticism:


They’re trying to establish a number of things in 30 seconds or a minute or whatever they have; it’s not a full length trailer, it’s a teaser. They’re trying to tease A, the monster. […] They’re trying to speak to a bigger audience. ‘You probably don’t know who this director is in Middle America, the Steven Spielberg of China. Don’t worry, they speak English in this movie’ – you hear my voice speaking English. ‘Don’t worry, Matt’s in the movie, you’ve seen this guy before.’ So they’re trying to establish all these things. And by the way, there are monsters. So there’s a lot of pipe they’re trying to lay in that 30 seconds.

Besides the limited footage in the teaser, Damon emphasized that the movie isn’t based on actual history, but on folklore. He said his co-star Pedro Pascal, (Narcos, Game of Thrones) called him after the backlash joking, “Yeah, we are guilty of whitewashing. We all know that only the Chinese defended the wall against the monsters when they attacked.” Pedro chimed in at the press conference to say that The Great Wall is still a film made from the perspective of a Chinese filmmaker:


We don’t want people to be kept from work that they wouldn’t have the opportunity otherwise, to see that it is very, very specifically Chinese. It’s Zhang Yimou’s lens. It is a creature feature. It’s a big, fantastical popcorn entertainment movie. But it has a visual style that is very very much his and his only.

By the look of the first full The Great Wall trailer that debuted at Comic-Con today, the movie certainly looks like Yimou’s work, with a use of color and stylistic visuals similar to the director’s Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Yimou, through a translator, mentioned earlier in the press conference that the film is based on an ancient Chinese fairy tale about a monster even older than dragons. Yimou responded to the controversy earlier this year telling Entertainment Weekly that Damon plays one of five heroes in the movie, four of which are Chinese characters. “Our film is not about the construction of the Great Wall. Matt Damon is not playing a role that was originally conceived for a Chinese actor,” Yimou said.

But while The Great Wall may be based on a made up story, does that disqualify it from criticisms of playing into the white savior trope? Damon added that he’s still open to criticism, but that he wants audiences to see the movie first:


Look, if people see this movie and feel like there’s some how whitewashing involved in a creature feature that we made up, I will listen to that with my whole heart. I will think about that and I will try to learn from that. I will be surprised if people see this movie and have that reaction, I will be genuinely shocked. It’s a perspective that, as a progressive person I really do agree with and try to listen to and try to be sensitive to, but ultimately I feel like you are undermining your own credibility when you attack something without seeing it. I think you have to educate yourself about what it is, and then make your attack, or your argument and then it’s easier to listen to just from our sides.

The Great Wall also stars Jing Tian, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau and Chinese boy band member Junkai Wang. The film hits theaters February 17, 2017.

[SPJ]

A good story with a great caste.

Will see when it is on Netflix.

Stopped buying DVDs.

Streaming from the web is the new norm.

Damon is sort of a gun slinger. and so much a sword wielder or bow drawer.

Well. It is Hollywood.

:cool:

[GeneChing]

"Public screenings begin from 7pm on Dec. 15, the evening before the official release date."


How a Monster-Sized Marketing Campaign was Built for China’s ‘Great Wall’ (EXCLUSIVE) (http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/monster-sized-marketing-for-china-great-wall-1201933255/)

Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/10/matt-damon-the-great-wall.jpg?w=670&h=377&crop=1
UNIVERSAL
DECEMBER 4, 2016 | 06:30PM PT

“The Great Wall” presents a whole series of firsts. It is the first movie made in English by ZhangYimou, China’s master of the big spectacle. Costing some $150 million it is possibly the biggest-budget Chinese film of all time. It is certainly the biggest Hollywood-Chinese co-production to data and is Matt Damon’s first Asian movie.

Additionally, it is the first picture to emerge from Legendary East, the Chinese wing of Thomas Tull’s – now Wanda-owned — Legendary Entertainment production powerhouse.

All that is another way of saying there is a lot at stake. And it is why the movie’s upcoming release in China is being delivered to market with an unprecedented marketing and promotional campaign.

“It is a new kind of film,” says producer Peter Loehr, and CEO of Legendary East. The action-fantasy-adventure movie has major elements of Western blockbuster cinema, yet is 20% in Chinese and is directed by Zhang, whose film credits include epic “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers. His track record mounting massive live events includes the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games, and the recent G20 Summit Conference in Hangzhou.

“This film is absolutely what I’ve spent 25 years of my career building up to,” says Beijing-based Loehr, who was previously a Chinese indie producer and later the China head of talent agency CAA.

Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, believes that the film can change the course of Chinese movies in international markets as well. “At Universal we are huge believers in a bright future for Chinese Cinema, fueled by the impressive recent growth of the Chinese theatrical marketplace. Our participation in ‘The Great Wall’ is very exciting to us. The combination of a tentpole scale Chinese-themed picture, the vision of the renowned filmmaker Zhang Yimou, the star power of Matt Damon and the enormous cast of talented Chinese actors make it the ideal vehicle to introduce Chinese creative product to the global audience,” Shell told Variety by email.

The film originated with a high concept idea – that the Great Wall of China only needed to be that size if it was built to keep out something far nastier than mere humans – from Legendary founder, Tull.

“It is not that I actually saw it from a plane. Rather when I was a little boy I heard that the only man-made object you could see from space was The Great Wall of China. Whether it is true or not, I could not conceive of the feat of engineering and ingenuity to build it. And I’ve been fascinated with it my whole life,” Tull says.

The film was shot in mid-2015 and Zhang has spent more than a year in post-production. The China release date of Dec. 16 puts it squarely at the height of peak season cinemagoing in the Middle Kingdom. It releases in North America on Feb. 17 next year with outings in international territories between those dates.

The lengthy post-production period gave plenty of time to cut visual material for promotion. Online marketing is much more important to film releases in China than in Western markets where posters and TV ads may dominate. Producers delivered more than 60 pieces of bespoke video for online consumption, in addition to a conventional trailer, a teaser trailer and three music videos. The trailers have played ahead of nearly every significant local and Hollywood film in Chinese theaters since Oct. 1.

Marketing in China shifted up a further gear with a major event called the “Five Armies Press Conference” on Nov. 15. “The film’s marketing is stretched over a series of events, introducing the film’s worlds in pieces, so that people get to know the concept progressively,” says Loehr. The Five Armies event introduced the battle groups, their leaders and the actors who play them as well as the unique weapons required to fight the film’s monsters.

That has been followed by the release of the first and second singles from the soundtrack. This week (Dec. 6) sees a large glitzy press conference in Beijing with the full cast in attendance, followed by a one day junket for domestic Chinese press, and then another for South East Asian press who are being flown in.

Along the way there will be further reveals about the creatures, their interaction with the human characters and the release of the final song. On Friday, the promotional action shifts to Shanghai for an event with more focus on the movie’s animation and proceeds going to the Great Wall Preservation Fund.

Screenings for Chinese press, friends-and-family and opinion leaders begin from Dec. 12. Public screenings begin from 7pm on Dec. 15, the evening before the official release date. Presentations will use an almost unprecedented combination of format including 2D, 3D, IMAX 2D and 3D, China Giant Screen, and 4DX, the Korean technology that sees supplementary content and screen extensions projected on a cinema’s side walls for a 270-degree effect.

The film was conceived and greenlighted even before Wanda acquired Legendary in the deal that was announced in January this year. Its four financier and presenters are Legendary, Universal Pictures, China Film Group and Le Vision Pictures.

The range of resources that Wanda can bring to bear – China’s largest cinema chain, distribution, and two marketing companies — elevate the film’s launch into a national event. China Film and Wanda’s Wuzhou Distribution firm are the distributors of record, while Legendary and Le Vision (part of the Le Eco group) oversee marketing and promotion.

“Where we might have had 8 people in a marketing meeting for ‘Pacific Rim’ or ‘Godzilla’ that expanded to 20 people on ‘Warcraft,’ including people from Wanda, Wanda Cinema Line and (social media giant) Tencent,” says Loehr. “Warcraft had a stellar opening and achieved a lifetime gross of $220 million, making it the third biggest film this year in China, a figure that dwarfed the $47.2 million it achieved in North America.

“For ‘The Great Wall’ we’ve held marketing and strategy meetings every Saturday with up to 60 people in the room from Legendary, Le Vision, CFG, Wanda Cinema, Tencent, China Movie Marketing Group, Mtime, Wanda Malls and Wanda’s real estate development team,” says Loehr. Some 260 of Wanda’s malls are putting on “Wall” events. Mtime, the movie ticketing and marketing firm Wanda acquired this year, is putting on “Dare to Dream” and Zhang Yimou exhibitions in a further 56 malls and CMMG will promote an augmented reality video game.

“If you are doing things that are formulaic, or that audiences feel they’ve seen before, it is going to be a hard sell,” says Tull. “The canvas and some of what Zhang accomplished is jaw-dropping.”

[GeneChing]

Hopefully the world will be watching. :rolleyes:


As ‘The Great Wall’ Hits Theaters in China, Hollywood Is Watching (http://www.wsj.com/articles/as-the-great-wall-hits-theaters-in-china-hollywood-is-watching-1481797802)
Movie industry sees $150 million picture starring Matt Damon as harbinger for future U.S.-China co-productions

At a cost of around $150 million, “The Great Wall” is the most ambitious co-production between Chinese and Hollywood studios to date and the most expensive film shot exclusively in China. But can it capture a global audience? Photo: Universal Pictures
By ERICH SCHWARTZEL
Dec. 15, 2016 5:30 a.m. ET

In mounting the $150 million historical fantasy “The Great Wall,” some of the biggest entertainment companies in the U.S. and China had to overcome multiple barriers, from state censors to filming in Beijing pollution.

As the movie begins its global rollout with a debut in China on Friday, the biggest hurdle awaits: Getting audiences to show up. The picture stars Matt Damon as a European mercenary detained at the wall who joins forces with Chinese soldiers to repel an army of monsters.

“I don’t know if middle America or Europe or markets around the world will embrace this film,” said Peter Loehr, one of the movie’s producers. “Ultimately the audience decides.”

Hollywood is watching, as several production companies are planning similar U.S.-Sino projects and see “The Great Wall” as a harbinger for their prospects.

As an official co-production between U.S. and Chinese companies, “The Great Wall” combined cast and concepts from both countries in what is believed to be the most expensive movie ever shot exclusively in China. It offers a prelude to what the future of large-scale moviemaking—from preproduction to release—might look like between the two countries.

https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BF-AM756_GREATW_9U_20161214190006.jpg

“I need this movie to succeed,” said a producer on one of those coming co-productions. The prospects are mixed.

“The Great Wall” is expected to be a hit in China, but box-office analysts aren’t hopeful about its chances in the U.S., where it debuts Feb. 17.

In that regard, the movie is another example of a new economic reality in Hollywood, where a solid performance in China can compensate for lousy returns stateside. Once a blip on studios’ radar, the Chinese box office grew nearly sixty-fold from 2003 to 2015, when its revenue passed $7 billion, and is expected to become the biggest in the world in 2019.

The movie’s financiers include Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures, Legendary Entertainment—now part of China’s Dalian Wanda Group Co.—China Film Group, and Le Vision Pictures.

Because “The Great Wall” is a co-production, its financial backers based in the U.S. will receive a bigger slice of the ticketing revenue generated in China, and aren’t beholden to marketing rules that Chinese authorities use to make sure their country’s releases aren’t overshadowed by foreign movies.

But those sweetened terms come at a cost, beginning with rules that can feel like creative straitjackets and on-set safety requirements that can be looser than in the U.S.


‘How do I look Matt Damon in the face when he’s the only one not wearing a mask?’
—A producer of ‘The Great Wall,’ referring to Beijing’s infamous pollution.

Helping get “The Great Wall” over its first hurdle: hiring China’s version of Steven Spielberg to direct. Zhang Yimou’s early films were banned in China, but he has since become his government’s go-to creative ambassador. Mr. Zhang directed the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics, earning him the unofficial title “national master” for his ability to juggle big-budget spectacles and state-backed projects.

“We had a lot of lobbying with some of the censorship board to get them to come around to this, and having a big director certainly helped with that,” said Mr. Loehr, who is also chief executive of Legendary East, the company’s China joint venture.

Filming in China posed inherent problems, like Beijing’s infamous pollution. “How do I look Matt Damon in the face when he’s the only one not wearing a mask?” one producer asked in a meeting.

Clearer skies and more space were found when the crew started filming in Qingdao, a coastal city 400 miles southeast of the capital where Wanda is constructing a sprawling real-estate development known as Wanda Studios Qingdao. Wanda bought Legendary for $3.5 billion in early 2016.

Several Chinese firms are lobbying U.S. studios to move productions to their new sound stages. If the experience of workers on “The Great Wall” is any indication, that migration will feel like a throwback to a more manual, less-regulated moviemaking era.

Costume-armor supervisor Levi Woods had just finished working on “Warcraft,” another Legendary action epic, when he joined “The Great Wall.” The 100 suits needed for “Warcraft” were designed by computer software and 3-D printed, whereas the 500 suits needed on “The Great Wall” were handmade from prototypes created by a sculptor.

Many Western crew members adjusted to a set that didn’t observe some of their longstanding safety practices, such as when Chinese workers applied a sealant that isn’t allowed on sets elsewhere. “I nearly passed out from the fumes that came out of a spray can,” said one crew worker.

Harnesses were routinely ignored when climbing scaffolding, said Guy Micheletti, the movie’s key grip, who supervised lighting and rigging crews. “You had to be a policeman,” he said. A producer said department heads tried to be extra-vigilant on set and pass on best practices.

“The Great Wall” wrapped filming last year, but its challenges didn’t end there. In casting actors that appeal to both markets, it found itself in political hot water.

When the movie’s first trailer was released, several Asian-Americans bemoaned Mr. Damon’s “white savior” narrative in a Chinese story. “Our heroes don’t look like Matt Damon,” said Chinese-American actress Constance Wu.

Mr. Loehr urged critics to see the movie before passing judgment.

A marketing push now under way in China includes tie-ins with Yum Brands Inc.’s Pizza Hut and Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. of China Ltd., and Mr. Damon traveled to Beijing earlier this month, showing off his handwriting with Chinese characters in a press conference.

Does all the work add up to ticket sales? “We’ll see what happens,” said Mr. Loehr.

—Lilian Lin in Beijing contributed to this article.

Write to Erich Schwartzel at erich.schwartzel@wsj.com

[GeneChing]

$67.4M Debut is respectable considering it's a not a franchise installment but something new, and it's only the Chinese market.


China Box Office: 'The Great Wall' Stands Tall With $67.4M Debut (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/china-box-office-great-wall-stands-debuts-66m-957288)
8:48 AM PST 12/18/2016 by Patrick Brzeski

http://cdn3.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/landscape_928x523/2016/12/the_great_wall.jpg
Legendary
'The Great Wall'

Starring Matt Damon and directed by Oscar-nominee Zhang Yimou, the Legendary co-production has notched the fourth-biggest debut of the year in China.

While Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is rocketing into the record books in North America, Legendary Entertainment's period monster epic The Great Wall is standing tallest in China, the world's No. 2 box-office market.

The high-profile co-production, which stars Matt Damon as a mercenary fighting for the Middle Kingdom, debuted to a muscular $67.4 million from Friday to Sunday in the country, according to early estimates from local box-office tracker Ent Group (the total can be expected to nudge up slightly come morning, Beijing time).

Directed by Oscar-nominated Chinese helmer Zhang Yimou, the movie is the biggest China-Hollywood co-production ever, with an estimated budget of $150 million. The high-concept, high-stakes project was financed by Legendary, Universal, China Film Group and Le Vision Pictures.

The Great Wall's debut is the fourth-biggest opening weekend in China this year, behind local all-time box-office champ The Mermaid, Marvel's Captain America: Civil War ($96 million) and Legendary's own Warcraft. (Rogue One doesn't open in China until Jan. 6.) The three-day estimate includes $7 million from 364 Imax screens, making The Great Wall the second-highest December Imax opening ever.

Direct comparisons with Warcraft, directed by Duncan Jones, are somewhat difficult, however, due to the unique window in which that film opened. Warcraft bowed to $46 million on a Wednesday, and then earned $65 million in its first Friday-to-Sunday window later that week. If you consider the full Wednesday-to-Sunday stretch Warcraft's opening weekend — as Legendary did when it announced the total at the time — the movie opened to $156 million. However you parse it, Warcraft came out of the gate somewhat bigger than The Great Wall.

The Great Wall's central concept is that the ancient cultural artifact of its title was built to defend against monsters rather than warring nomads. Damon plays a British mercenary who joins the Chinese to battle an army of Taotie — monsters from ancient Chinese mythology — who wage an attack every 60 years. The film's large cast includes Willem Dafoe, Pedro Pascal and an array of top Chinese talent, including Hong Kong's Andy Lau and local heartthrobs Lu Han and Lin Gengxin.

The film opens in many international territories over staggered dates in the coming weeks, leading up to a North America release on Feb. 17.

[GeneChing]

China Box Office: ‘Tomorrow’ and ‘Tigers’ Climb Over ‘Great Wall’ (http://variety.com/2016/film/asia/china-box-office-tomorrow-and-tigers-climb-over-great-wall-1201948390/)
Patrick Frater
Asia Bureau Chief

http://i2.wp.com/pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/see-you-tomorrow.jpg?crop=0px%2C3px%2C980px%2C546px&resize=670%2C377&ssl=1
COURTESY OF JET TONE FILMS
DECEMBER 25, 2016 | 08:37PM PT

In a Chinese box office contest that pitched Wong Kar-wai against Jackie Chan and Zhang Yimou, new releases “See You Tomorrow” and “Railroad Tigers” debuted ahead of holdover “The Great Wall.” But with big name credentials and large numbers of screens for each, these three were the only serious contenders at the top of the Christmas weekend edition of the Chinese chart.

With as many as 80,000 screenings per day, “See You Tomorrow” (previously known in English as The Ferryman”) earned $40 million in three days, according to data from Ent Group. Produced by Wong Kar-wai and backed by Alibaba Pictures Group, the upmarket romantic comedy boasts a starry cast including Tony Chiu-wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Eason Chan and Angelababy.

The latest attempt by Jackie Chan to ease into a more dramatic role, albeit a nationalistic, Chinese versus oppressive Japanese oppressors, one, “Railroad Tigers” took second place with a three-day gross of $30.3 million. It benefited from some 60,000 screenings per day.

“The Great Wall,” the Zhang Yimou-directed popcorn movie saw its screen count plummet as the two newcomers vied for exhibition space. It managed $26.1 million in its second weekend from just under 50,000 screenings per day. That represents a 61% drop compered with its opening weekend of $66 million (including previews). Its per screen average was superior to “Railroad Tigers.” And after 10 days on release “Great Wall” has climbed to a cumulative total of $120 million.

A long way behind, “Hacksaw Ridge” added $4.28 million in fourth place. That gives it a 16 day cumulative of $41.1 million.

“Moana” took fifth spot with $1.68 million. After a long run of 31 days, it has a cumulative $30.3 million.

Fellow holdover, “The Wasted Times” slipped to sixth. It added $1.18 million in its second weekend for a 10-day total of $15.2 million.

Record-breaking Japanese animation, “Your Name” scored $980,000 in its fourth weekend. That lifted its total to $80.5 million after 24 days.

‘I.T.,” the Pierce Brosnan and Anna Friel-starring crime drama, opened with $550,000 in ninth spot.

I suppose I should see See You Tomorrow although I'm not a huge Wong Kar-wai fan.

[GeneChing]

...Why not? If it works for the U.S., why not the PRC?
Or do I have that backwards? :confused:


State media rails against film review websites for giving new Chinese movies poor marks (https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/12/29/state-media-rails-film-review-websites-giving-new-chinese-movies-poor-marks/)
29 December 2016 14:00 AFP 3 min read

Chinese state media have taken popular online movie review sites to task for giving three new domestic blockbusters failing marks, accusing them of trying to undermine the domestic cinema industry by manipulating ratings.

Foreign films are in high demand at the world’s second-biggest box office, a fact that has long annoyed Beijing, which both covets Hollywood’s global reach and economic power and fears that it is exposing domestic audiences to pernicious “Western” thinking.

https://www.hongkongfp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/POWERPNT_2016-12-29_18-49-07.jpg
The three Chinese blockbusters.

The number of overseas movies given releases each year is strictly limited, and an opinion piece on the smartphone app of the People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party, said some influential commentators had made “malicious and irresponsible comments that seriously damaged” domestic films.

The piece, published Tuesday, questioned whether two Chinese film review websites — Douban and Maoyan — were manipulating domestic film ratings by giving them exceptionally low scores.

“Five-star” comments were deleted, while domestic films received thousands of “one-star” ratings even before their midnight premieres ended, state broadcaster CCTV alleged separately.

https://www.hongkongfp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/POWERPNT_2016-12-29_18-49-33.jpg

Following the remarks, Maoyan cancelled part of its film ranking function.

Internet users, however, took the opportunity to write some reviews of their own, bombarding state media with snide remarks about the government’s terrible taste in movies and restrictive attitudes towards free speech.

“You won’t even let us say a movie is terrible,” one commenter said.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avF6GHyyk5c

Douban’s CEO, too, objected to the characterisation of the site, saying the reviews accurately effect audience opinion.

In response, the People’s Daily seemed to walk back its remarks Wednesday, saying the real reason for the bad ratings might simply be bad movies.

“Can films really be ruined by ‘one-star’ scores? Can the ecological environment of films really be affected by ‘negative comments’?” it asked.

The second article, not the first, reflects the official line, the paper added.

China’s annual box office reached 44.1 billion yuan ($6.34 billion) in 2015, with domestic films securing 61.9 percent of sales, according to China Movie Data Information Network.

In December, three domestic films battled for the country’s box office: “The Great Wall” directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Matt Damon, “Railroad Tigers” starring Jackie Chan, and “See You Tomorrow” produced by Wong Kar-wai.

https://www.hongkongfp.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/1467983829_5107.jpg
File photo: Apple Daily.

Ticket sales have been brisk, but audiences panned their poor acting and thin stories.

One common complaint is Chinese censors’ heavy-handed management of the creative process from script to theatre.

In November, the country passed legislation saying films should promote “socialist core values”, while avoiding the kind of themes — sex, violence and politics — that are a large part of Hollywood’s appeal.

Chinese companies have been ramping up investment in the foreign movie industry, but they often have to walk a thin line between balancing strict censorship at home and appealing to global audiences.

In January, Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group signed a $3.5 billion deal to buy Hollywood studio Legendary Entertainment, the company behind the “Batman” trilogy and “Jurassic World”, as well as “The Great Wall”.

[GeneChing]

I still wanna see it.


China's most expensive film 'The Great Wall' fails to excite filmgoers, or LeEco shareholders (http://www.businessinsider.com/china-the-great-wall-failure-2016-12)
South China Morning Post
Celine Ge, South China Morning Post

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Matt Damon Andy Wong/AP Photo

The Great Wall, China’s most expensive film, looks like turning into another money loser for beleaguered Chinese tech giant LeEco, which was betting big that the Hollywood-Chinese co-production would revive flagging investor confidence in the company.

Directed by Oscar nominee Zhang Yimou and starring top US A-lister Matt Damon and Chinese favourites Andy Lau and Jing Tian, the English-language monster-action big-screener costing US$150 million had every reason to be dubbed “the biggest film ever shot in China”, backed by Dalian Wanda Group’s Legendary Entertainment – itself owned and under the watchful eye of China’s richest man Wang Jianlin – and Hollywood’s iconic studio Universal Pictures.

Zhang, who orchestrated the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, produced the epic with China Film Group and Le Vision Pictures, the film-making unit of LeEco.

But despite its hoped-for blockbuster appeal and such a hefty list of heavyweight backers, mercenary warrior Damon’s efforts at fighting giant monsters to save the Middle Kingdom has failed dismally to impress the critics, and after netting just US$128.04 million in its first fortnight.

Le Vision invested an estimated US$15 million into the film. Experts suggest the movie needs to take in US$450 million at the turnstiles not to be considered a box-office flop.

But in reality analysts now believe it could even fall short of Legendary’s summer offer Warcraft’s total US$211.83 million since June this year.

Zhang’s monsterpiece made a muscular start in its opening weekend, notching up more than US$66 million in takings – but earnings plunged a staggering 61 per cent over the Christmas weekend, according to data from industry researcher Ent Group.

Of course, Christmas is not a national holiday in China, but in recent years the season has emerged as a popular shopping and date-night occasion among young urban Chinese, usually resulting in a healthy box-office frame, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Despite nationwide hype, The Great Wall lies in second place in the domestic box office rankings after Jackie Chan’s latest action-comedy Railroad Tigers.

The country’s largest cinema operator Wanda even allotted The Great Wall the film more than 50 screening slots among its cinemas across China, which usually ensures better takings, which certainly should have at least pushed it towards covering its huge budget.

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A news conference for the movie "The Great Wall". Andy Wong/AP Photo

The much-vaunted saviour of Chinese cinema actually currently ranks the 11th biggest grosser of the year in China, lagging behind Captain America and home-grown offerings such as Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid, which has netted US$553.8 million after costing a rather-more modest US$60.72 million to produce.

Ray Zhao, an analyst with Guotai Junan Securities, reckons “it will be impossible for The Great Wall to even break even, given a film normally needs to earn three times its budget to do that”.

Filmgoers themselves gave The Great Wall a shoulder-shrugging 5.4 out of 10 on Douban.com, a Chinese movie-ranking platform the equivalent of Rotten Tomatoes, and 5.5 on movie database imdb.com’s ranking system.

Some were confused by the mix of Chinese and American elements in the filmmaking, and wondered who the film was meant to attract, Li Yi, a 29-year-old high school math teacher told the Los Angeles Times.

“Which audience is the film targeting? Older? Younger? Chinese? Foreigners? I can’t figure out who will prefer a film that is neither very Chinese nor very Western.”

The flashy colours, ancient weapons and aerobatic war scenes contributed little to the overall plot, she said, damming it, “a waste of time”.

Some high-profile film critics have also resorted to social media to publicly lambast producer Zhang himself.

“The storytelling is awful and the characters look so plain,”said one, using the handle Disrespecting Movies, whose account has 740,000 followers on China’s Twitter-equivalent Weibo.

“Zhang’s career is dead,” he even concluded.

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Zhang Yimou Jason Lee/Reuters

Clearly irritated by the narrative, Le Vision chief executive Zhang Zhao himself launched his own a barbed social media spat with Disrespecting Movies.

“You who curse Chinese films are doomed to rot,” he wrote on his microblog, before publishing a legal letter demanding the critic apologise.

“People already had very high expectations of The Great Wall, but bad reviews spread like wildfire and discouraged many potential moviegoers from going to see it,” said Huang Guofeng, a Beijing-based analyst with consultancy Analysys International.

This is the third big-budget movie to be given generous financial backing by Le Vision Pictures, and had been seen by some as its last genuine chance of delivering healthy income to its flagging annual ledger.

LORD: Legend of Ravaging Dynasties, an animated fantasy starring China’s best-paid actress Fan Bingbing, in which Le Vision ploughed an estimated US$22.2 million, also flopped, even during China’s so-called “Golden Week” holiday this year, with earnings slumping after just the opening day.

Both have added to the gloom of Le Vision’s parent LeEco – whose Shenzhen-listed arm Leshi Internet Information and Technology Corp agreed in May to buy Le Vision for US$1.41 billion, four times the latter’s net asset value.

According to the terms of the agreement, Le Vision is obliged to generate at least US$74.9 million yuan to net profits for 2016.

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LeEco CEO Jia Yueting Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

“Le Vision was taken a huge bet – but now the chance of meeting that goal is extremely slim,” said Huang, adding it had also expected the film’s success to bolster overall investor confidence in LeEco.”

The company, which has invested in several high-tech products ranging from electric cars to smartphones, has been burning cash to support its global expansion.

In May, LeEco bought a 48-acre plot in San Jose, California from Yahoo to house its new global headquarters that will have capacity for 12,000 employees.

It also bought Vizio, the second largest TV brand in the US for $2 billion, according to Forbes, and financed Faraday Future, a Los Angeles-based electric car startup that is building a factory in Nevada.

But last month, chief executive Jia Yueting – whose estimated net worth of $6.2bn placed him 31st on the latest Hurun Rich List for China – watched the company’s shares plummet after he admitted it was facing a shortage of cash and was suffering from rapid expansion in too many directions.

“LeEco’s expansion is too fast, and that has caused great challenges to our organisational capacities and fundraising,” Jia said in a lengthy letter to staff.

It then halted trading in its shares in Shenzhen earlier this month, prompting speculation a stock plunge on December 6 triggered margin calls on the credit of Jia and his brother.

It might just take a little more than muscle than Matt Damon to pull Jia and his embattled company out of this particular.

[GeneChing]

Still wanna see it. :o


Why Trump could put a dagger in 'The Great Wall' (http://www.dw.com/en/why-trump-could-put-a-dagger-in-the-great-wall/a-37110839?maca=en-gk_volltext_AppleNews_business-16399-xml-atom)
"The Great Wall," the major US-Chinese co-production starring Matt Damon, is a groundbreaking collaboration. But Donald Trump's anti-China rhetoric could hurt the fantasy-adventure blockbuster.

http://www.dw.com/image/37102811_303.jpg
Film still The Great Wall (Universal Pictures)

The Americans and the Chinese came up with a good plan. To increase global revenues, production companies from both countries got together for the massive, $150-million film. "The Great Wall" is ringing in a new era in the film industry.
Both countries are meant to profit in this win-win situation: Hollywood stands to benefit from gaining a key to the gigantic Chinese market, which is the second largest in the world. For China, collaboration with the US is a pivotal step toward becoming a global player in the film industry.
But the release of "The Great Wall" roughly coincides with President-elect Donald Trump's debut on the world stage as a political leader. The film already came out in China and much of Asia and Europe in December and opens in US cinemas on February 17.
Trump's anti-China rhetoric - which at times seems like the precursor to a trade war - could put a damper on the film's success.

http://www.dw.com/image/19104528_404.jpg
(picture-alliance/dpa)
The US-Chinese team from 'The Great Wall' at their first press conference in 2015

Then there is Trump's growing disdain for the Hollywood establishment, most recently seen in his post-Golden Globe spat with Meryl Streep. It doesn't look like he's going to be lending support to US-Chinese film projects in the near future.
Matt Damon, William Dafoe filmed in China
"The Great Wall," the largest US-Chinese co-production to date, opens Thursday in German cinemas. Directed by Zhang Yimou of China, the film mainly features a Chinese cast, though the screenplay was written in Hollywood and A-list stars Matt Damon and William Dafoe are also on board. The movie was filmed in English - but in China.
No less than five American and Chinese production companies shared the film's $150-million price tag. However, the participating US firm Legendary Entertainment was recently bought by the head of China's powerful Wanda Group.
"The Great Wall" is less a historically accurate story about China's famous architectural landmark and more of a 3D action-fantasy spectacle that is jam-packed with special effects.

http://www.dw.com/image/37102775_401.jpg
(Universal Pictures)
Tian Jing is one of the Chinese stars in the film

In the 11th century, a handful of European mercenaries led by Matt Damon go out to search for the gun powder that had been invented by the Chinese and find themselves fighting evil - that is, dragon-like monsters - together with the Chinese army.
It's a digital flick with endless fight scenes and not much depth - a blockbuster that borrows tricks and dramatic details from many other pop films. Artistically, though, it's a disaster.

Hollywood up against bureaucracy, censorship

But the Chinese and American filmmakers weren't particularly concerned with making art. "The Great Wall" is meant to achieve record ticket sales in the US, China and around the world.
So far, the Chinese market has not been very easy for Hollywood to crack, since the authorities are still quite strict about allowing foreign films to be shown. Only 34 US films per year are permitted for release in China. The media bureau SARFT in Beijing decides which films those are and when they can run.
The censorship office also gets involved. If a Hollywood film includes too much foul language, brutality or sex, then it has a poor chance of making it into Chinese cinemas.
While there have been recent discussions about raising the quota on US films in China, a slight increase wouldn't bring in much money. But when Chinese firms are involved in the production, then the film is no longer considered a foreign product and both Chinese investors and producers profit.

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(Universal Pictures)
China's wall gets a digital boost

Chinese film market has tremendous potential

For the Americans, China is the market of the future. As in other industries, the Asian superpower is climbing to the top in entertainment as well. The US may still be the most lucrative film country in the world, but experts predict that the quickly growing cinema market in China will soon overtake the American one.
In China, 20 new cinemas open every day and the industry is booming. Since the large Hollywood studios are now more dependent on revenue from abroad than they used to be, the Chinese market is a must for them. A million-dollar US blockbuster can hardly be financed without a boost from Chinese ticket offices. All the more motivation to work together.
On the other hand, Chinese investors are trying to get a foot in the door on the American market. The Chinese company Alibaba has been collaborating since last fall with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Partners. Warner Bros., Sony and Universal have all reached out to China and found willing partners.

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(picture-alliance/dpa/R. Dela Pena)
Wang Jianlin is a powerful man in the film industry - even in the US

It's no secret that cinema mogul Wang Jianlin is interested in one of the Hollywood studios. His Wanda Group is already a global cinema leader and owns many in the US. Wanda's most recent coup was acquiring the US firm that produced the Golden Globe show - Dick Clark Productions.

Will Trump have an impact?

However, US politicians have been resistant to China "meddling" in the film industry. Government representatives recently called for close examination of Chinese investment in entertainment. And the fact that Donald Trump has appointed China-critic Peter Navarro as head of the National Trade Council is likely to worry American and Chinese film investors.
Whether or not Trump really aims to hinder their plans remains to be seen. After all, the US film industry creates countless jobs, which the president-elect is well aware of. For now, the makers of "The Great Wall" can hope that their big-budget flick fills cinemas around the world.

[GeneChing]

People will blame anything for their failures nowadays, even before they fail. :o


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Matt Damon Chinese Epic ‘The Great Wall’ Distancing Itself from Trump’s Wall (http://heatst.com/culture-wars/matt-damon-chinese-epic-the-great-wall-distancing-itself-from-trumps-wall/)
Home Culture Wars
By Heat Street Staff | 2:45 pm, January 31, 2017

The Great Wall, the $150 million US/China historical epic starring Matt Damon, is released in less than three weeks.

The movie, set over a millennium ago in ancient China depicts how the Great Wall of China was built, and has already faced spurious claims it is ‘whitewashing’ history by having Hollywood star Matt Damon as its hero.

Now it is facing a new obstacle: the saturation coverage of President Trump’s plan to build a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

The film’s distributor Universal is acutely aware that much of the pre-release talk about the movie has consisted of comparisons between the movie and the Mexican wall and is duly seeking to distance itself from controversy to avoid its costly epic being another casualty of Trump.

“The film is not tracking all that well, said a producer who spoke on conditions of anonymity as he is developing several movies with Universal. “Trump’s Mexico wall won’t be why it flops but it’s not certainly helping.”

When Damon’s casting was first announced in Deadline Hollywood, the article declared: “The Great Wall reveals the mystery behind why the Great Wall was built, and the secrets hidden beneath its stones.” But worried about a backlash from both Trump supporters and liberal moviegoers who require a respite from the wall coverage, Universal is playing down the movie’s depiction of the Great Wall of China even though it can never be rid of it since it is er…the movie’s title and subject.

“The marketing initiatives have lately centered around war and warriors, not the wall,” the producer said. “You can barely see the wall itself on the film’s most recent poster and the promotional materials don’t refer to it much. When they do, it’s often called “The Great Wall of China ” to distinguish itself from what’s happening in Mexico.”


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Film>Movie Poster > Poster and TV Spot of The Great Wall starring => http://bit.ly/2ip5czD #films

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Universal is minimizing talk of the wall for fear of unfavorable comparisons that have already been all the rage on social media:


boomhauertjs @boomhauertjs
Matt Damon's "Great Wall" may be a worse idea than Trump's wall.
7:40 PM - 21 Jan 2017
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AP @KingIwobi
Matt Damon releasing Wall propaganda my drug #TrumpWall
6:23 PM - 28 Jan 2017
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Evan Fonseca @TheEvanFonseca
Say goodbye to your box office returns, Matt Damon's "The Wall". #TheWall #MattDamon #Trump #trumpwall
6:16 PM - 25 Jan 2017
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David Southwell @SubinthePub
I see the new Matt Damon film is The Great Wall. But do they make the dragons pay for it?
8:22 PM - 29 Jan 2017
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The Great Wall needs to gross $500 million to be profitable and got off to a mediocre start when it was released in Asia over the holiday period. The movie is directed by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou and is financed by Legendary East which is owned by Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group.

Damon, a high-profile liberal, consistently slammed Trump during the election but recently struck a more bipartisan tone. “Damon turned down the chance to star in Manchester-by-the-Sea [which he produced] to star in The Great Wall,” added the source. “He could be forgiven for regretting it. Bryan Cranston was going to star in it at one stage before backing out- he dodged a bullet!”

Universal is dreading the inevitable comparisons between politics and the movie when The Great Wall is released.

[Jimbo]

If someone doesn't like the concept of the movie they shouldn't see it. But it's really stupid of people to equate this with Trump's proposed Mexican border wall. So now the concept of a wall, ANY wall, has become offensive(!), even when it has zero to do with Mexico? Dumb.

I'm not particularly eager for this movie either way, but from the ads I've seen on TV alone, it looks like it was built to keep out a monster(s), and maybe a monstrous horde(?). If anybody should be offended, it should probably be the Mongolians.

[GeneChing]

The most expensive Sino-U.S. co-production yet! Read THE GREAT WALL: Who is Going to Pay For It? (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/ezine/article.php?article=1341) by Greg Hebert

[GeneChing]

I saw it Saturday. I'll review it later.

BOM (http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=greatwall.htm) results:

Domestic: $21,651,060 8.1%
+ Foreign: $244,600,000 91.9%
= Worldwide: $266,251,060
So at $150 M invested, they still made $116+M. But China didn't get the face it wanted out of it, and in China, face is more precious.


Why Matt Damon’s ‘The Great Wall’ Became a Great Big Bomb (http://www.thewrap.com/great-wall-matt-damon-china-why-bomb-box-office/)
An attempt to please both sides of the Pacific missed the mark with a weak plot and underdeveloped characters
Matt Pressberg | February 19, 2017 @ 9:22 AM

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Legendary

After years of hype, Legendary’s would-be China-U.S. crossover epic “The Great Wall” crumbled at the box office, earning just $18.1 million during its opening weekend in North America on an estimated $150 million production budget. (The projection for the four-day holiday is $21 million.)

Worse, director Zhang Yimou’s English-language fantasy epic starring Matt Damon didn’t prove to be much of a blockbuster in China either, reeling in a disappointing $170.4 million since it opened in December.

“That movie became one of the worst movies in China,” Wang Haige, chairman of the Huading Awards (China’s version of the People’s Choice Awards) told TheWrap in December.

While it edged out “Kung Fu Panda 3” as China’s eighth-highest grossing film of last year, Legendary’s video-game adaptation “Warcraft” hauled in $220.8 million in China last year with much less hype — but an easily identifiable and massive core audience of gamers who got exactly what they wanted.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. In fact, “The Great Wall” was seen as the first crossover blockbuster for Legendary after China’s real estate and investment conglomerate Dalian Wanda Group acquired Thomas Tull’s 16-year-old production firm last January for $3.5 billion. It was also the first movie filmed at Wanda’s $8 billion Oriental Movie Metropolis in the city of Qingdao.

Several Hollywood films have been massive hits in China, with Universal’s “Furious 7” and Paramount’s “Transformers: Age of Extinction” topping $300 million at the local box office, but the reverse hasn’t held true.

Other than Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning 2000 action drama “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” — which hauled in $128 million at the U.S. box office but didn’t do nearly as much business in China (although the country’s box office was significantly smaller then) — the country’s homegrown movies haven’t been able to travel well. American entertainment lawyer Sky Moore, who works closely with Chinese studios, called a crossover hit the “holy grail” for them.

“The Great Wall” was conceived with seemingly foolproof elements to appeal to crowds in both China and the U.S.: a beloved Chinese director (Zhang), a Hollywood movie star (Damon), and a “unity” plot that features foreign mercenaries teaming up with 11th-century Chinese military leaders to battle lizard monsters.

But as anyone who has eaten at a fusion restaurant that missed the mark knows, trying to be both things for two separate audiences often ends up satisfying neither. Here are some of the movie’s shortcomings:

1. Lost in translation

Most of the movie takes place on, in and directly next to the Great Wall of China, which looked great in 3-D (and very big budget), but means little to American audiences more likely to be motivated to buy tickets to what’s essentially a monster fantasy movie.

The 11th-century setting, archery and catapult-heavy battles and historical references, which give the film the Chinese imprint its backers wanted, don’t exactly make it easier to appeal to U.S. crowds.

2. A sidelined star

Damon’s character, William Garin, gets the most screen time but has almost no backstory — we find out early on that he’s an enigmatic (British?) mercenary who came to China looking for black powder, and he runs off a list of battles he fought in a 30-second talk with Commander Lin (Jing Tian), but there’s just not much there to identify with to other than his skills with a bow and arrow and occasional wisecracks.

Some Chinese critics viewed Damon’s participation in the film as a pure cash grab. “He joined the movie because of the high pay,” Wang said. “I’m against those stars who attempt to get more money to act in the more low-quality movie.”

3. Spectacle over plot and character

Zhang, who directed the opening and closing ceremonies at the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008, achieves some spectacular and sweeping battle scenes.

But in imitating American fantasy and action movie tropes, the Chinese have not yet mastered the creation of charismatic characters that people will want to follow through multiple films. (We know and love Deadpool after one movie.)

And even the non-Damon characters are underdeveloped, from Chinese star Andy Lau’s Strategist Wang to William’s partner, Pero Tovar (Pedro Pascal), who reveals his presumed Spanish heritage by saying “amigo” often in his otherwise all-English dialogue.

4. The whole whitewashing issue

Last summer, the film came under fire in the U.S. by people who mistakenly thought Damon was playing an Asian character — or the white hero who comes to the rescue of nonwhite characters.

But Zhang was quick to come to the actor’s defense. “Matt Damon is not playing a role that was originally conceived for a Chinese actor,” Zhang said. “The arrival of his character in our story is an important plot point. There are five major heroes in our story and he is one of them — the other four are all Chinese.”

5. A crosscultural hodge-podge

Several high-ranking Chinese film executives and “Great Wall” insiders TheWrap has spoken with over the course of the past year expressed concerns early on that the film’s disparate elements wouldn’t coalesce into something coherent and engaging enough for the American moviegoers’ higher standards.

Even Chinese critics attacked the film’s formulaic plot and blatant attempts to appeal to the U.S., and audiences failed to fully embrace it despite the hype and full force of Legendary parent and the country and world’s largest cinema owner Wanda Group behind the film.

The recipe for true crossover movie might include bankable movie stars from both hemispheres, a diverse set of characters comfortable in their own skin, funny one-liners and a good story. That might be called “Furious 7.”


If anybody should be offended, it should probably be the Mongolians. Offended Mongolians. :p Good one, Jimbo!

[GeneChing]

This would've been good if it wasn't so over-hyped. Damon, Dafoe, and my fav Andy Lau all underperform. Jing Tian is ok - Zhang Yimou has always been better with directing women - at least she has cool armor. Zhang tries to poach Kurosawa's Ran with colored standards but falls short (Dang. No Ran thread here? I must rewatch that an launch one). The taotie would've been better if they were tripods, but that's lost on Americans. Tripod taotie would've been more novel as monsters go than devil hounds and a nod to the source material (I'm thinking of the tripod jue (爵) of course, which taotie adorn). Honorable mention for the taotie carapaces. Weak 3D. Absurd physics. Dumb CGI archery. A funny Spaniard. My fav thing was the nunchuk (http://www.martialartsmart.com/weapons-nunchakus.html) drumming.

Hollywood will lambaste this as a flop at the US box office, but it's already cleared $267 M worldwide so they made their money back at least.

[GeneChing]

How the Chinese Box Office is Saving Hollywood (http://screenrant.com/great-wall-china-box-office-success/)
By Kayleigh Donaldson 02.20.2017

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The Great Wall washed up on American shores last week to little fanfare. Following heated discussions regarding the film’s possible status as an example of Hollywood white-washing, the Zhang Yimou-directed action epic opened to a disappointing weekend gross of $17-20m. For a movie of this budget – its $135m price-tag making it the most expensive production shot entirely in China, this would usually be the first sign of a flop. Yet before it even reached American audiences, The Great Wall had grossed close to $225m – $170 million of that in China alone.

When viewed in the context of Western cinema, The Great Wall is an archaic trifle with yet another white male lead incongruously front-and-center; in the context of the ever-growing Chinese market, however, it’s something much more interesting.

Over the past decade, the box office for Chinese cinema-goers has exploded to new heights that have surpassed every other international market. In 2015, gross revenues in the country reached a staggering $7bn, close to double that of 2013. Compare that to the American market, where audiences’ attentions are divided, ‘peak TV’ is at its most saturated and streaming services like Netflix have become legitimate Hollywood power players. For Hollywood, the Chinese market has, in a relatively short amount of time, become a necessary part of blockbuster release strategies.

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Jing Tian, one of the stars of The Great Wall.

Savvy moviegoers will have noticed China’s growing influence through some of the past few years’ biggest films: Recognizable Chinese stars have begun popping up in major franchise movies, from X-Men to Star Wars, and Chinese locations have become standard bearers for hot-shot action sequences. Now You See Me 2 set most of its story in Macau, and featured Taiwanese star Jay Chou in a starring role (he also sang the end theme). The film made over $97m in China alone, and now Lionsgate are planning to make a spin-off with a primarily Chinese cast.

The China Movie Channel co-produced Transformers: Age of Extinction also moved part of its setting to the country and earned $222.74 million in ticket sales in less than two weeks. On top of that, the film featured product placement from notable Chinese brands, even in scenes set in rural Texas, which added to the film’s sizeable revenue. Today, Transformers: Age of Extinction is the fourth highest grossing film in China, where it sits alongside three other American produced films in the top 10. One of those films, Duncan Jones’s Warcraft, was almost single-handedly saved from flop status by Chinese audiences.

One studio hoping to continue their Chinese market domination is Disney, whose acquisition of Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm has paid off handsomely in every market, but the success of films like Zootopia (the ninth highest grossing film ever in China) presents a stark contrast from the mid-1990s. In 1996, the country’s governing powers banned filmmaker Martin Scorsese and several production officials from China after they released the film Kundun, on the life of the Dalai Lama. Disney were called out by name for distributing the film, and their works were banned from the country until 1999, after Disney’s pseudo-apology tour just in time for the release of Mulan. Now, the relationship is much stronger, as Disney recently opened a Shanghai resort, which is rumored to have cost $5.5bn.

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The Enchanted Storybook Castle at Shanghai Disneyland, which opened last year.

Like Disney’s penance, American studios are pulling out all the stops to ensure their films not only suit Chinese audiences, but also the official censors of the Chinese government. On top of being co-produced by the state-run CCTV China Movie Channel, Transformers: Age of Extinction, as noted by the Guardian, featured a “benevolent” Chinese government rising up as the dominant power while the US government “manages to be both sinister and useless – typified by the black-clad CIA operatives, one of whom gets beaten up by a Chinese character.” The Great Wall may feature Hollywood’s golden boy Matt Damon in the lead role, but it is far from white savior territory in its depiction of China’s army as the bastion of technological advancement and moral superiority.

Yet Hollywood seems to be making less of an impact as China’s own cinema market grows and audiences flock to blockbusters by home-grown talents like Stephen Chow, whose film The Mermaid is the highest grossing film in China, and made half a billion dollars without even having to come to America (although in its extremely limited US release, it did gross close to $1m over 35 theatres). Chinese audiences aren’t turning away from American films entirely, but films like Kung Fu Yoga, Monster Hunt and Mojin: The Lost Legend fill up the highest grossing list easily in ways the international market has not.

Chinese audiences are also less tolerant of failed pandering. As noted by the Wall Street Journal, they welcome Chinese actors with meaty roles in major projects but steer clear of tokenism, which they refer to as ‘flower vases’. Like any nation, Chinese audiences enjoy seeing themselves and their culture on screen, so a film like The Mermaid, which is unmistakably Chinese in its humor, visuals and tone, appeals far more to audiences than merely putting a familiar face in the background.

The Mermaid How the Chinese Box Office is Saving Hollywood (http://screenrant3.imgix.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/The-Mermaid.jpg?auto=format&lossless=1&q=40&w=786&h=440&fit=crop)
The poster for Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid, China’s highest grossing film of all time.

The Great Wall, too, suffered from this issue. The film’s grosses were strong but nowhere near that of other 2016 releases like The Mermaid or the previous year’s efforts like Monster Hunt. For a film with such a high budget to be grossing a third of the revenues of Chow’s film, which cost a mere $50m, presents a problem for both Chinese and American studios. If audiences aren’t interested, they simply won’t come, no matter how much a film panders to them.

China is still a relatively new and untested market, so its sustainability remains in questions. After 2016 grosses flatlined, fears are growing that the bubble has already burst, which could lead to a downward spiral as budgets increase and box office expectations set $1bn worldwide grosses as the norm. Disney have high hopes for this year’s blockbusters, with the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie projected to do well there, as well as Paramount’s fifth Transformers film, Transformers: The Last Knight. Already, 2017 has seen two Chinese blockbusters – Kung Fu Yoga and Journey to the West: The Demons Strike Back – dominate the box office. It’s a trend Hollywood are hoping will translate for them.

We've discussed most of the films mentioned above but I'm too busy at the moment to do the cross linkage.

[GeneChing]

THE GREAT FLOP 2/23/17 9 AM
Chinese moviegoers don’t care about your outrage over ‘The Great Wall’ and its white saviors (http://fusion.net/story/387514/the-great-wall/)

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Universal

By Charles Pulliam-Moore

When Chinese director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers) released the first trailer of his next big project, The Great Wall, last summer, the film’s plot and casting choices were met with scathing criticism from the public for what seemed to be yet another movie about white men saving hapless people of color.

The Great Wall tells the fictionalized story of two white Westerners searching for gunpowder in China who find themselves suddenly sucked into the Song Dynasty’s epic ongoing war with—bear with me here—vicious aliens who threaten to wipe out the entire population of northern China every 60 years. Though they are the most foreign of foreigners (white, English-speaking people who’ve never been to China), The Great Wall props up William (Matt Damon) and Tovar (Pedro Pascal) as morally dubious heroes whose presence becomes instrumental in the Imperial Court’s ability defeat the alien invaders.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avF6GHyyk5c

Fresh Off The Boat actress Constance Wu’s critique of The Great Wall‘s casting decisions quickly went viral after she took to Twitter to challenge the idea that movies with white leads were safer financial bets for studios looking for international success.

“Money is the lamest excuse in the history of being human,” Wu tweeted. “Why not TRY to be better? If white actors are forgiven for having a box office failure once in a while, why can’t a [person of color] sometimes have one.”

She continued: “And how COOL would it be if you were the movie that took the ‘risk’ to make a POC as your hero, and you sold the **** out of it?! The whole community would be celebrating!”

Now, seven months later and a few days after The Great Wall‘s premiere in the U.S., early box office numbers show that casting Matt Damon as the white savior in a movie set in ancient China wasn’t nearly enough to entice American audiences to see it. Despite costing around $150 million to produce, The Great Wall has only managed to rake in a mere $21.7 million. Compare that to The LEGO Batman Movie which, despite being in its second week, managed to net $42.5 million that very same weekend.

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Universal

The Great Wall‘s American debut appears to be the sort of financial calamity that would scare Universal and the Dalian Wanda Group (the movie’s largest Chinese investor) from even considering another film like it. But when you look at the movie’s performance in China, where it’s been out since December, the story gets a bit more complicated.

I spoke with Jeff Bock, Senior Box Office Analyst with an analysis firm called Exhibitor Relations, about the calculus studios make when preparing for a movie like The Great Wall to be released domestically and internationally. He explained that while we’re used to thinking of American performance as the most important metric of success, the fact that China is now home to the world’s second largest movie market in the world can’t be underestimated.

“A film doesn’t have to be a hit in North America to be a success anymore,” Bock said. “This isn’t anything new, really, as we’ve seen films like Pacific Rim and Battleship, and most recently World of Warcraft and XXX3, perform gangbuster business in foreign territories without being labeled box office hits in North America.”

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Universal

To date, The Great Wall has already made $171 million in theaters across China alone. While these numbers are still slightly lower than what either Universal or Wanda hoped to make from the film, the fact that it managed to at least break even (and then some) in China means that another studio wouldn’t necessarily see it as enough of a flop to avoid making more white savior movies.

“Chinese audiences, and most foreign audiences for that matter, have had a steady diet of Hollywood blockbuster since the 1980s, and most of those leads were various shades of white,” Bock said. “Matt Damon is in the film for North American audiences, not Chinese ones, as their recent box office successes can attest to.”

Chinese audiences may be used to consuming Hollywood’s formulaic action romps, but it’s also important to remember that they’re presented with far more movies starring Chinese leads than American audiences. The Mermaid, the most successful Chinese movie of 2016, made $526.8 million, something nearly impossible to imagine in the U.S. They’re probably not going to get up in arms about one movie starring a couple of white men.

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Universal

It’s understandable why Asian American actors and viewers would criticize Universal’s decision to release a film set in ancient China with a lead that was never meant to be of Asian descent. It sends a clear message that many studios will choose to produce films like Avatar and Elysium (hey, Matt Damon). It also signals that other American films that borrow heavily from Asian cultures like Ghost In The Shell may still be cast with a white lead.

But The Great Wall‘s financial performance in China could mean that studios won’t ever see a reason to make big-budget, cash-grab films centering Asians or other actors of color in a meaningful way—regardless of how many hashtags of protest they see. Until studios focus on creating international blockbusters that prominently feature heroes of color, we’ll never know just how well audiences might respond to them.



This author gets it. But I think China will keep trying until it cracks the U.S. market. It's a matter of face.

[GeneChing]

I don't think it puts U.S.-China productions 'in doubt'. It will make them a little more prudent perhaps, but the payout if a U.S.-China production is too massive for them to stop trying.


Matt Damon's 'The Great Wall' to Lose $75 Million; Future U.S.-China Productions in Doubt (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/what-great-walls-box-office-flop-will-cost-studios-981602)
6:00 AM PST 3/2/2017 by Pamela McClintock , Stephen Galloway

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Illustration by: John Ueland

The film’s $171 million haul at the China box office is way less than investors had anticipated for the biggest-ever U.S.-China co-production.
The collapse of The Great Wall at the domestic box office (it has made $34.8 million in North America) has iced any notion of a significant future for U.S.-China co-productions. The movie likely will end up with losses of more than $75 million, sources say, and Universal Pictures will be on the hook for at least $10 million.

The studio funded about 25 percent of the film's $150 million production budget, the rest coming in equal parts from Legendary Entertainment, China Film Group and Le Vision Pictures. But Universal also covered Wall's global marketing expenses, conservatively estimated at $80 million-plus. The film earned $171 million in China (a disappointment) and is expected to top out at about $320 million globally. That's way less than investors had anticipated for the biggest-ever U.S.-China co-production. "The fusion of the No. 1 and No. 2 movie markets in the world will eventually happen, but it is a misfire, domestically speaking," says box-office analyst Jeff Bock. Adds one Hollywood executive who has dealt extensively with China, "There's no question but that it's a failure."

The good news for Universal is that its share of this failure will be relatively modest. The studio gets to collect a roughly 10 percent distribution fee from all theatrical revenue (between 40 percent and 50 percent of the total box office), and box-office rentals likely will recoup much, if not all, of its marketing outlay before other investors dip into whatever money is left to cut into production costs. The four partners will split any further theatrical income equally.

If the movie generates hoped-for ancillary revenue (including $20 million from domestic home entertainment and as much as $40 million from international home entertainment, with $25 million to $30 million from TV — admittedly, a best-case scenario), that will further stanch the red ink.

Still, the crumbling of this Wall has toppled much hope for major Sino-American pictures. Among the lessons insiders have learned are the difficulties of finding stories that meld Eastern and Western characters and the challenges of blending crews, which in Wall's case meant hiring 100 interpreters and solving conflicts that allegedly took place among some below-the-line workers.

"This was the first movie of its type," says one executive connected to the project. "You're trying to appeal to everyone, and you're not compelling enough to appeal to anyone. It feels like Esperanto."

To date, the studios have viewed officially sanctioned China co-productions with skepticism, even though they offer vastly greater financial benefits, enabling backers to pocket 43 percent of ticket-sale revenue out of the country, far more than non-co-productions allow. Past tentpoles, such as Paramount's Transformers: Age of Extinction and Disney's Iron Man 3, were briefly planned as co-prods before their producers realized the depth of Chinese involvement and script control.

The highest-profile co-productions in the works are low- to midbudget period pieces such as Skydance and Alibaba's World War II drama The Flying Tigers, written by Randall Wallace (Braveheart), and producers Mark Gordon and Hawk Koch's road movie Edge of the World, to be co-produced by Pegasus and China Film Group.

Instead, studios have focused on strategic partnerships to boost their returns. Sony struck a financing deal with Dalian Wanda Group, and Paramount recently closed a purported $1 billion pact with Shanghai Film Group and Huahua Media Group.

Developing fully Chinese content with local joint ventures also is seen as a safer bet than co-productions. Warner Bros. is at work on a slate of a dozen Chinese-language films for its Flagship Entertainment banner, a partnership with Beijing-based China Media Capital.

Set in the time of the Song dynasty, Wall tells the story of European mercenaries, led by Matt Damon, who join forces with the Chinese to fight rampaging monsters. It's not the first feature director Zhang Yimou has made with an American star: He teamed with Christian Bale on 2011's The Flowers of War, solely financed by Chinese money. That $94 million movie earned $96 million in China but perished in the U.S. with $311,000.

Regardless of Wall's failure, one analyst predicts Hollywood will be back for more. "The market opportunities are too substantial to ignore," says Eric Handler of MKM Partners. "The problem with The Great Wall in the U.S. was poor reviews. At some point, someone will find the right formula."

Patrick Brzeski contributed to this report.

This story first appeared in the March 17 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

[GeneChing]

Polem-Flick: In defence of The Great Wall (https://www.varsity.co.uk/film-and-tv/12361)
Zi Ran Shen asks whether Zhang Yi Mou’s latest epic is a victim of whitewashing or an attempt to educate Western audiences

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"His character’s interactions with the Chinese serves as an allegory for the relationships between the East and the West"
LEGENDARY EAST
by Zi Ran Shen
Friday March 3 2017, 12:00am

The Great Wall, once known as a fortress that protected China from outside invaders, is now also a blockbuster Hollywood film. Despite criticism from inside and outside the wall, Zhang Yi Mou delivers entertainment worthy of the big screen. The plot is tried and true, the action exhilarating, and the cinematography grand. He has created a piece of cinema that sits comfortably in the Western market.

Criticisms about the flat plot and the casting of Matt Damon as the man who saves China, while valid, miss the point of the movie. To this humble reviewer, The Great Wall is not about breaking the mould, but rather fitting right in. In an age of increasing nationalism, Zhang Yi Mou reaches out to the West with a crash course in Chinese culture and the virtues of cooperation. Every aspect of the movie is drenched in rich history and culture – even the aliens. The Tao Tie (饕餮) are a beast permeating ancient mythology. They are gluttonous magical creatures rumoured to have an insatiable appetite, whose form appears regularly on ancient food-carrying pottery. Today, many Chinese foodies jokingly claim to be descendants from the Tao Tie as if they’ve inherited its voracity. Similarly, Zhang Yi Mou injects this movie with factual – though romanticised – accounts of China’s militaristic and geographic majesty. The military command structure was depicted accurately, as was the weaponry, the use of floating lanterns (shamelessly appropriated by Tangled, I might add), the palace of the emperor, all the way down to the prisoner’s method of restraint.


“Instead of the ‘white saviour’ critics claim William to be, he is simply a lens through which the audience could see the Western perception of China”

In speaking about the movie, Zhang Yi Mou described it as simply a vehicle to deliver an understanding of Chinese cultures and values. He emphasised responsibility and trust between directors and actors, key concepts which are echoed within the film. Though responsibility and trust are not values limited to the geographical constraints of China, their unique flavour within Chinese culture is sometimes difficult to decipher. Responsibility – although significant in Western cultures – is a defining Chinese value. Zhang Yi Mou has spoken about the pressure of responsibility he feels to both his audience and the actors after gaining fame. Similarly, Commander Lin of the Nameless Order feels the all-consuming responsibility to her country and her soldiers, who are willing to sacrifice themselves because they trust the commander. This kind of intense relationship puzzles William (Matt Damon) at first, but through increased exposure he begins to understand its necessity. This exposure is exactly what Zhang Yi Mou has created with The Great Wall.

The use of Matt Damon as the male lead is not about a white man saving China. His character’s interactions with the Chinese serve as an allegory for the relationships between the East and the West. In the beginning, neither William nor Commander Lin trust or respect each other. William was only there for black powder, while Commander Lin only wanted to know how William had killed the Tao Tie. Similar to how the Brits waltzed into China expecting a trade deal while disregarding the Emperor, and the brutal way in which the Emperor retaliated by killing the diplomat – neither side understood nor respected each other. In the film, William was able to earn the Nameless Order’s welcome through his aid. The Order, in turn, treated William as a valuable ally, thus finally forming a constructive relationship. Only through mutual aid were William and Commander Lin able to accomplish what they set out to do. Zhang Yi Mou’s message cannot be more clear – treat us with respect and we’ll honour you; treat us with disrespect and only calamity will come.

The Great Wall, despite its failings, serves a purpose – to introduce Chinese culture to the widest audience possible. Instead of the ‘white saviour’ critics claim William to be, he is simply a lens through which the audience could see the Western perception of China. In a moment of sharp commentary, William’s companion provokes him: “You think you’re a hero? You’re just a thief.” In the end, William’s newly learned humility did make him a hero, but only alongside Commander Lin

I think the Taotie needed more explanation for American audiences. They weren't explained at all really, but Chinese know - a translation deficiency. But that's just me Monday morning quarterbacking...on Friday no less. :o

[GeneChing]

Most of us have already forgotten the Great Wall. :o


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Forget Matt Damon, The Great Wall is about China’s quest for global dominance (http://www.livemint.com/Sundayapp/AL3lUML2RsJvt6XhhHUCDL/Forget-Matt-Damon-The-Great-Wall-is-about-Chinas-quest-for.html)

The Great Wall may have flopped, but the vision behind it is here to stay as China seeks the cultural clout to match its economic strength
Laya Maheshwari
First Published: Sat, Apr 01 2017. 11 35 PM IST

It is not often that a film so eminently forgettable is treated to such heated debate and intense controversy upon arrival. Yet, when the science-fantasy-period-action-monster-spectacular The Great Wall, starring Matt Damon, released in the US in February, it did so weathering a storm of accusations—chief among them being that Hollywood had yet again whitewashed an ostensibly Asian tale.
Now, a month later, The Great Wall is practically out of theaters worldwide, much sooner than its makers had hoped. The movie’s backers are expected to incur a loss of at least $75 million—half of its production budget.
“This was the first movie of its type,” one executive told The Hollywood Reporter, remarking on the American-Chinese co-production aspect of the movie. “There’s no question but that it’s a failure,” said another.
While analysing the colossal misfire behind The Great Wall, one should focus not on the superficial crime of whitewashing, but on an extremely ambitious and disruptive vision of what an “event film” or “international blockbuster” may look like in the future.
One contender may have come and gone, but more like it are not far off. This vision is here to stay, and it can be traced back to one country’s quest to be a global superpower.

A rocky road to release

Accusations started plaguing The Great Wall months before anyone saw it. Eyebrows were raised as soon as it was announced that Chinese auteur Zhang Yimou, once famous for subversive dramas such as Raise the Red Lantern, would be directing a big-budget, special-effects-laden epic centred upon the Great Wall of China and the purpose it served for ancient Chinese empires.
The first promotional poster for the film had the tagline “What were they trying to keep out?” over the all-caps title. The answer, to anyone slightly familiar with history, seemed evident in the poster itself: foreigners like Matt Damon.
The raised eyebrows gave way to eyerolls when the first trailer made it seem like this would be an all-too-familiar and all-too-depressing case of a heterosexual white male protagonist stepping in to save the day when a rich and exotic “other” is under threat.
Examples include—but, sadly, are far from limited to—The Last Samurai, Blood Diamond, The Help and Avatar. The allegations reached such an intensity that both the film’s star and director had to defend it from this fury.
Their statements evidently didn’t do enough; around the time of the film’s release, the hashtag #ThankYouMattDamon—meant to send up the white saviour phenomenon—went viral and was featured in major news publications.

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Did a film set in 11th century China really need a white protagonist, many wondered. The explanation that quickly took hold in the popular imagination pinned the blame on Damon, as if he entered an otherwise-untarnished universe and ruined the Chinese’s innocent fun-filled romp with his presence.
This perception not just completely reversed the power dynamics in this series of events, but also failed to understand both the events themselves and their intended audience.
At the beginning of The Great Wall, the vaguely European mercenary played by Damon finally arrives at the titular landmark, where he sees the Song Dynasty’s forces stationed as far a the eye can see. With awe filling his eyes, he exclaims: “I’ve never seen an army like this!”
Over the course of the film’s 104-minute runtime, there are almost as many shots of Damon’s character gawking at the Chinese troops as there are of the attacking monsters.
The film takes pains to point out how the guns-for-hire nature of Damon’s character is at odds with the Chinese troops’ collective loyalty. The fact that he’s fought under multiple flags—the English, the Spanish, the Vatican, etc.—is something the female lead, a winsome Chinese commander who would die for her order, notes with dismay.
For a long time, watching American blockbusters that fetishize its military prowess (i.e., almost anything by Michael Bay or Peter Berg) has been an uncomfortable experience for many. A viewing of The Great Wall evokes similar vibes, except the superpower being deified lies on the other side of the Pacific Ocean.
And that’s why the film was made.

Make China Great Again

Before Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again”, the Leave campaign’s “Take Back Control” and Narendra Modi’s endless abbreviations, there was Xi Jinping’s “The Chinese Dream”.
And much like those earlier catchphrases (especially in the case of Modi’s coinages), the Chinese president’s term doesn’t carry an explicit, concrete meaning. Instead, it is a catch-all phrase that signifies many things while remaining vague enough to be held accountable for nothing.

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Xi Jinping. Photo: Reuters

Xi, who took power in 2012, promised the Chinese people that under his rule their country would finally regain its glory on the global stage. It’s worth remembering this promise the next time there are developments in China’s new Silk Roads initiative, its brash exercises in the South China Sea, or its opposition to the Western-dominated Bretton Woods institutions.
This loss of greatness has its roots in the Century of National Humiliation that China believes it suffered after the First Opium War (1839-42). Starting from the Treaty of Nanking in 1842—when the Qing Dynasty ceded Hong Kong island to the British and recognized them as an equal entity—and continuing to another opium war, more punishing treaties, and the Japanese occupation preceding the Second World War, the repeated embarrassment of China on the international stage is ingrained in the national psyche.
Betraying its name, the Century of National Humiliation hasn’t truly ended—or at least, it keeps getting revived whenever convenient.
Some believe it bottomed out in 1949 when the Communist Party came to power; some believe the return of Hong Kong from the British in 1997 ended it symmetrically; meanwhile, some claim that it will only truly be over when Taiwan is reunited with the mainland.
The Century of National Humiliation works as a never-ending source of motivation, and striving for international validation of China’s power is an intrinsic part of it.
This is widely acknowledged to have played a part in the country’s bid to host the 2008 Summer Olympics; its (bizarre) attempts to win a Nobel Prize in literature; its expensive plans to become a football powerhouse; and its fervent desire to become a cultural heavyweight.
The Chinese Communist Party values the export of its language, its customs, its festivals and its art extremely highly. In fact, it regards the slowness of their current export distressing. “The stories of China should be well told, voices of China well spread, and characteristics of China well explained,” Xi told his communist cadres in 2014.
The richest man in china
The Great Wall was filmed at the Qingdao Movie Metropolis, a megacity enclosing the world’s largest filmmaking facility. Standing on top of an artificial island off China’s eastern coast, the Metropolis—which will be completed in 2018—is expected to cost more than $8 billion and be around twice the size of its nearest rival in the world, Universal. It will contain 45 soundstages, of which two will be permanently underwater.
Who could even have use for such facilities? “In this age of superhero movies and the revival of Star Wars, there’s demand for really big stages,” industry veteran Morgan Hunwicks told The Hollywood Reporter. “Sets that used to have to be built outside can now be brought into a controlled environment, which is a huge advantage.”
Pacific Rim 2, the sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s monster-and-robot mashup, is the next major production to base itself at the Metropolis. That film and The Great Wall are both produced by Legendary Pictures, which was recently bought by the Dalian Wanda Group, the company behind the Metropolis. continued next post

[GeneChing]

The Wanda Group was founded by Wang Jianlin, who is a member of the Communist Party and a delegate to the National People’s Congress. With a net worth exceeding $30 billion, Wang is the richest man in Asia.

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Wang Jianlin. Photo: AFP

After making his fortune in real estate, Wang moved on to the media industry. He is behind the Wanda multiplexes, which are inescapable if you’re in China. In 2012, he bought AMC Entertainment and took over their theatres.
Today, Wang, described in a profile in The Economist as “a man of Napoleonic ambition”, owns more cinema screens than anyone else on the planet. Wang also purchased a 20% stake in Atletico Madrid, and his Wanda Group wanted to acquire Dick Clark Productions, with an eye on the broadcast rights to the Golden Globes—among other things.
When announcing the launch of his Qingdao Metropolis, he flew over stars like Nicole Kidman, Kate Beckinsale and Leonardo DiCaprio to smile on the red carpet.
This groundbreaking ceremony, which took place in 2013, is an illuminating precursor to understand where The Great Wall came from and what it will lead to.
For Wang and Wanda Group, dominating the global entertainment marketplace is the end-goal. Not only does he want to own the biggest share of the pie—be it in North America or in China—but he also wants to build up Chinese entertainment brands to rival those in Hollywood.
Wang is under no illusions regarding what the pursuit of that goal will entail. “Optimistically, it will be at least 10 years before we can make films in English that are global,” he said in another profile of him, this one in The Hollywood Reporter. Until then, it makes commercial sense for him to ride on the backs of international celebrities, be it DiCaprio for waving at shutterbugs or Damon for fighting monsters.
The initial reaction in the press and social media is understandable. The Chinese propaganda in the finished film would not have come across easily inside a two-minute trailer. What seemed more likely was a craven production made to appease shareholders even if that meant trampling over cultural authenticity.
Hollywood as an industry, even in the 21st century, is not above casting Benedict Cumberbatch to play someone named Khan (in Star Trek Into Darkness) or Scarlett Johannsson to embody the originally Asian lead in the adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, a Japanese animated film based on a manga of the same name.
In a popular discourse still reeling from the #OscarsSoWhite controversy, Damon’s face plastered atop a film set in China hit all the wrong notes.
However, make no mistake, in a project like The Great Wall, it’s the white male lead who is expendable and replaceable—not the people behind the scenes making all the decisions of import.
“Matt Damon is not playing a role that was originally conceived for a Chinese actor,” director Zhang Yimou told Entertainment Weekly. If Damon were unavailable—say, filming another Bourne sequel—Wang and the Wanda Group would have arranged for another box-office draw of his calibre to fill in.
For the type of films they hope to make and the kind of message China wants to broadcast to both the world and, especially, its domestic audience, what’s essential is not just that a face like Matt Damon’s appear on the poster but also that a person like Matt Damon recognize the might of Chinese forces and aid them in their mission to bring peace to the world.

The near future

The US is the world’s biggest box-office market today, but it will be overtaken by China in a few years. Already, major blockbusters such as Fast and Furious 7 or Transformers: Age of Extinction are grossing more in China than they are in the States.
More importantly, for films such as the first Pacific Rim (budget: $190 million), their earnings in China can make the difference between incurring a loss and recouping the original investment.
China is notoriously restrictive in the foreign productions it grants theatrical release. Under its import quotas, only 34 titles are allowed distribution every year. The companies behind these chosen few earn merely 25% of ticket revenues—still substantial in a market where a successful film can gross more than $300 million.
However, to sidestep the quota, companies can choose to make their title a Chinese co-production. The requirements are onerous—Chinese production companies are infamous for intruding upon the script—and have led some previous aspirants (Disney’s Iron Man 3) to abandon the attempt midway.
But being branded a co-production also raises the share of the foreign partner’s earnings to 43%. And international titles that utilize the Qingdao Metropolis can qualify for a 40% production rebate from the city’s municipal corporation. So it is safe to bet that the failure of The Great Wall notwithstanding, Hollywood and its celebrities will be back in China for more.
When you look at The Great Wall, you can notice the beginnings of an Asian conglomerate’s revolutionary vision. You can see a business model that an American industry has desperately turned to in the face of declining theatrical attendance and growing international power.
You can observe how a country reaches out when it’s eager for the cultural clout and soft power that it believes should accompany its economic strength. It’s a sprawling tale of an exotic “other” that touches upon sky-high ambition, centuries of history and a drastic shift in global power structures.
Yet, the media discussion has focused upon one white male who’s a rather peripheral element in the bigger picture. If only there were a term for that.

Laya Maheshwari is a journalist who has reported on cinema and propaganda from countries such as North Korea, China, Russia and Turkey. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian and Al Jazeera—among other publications.
Comments are welcome at feedback@livemint.com 20/20 hindsight. In the rear view mirror, objects appear larger than actual size. ;)

[GeneChing]

How many nails doth a coffin make?


Is a Disappointing Ghost in the Shell the Nail in the Coffin of Hollywood Whitewashing? (http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/04/ghost-in-the-shell-box-office-whitewashing-bad-for-business)
The film’s anemic box office is only the latest financial fallout of Asian erasure.
by JOANNA ROBINSON
APRIL 2, 2017 3:54 PM

http://media.vanityfair.com/photos/58dd352b65fc5645669ff442/master/w_960,c_limit/whitewashing-ghost-in-the-shell-iron-fist.png
From left: courtesy of Netflix, courtesy of Paramount, courtesy of Legendary

It’s become increasingly impossible to ignore general social pushback when it comes to Asian representation in film and television. Whether it’s cut-and-dried whitewashing (e.g., casting a white performer in an Asian role) or slightly more complex cases of cultural appropriation, the hue and cry from progressive voices in film and TV criticism has called for an end to white leads in Asian and Asian-inspired properties. But Hollywood—a town driven by dollars and not always sense—is more likely to listen when protests hurt the bottom line. Ghost in the Shell, the Scarlett Johansson-starring adaptation of the popular Japanese manga, is only the latest controversial project to stumble at the box office. Will this misstep finally put an end to whitewashing?

According to Box Office Mojo, in its first weekend, Ghost in the Shell pulled in approximately $20 million domestically on a $110 million budget—below even the conservative prediction that site made earlier in the week. That number looks even more anemic when compared with Lucy, Johansson’s R-rated 2014 film, which pulled in $43.8 million on its opening weekend. Unlike Ghost in the Shell, Lucy wasn’t based on a pre-existing property and didn’t have an established fanbase to draw on. But the Johansson casting has clearly alienated fans of the original manga and anime versions of Ghost in the Shell, and their dampened enthusiasm appears to have discouraged newcomers as well.

The controversy around Johansson’s casting has plagued Ghost in the Shell since late 2014. Johansson stars as Major (whose full name is “Major Motoko Kusanagi” in the manga), a synthetic, cybernetic body housing the brain of a dead Japanese woman. Both fans of the original and advocates for Asian actors in Hollywood argued that a Japanese actress should have been cast in the role, while a spokesperson for Ghost in the Shell publisher Kodansha gave Johansson its blessing, saying the publisher “never imagined it would be a Japanese actress in the first place.” Johansson herself defended the film this week, saying:


I think this character is living a very unique experience in that she has a human brain in an entirely machinate body. I would never attempt to play a person of a different race, obviously. Hopefully, any question that comes up of my casting will be answered by audiences when they see the film.

But it seems audiences weren’t inclined to give the film that chance. There’s no ignoring the fact that controversy cast a cloud over the film, and it’s difficult not to draw a direct line from that to the movie’s disappointing opening weekend.

Ghost in the Shell is not the first project to feel the burn of “race-bent” casting. Though other factors may have added to their unpopularity, The Last Airbender, Exodus: Gods and Kings, Aloha, Pan, and more have all foundered at the box office. (These films also received unfavorable reviews, but bad reviews alone can’t snuff out box-office potential.) Matt Damon’s heavily criticized, China-set film The Great Wall didn’t fare much better. In addition to becoming an Oscar night punchline for Jimmy Kimmel, the movie grossed only $45 million domestically on a $150 million budget. Marvel’s too-big-to-fail Avengers installment Doctor Strange is the recent exception that proves the rule: not even Tilda Swinton’s controversial casting in the historically Asian role of the Ancient One could slow this film down. It made more than $232 million domestically and $677.5 million worldwide.

But since Netflix won’t release ratings data to the public, the jury is still out on whether the Marvel brand was also enough to combat the furor over Finn Jones being cast as the historically white Danny Rand in the latest Defenders installment, Iron Fist. (This is a case in which “cultural appropriation”—Danny is a better martial artist than all the other Asian characters around him—inspired public outcry, rather than “whitewashing.”) While various tech companies have claimed in the past to be able to analyze Netflix’s data, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos himself has historically pushed back on those results. One such company, 7Park Data, claims that Iron Fist defied both bad reviews and controversy to become Netflix’s “most-binged drama premiere”—meaning audiences allegedly tore through episodes at a faster clip than usual. But by the only Netflix-sanctioned metric available—the site’s soon-to-be-gone star rating—Iron Fist is lagging behind other Defenders shows. As of publication, it had earned only three stars from users, compared with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage—which all pulled in 4.25 or higher.

Even if Marvel’s bottom line is controversy-proof so far, it’s unlikely that its parent company, the increasingly and intentionally diverse Walt Disney Studios, will want to weather further public relations storms like the ones that swirled around both Doctor Strange and Iron Fist. Paramount, too, seems to have kept its head down when it came to deploying Ghost in the Shell. After it was revealed that the visual effects company Lola VFX had done tests on Ghost in the Shell in order to digitally “shift” the “ethnicity” of a Caucasian actress and make her appear more Asian in the film (there’s disagreement over whether that actress was Johansson herself), the wind went out of the studio’s sails. Ghost in the Shell also screened very late for critics—a sure sign that a studio would prefer to mitigate any damage caused by negative word of mouth and early reviews.

But what has tipped the needle on the issue of Asian erasure in film and television from progressive social concern to bottom-line disrupter? Pushback on both whitewashing and limited opportunities for Asian performers in Hollywood has recently gotten a boosted signal, thanks to both social media and the uncensored honesty of popular Asian and East Asian actors like Kal Penn, John Cho, Constance Wu, Aziz Ansari, and Ming-Na Wen. And that boosted signal comes at a time when, according to a 2016 MPAA study, younger (and likely more socially progressive) Asian-American film-goers between the ages of 18 and 24 are going to more movies, while the Caucasian film-going population is on the decline.

But domestic box office alone may not be enough to bring about social change. With Hollywood increasingly obsessed with appealing to lucrative Asian markets abroad, it’s as yet unclear whether casting white leads in Asian-centric or inspired properties hurts the global bottom line. The Great Wall, directed by Chinese legend Zhang Yimou, did decently overseas, making 86.4 percent of its total intake on foreign screens. And while Ghost in the Shell has yet to open in either Japan or China, it took in roughly $40.1 million in other foreign markets this weekend, including Russia, Germany, and South Korea. Then again, the massive global box-office returns of films with diverse casts, including Rogue One and the Fast and the Furious franchise, render any argument that Caucasian actors are required for international success null and void.

Meanwhile, at home, the protests against Asian erasure are only growing more intense. While still licking its wounds from the critical drubbing it received for Iron Fist, Netflix is staring down the barrel of another appropriation controversy. This time, it’s the popular manga Death Note that has gotten a Seattle-based makeover, putting Caucasian actors Nat Wolff and Margaret Qualley in roles that originally had the last names Yagami and Amane. Willem Dafoe will voice the Japanese spirit Ryuk. The protest around Death Note is already significantly louder than for other past American adaptations of Asian properties like The Ring, The Grudge, and The Departed.

Though America itself is a very socially divided country, the cool, impartial truth of box-office returns reveals a film and TV industry that is facing a sea change when it comes to Asian representation. History may soon look back on the Asian erasure of Doctor Strange, Iron Fist, and Ghost in the Shell with an even more unfavorable eye. Just as blackface in film and TV gradually became unacceptable (and more recently than you may think), the marginalization and appropriation of Asian culture could be on its way out the door—with these recent financial disappointments only serving as a last gasp of a bygone era.

[GeneChing]

There's an embedded vid but the article pretty much paraphrases it.


Director behind 'Great Wall' says China has a long way to go to rival Hollywood (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/11/director-behind-great-wall-says-china-has-a-long-way-to-go-to-rival-hollywood.html)
Sophia Yan
10 Hours Ago
CNBC.com

Tuesday, 9 May 2017 | 10:57 PM ET | 03:58

China has a long road ahead if it wants to rival Hollywood's influence, said award-winning movie director Zhang Yimou.

Chinese audiences hotly follow U.S. actors and movies, but Americans "probably" don't care much about Chinese movies, Zhang told CNBC. On the outside, maybe they've tracked a couple of stars like Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan or Jet Li, he said.

"What we need is Chinese people to produce better films, and this will take some time," said the well-known director.

China has splashed billions into the entertainment industry to cobble influence abroad — giant firms like Dalian Wanda and Alibaba invested big in Hollywood. Those moves will theoretically help China to build soft power, especially as the world's second-largest economy seeks to become a valuable global connector. But China has yet to reap the rewards, and still doesn't hold Hollywood's clout. Some critics say Chinese government censorship restricts creativity, while others say the industry is still building the necessary know-how.

Censorship has "always been there … It's the reality of Chinese society," Zhang said. "I hope this will change in the future, and that things become more open as the country continues to develop … but right now, it is what it is."

Zhang has attracted government censors before — his 1994 movie "To Live" was banned in China. Still, over his long career, he's scored numerous top awards and notched plenty of major hits, including "Hero" and "Raise the Red Lantern." His latest, and first English-language film, "Great Wall," was largely anticipated to pave the way for the Chinese film industry to blossom internationally. But critics tore down the movie, calling it trite, and slamming the casting of American actor Matt Damon — instead of a Chinese actor — in the lead.

Identity politics aside, Zhang said it's true that foreign firms have more advanced skills, techniques and technology, and that adds pressure to Chinese film studios. But in the long run, he added, more Chinese-Hollywood co-productions can only be a good thing.

"It creates competition, and that can drive Chinese companies to set a higher bar for themselves," Zhang said. "Cooperating with foreign teams allows Chinese to learn many new things, and we are now using what we've learned to improve."

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CNBC | Barry Huang
Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou speaks with CNBC.

For Hollywood, China remains crucial — the entire Chinese market was worth $6.6 billion at the box office last year. And for China, it's an "opportunity to export Chinese culture abroad," Zhang said.

That's an increasingly important theme as Beijing continues to pursue its "One Belt, One Road" policy — a giant plan to develop and strengthen links between China and the rest of the world. With this plan, "we are engaging others … then, we can see what we can do together, and this will be beneficial for everyone," Zhang said.

Aside from movies, Zhang has also worked on staged productions, including the opening and closing ceremonies at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. This June, his "2047 Apologue," a theatrical dance and music concept show that explores the interaction of technology and humankind, will debut in Beijing.

Sophia Yan
Beijing Correspondent, CNBC

[GeneChing]

After 'The Great Wall,' Can China-Hollywood Co-Productions Be Saved? (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/great-wall-can-china-hollywood-productions-be-saved-1005240)
9:30 PM PDT 5/18/2017 by Patrick Brzeski , Scott Roxborough

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Courtesy of Legendary and Universal Pictures
'The Great Wall,' starring Damon, bombed in the U.S. and underwhelmed in China

After a number of high-profile failures, savvy producers are finding ways to get past cultural and regulatory hurdles to gain access to the Middle Kingdom.

On paper, linking the world's two top box-office territories — North America and China — via a co-production designed to play in both seems a no-brainer.

But despite many attempts, big and small, and seemingly endless industry panel discussions dedicated to the topic, there are virtually no U.S.-China co-productions that have succeeded financially in both territories.

The landscape is littered with examples of promising projects that faltered or failed. Remember The Flowers of War? Zhang Yimou's World War II period epic starring Christian Bale and Chinese star Ni Ni was a hit at home, grossing $95 million in China but wilted stateside, earning a mere $311,000. 2011's Inseparable, a mystery drama starring Kevin Spacey and Daniel Wu, didn't even secure a U.S. release.

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Courtesy of Lionsgate; Courtesy of Colordance
Christian Bale in The Flowers of War; Kevin Spacey in Inseparable.

And Legendary Entertainment's The Great Wall, billed as the film that would usher in a new era of big-budget, mutually beneficial collaboration between Hollywood and Beijing, ended up a disaster for all concerned. After the pricey Yimou-directed tentpole starring Matt Damon bombed in North America and underwhelmed in China, losing at least $75 million, the viability of such partnerships has never been more in doubt.

To qualify as an official U.S.-China co-production, a film's story must contain considerable Chinese cultural elements and Chinese professionals must make up a large portion of the cast and crew; but in return, the U.S. partner is permitted to take 43 percent of the movie's Chinese box-office revenue, instead of the usual 25 percent that U.S. studio imports receive under China's quota system.

But the regulatory hurdles can prove too burdensome. Both Iron Man 3 and Transformers 4 originally were planned as Chinese co-pros before the studios decided the restrictions required to make the deals work were not worth the potential benefits.

"There are so many difficulties with this system," says the head of one major Chinese studio (who requested not to be named because of the potential consequences of criticizing China's official system). "On-set, the cultural and language barriers make it very difficult to maintain a smooth production. In the market, if you add too much Chinese cast and content, you tend to lose box office overseas, where most audiences still aren't accustomed to Chinese culture."

Many of China's savviest producers have given up on official co-pros altogether, though they are still collaborating with Hollywood. They are now flipping the script: Instead of working on U.S. films with a Chinese element, they focus on making Chinese movies better equipped to travel.

Shanghai-based studio Bliss Media's forthcoming S.M.A.R.T. Chase is exemplary of the new wave. An English-language action-thriller, the film stars Orlando Bloom as a washed-up private security agent who has to escort a valuable Chinese antique out of Shanghai.

"It is actually a Chinese film, but we produced it like an international one," says Bliss CEO Han Wei. "The main department heads were from the U.S., and the rest of the crew is Chinese. We shot the whole thing in Shanghai, and it has a big Hollywood star [Bloom] and several big Chinese ones [Simon Yam, Hannah Quinlivan, Lynn Hung]."

Beijing-based Leomus Pictures has a similar vision but is approaching the formula from the opposite side of the border. The company was instrumental in the Chinese success of Lionsgate's Now You See Me 2, on which it was a co-financier and Chinese distributor — after Leomus cast Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou in a supporting role, the film opened to $43.3 million in China, nearly double its $23 million bow in North America.

Says Leomus' CEO Jie Qiu: "The United States and China are becoming more connected all of the time, so maybe in the future there will be more natural stories involving Americans and Chinese that we can make into movies that both cultures can fully accept — but we're not there yet."

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Jay Maidment/Lionsgate
Jay Chou in Now You See Me 2.
This story first appeared in the May 19 Cannes daily issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.

It was too bad about Inseparable. That was a really good film. Flowers & Wall were both overhyped.