The Great Wall


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Aubrey the Malformed wrote:
Possibly part of the reason I find it hard to get excited about this movie is that The Great Wall is the name of a Chinese takeaway near where I live.

Would you be surprised to see Matt Damon working there? :P


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Orville Redenbacher wrote:
Looks like 14th warrior Chinese edition.

13th*

The Exchange

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Just received unofficial feedback on the film from a chap who saw it at the IMAX. He said it was sort of a Jet Li/Aliens/Zorro mash-up - and about as good as that implies. He said the 3D was awesome, though. YMMV.

Sovereign Court

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Not a terribly big weekend for the box office. Looks like The Wall will rely on mostly on overseas sales to make up their budget and any profit.


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Pan wrote:
Not a terribly big weekend for the box office. Looks like The Wall will rely on mostly on overseas sales to make up their budget and any profit.

I mean, the whole reason this was made was most likely "It will do huge numbers in China" right?

If it were a U.S. facing blockbuster, it probably would not have come out in February (which is generally the time of year when films that are not awards contenders or blockbusters, but will have a reliable genre-based audience come out).


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How about you actually go see the movie before you continue the debate about it?! Wow.
Took my older boys and wife and we THOROUGHLY ENJOYED IT!
Had them watch "Hero" with Jet Li about a week before so they would have some experience with a foreign film--same director, if you did not know already. They loved it.
My wife can be pickier about action flicks than me and she said she would see it again!
There is more depth to the players in this story than many would think. Some of the characters I got attached to very quickly...which can be unfortunate with war involved.
Why is William (Matt Damon) there? He seeks the secret of the greatest weapon: Black Powder
Give the movie a chance. It really is good.


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If Matt Damon is unacceptable in a Chinese-made movie set in China, is it equally unacceptable for, say, Jackie Chan to star in an American-made movie set in America? Just wondering what the limits are.

(That said, I don't like Matt Damon and don't understand why he's in the movie.)


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*punches out Kung Fu Joe*

*or seems to be trying to, flailing its little arms*

MAAAATT DAAAAMOOOON!!!


Kung Fu Joe wrote:

If Matt Damon is unacceptable in a Chinese-made movie set in China, is it equally unacceptable for, say, Jackie Chan to star in an American-made movie set in America? Just wondering what the limits are.

The dynamics are different. There's no colonial tradition of Chinese people coming into backward European countries and exploiting them for their own good.

Something similar might apply between Asian countries - Chinese hero saving the Vietnamese or something, but I'm not familiar enough to know how close the parallel would be.


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Kung Fu Joe wrote:

If Matt Damon is unacceptable in a Chinese-made movie set in China, is it equally unacceptable for, say, Jackie Chan to star in an American-made movie set in America? Just wondering what the limits are.

(That said, I don't like Matt Damon and don't understand why he's in the movie.)

Honestly, watch that YouTube clip Scythia posted. It does a great job of at least presenting the arguments and some of the historical forces at work for all three sides in this debate.

There were also a few phrases that made me genuinely cackle.

And to continue Thejeff's point, not only do Asian countries not have the background of culturally dominating uncouth Western countries, Western countries DO have a history of strip-mining the more palatable parts of non-European cultures and claiming them as their own. So there are possible contexts in which a Black or Asian elder coming into an American setting, teaching some backwards Americans how to do the thing, and proceed to save the day, might come off as culturally insensitive. In fact, except for the last step, there's quite a few tropes along those lines.

As an American minority myself, I have complicated feelings about the concept of cultural appropriation. Suffice to say, I don't necessarily agree with leftists on this one (and screw people that think a White person buying Mexican food is Cultural Appropriation YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT PHRASE MEANS). But it is something that happens, and people do call it out. So depending on the context, Jackie Chan coming into an American setting and bestowing orientalized "wisdom" to us benighted savages could, yes, come off wrong.


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How does it stack up to Beverly Hills Ninja?


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AnimatedPaper wrote:
Kung Fu Joe wrote:

If Matt Damon is unacceptable in a Chinese-made movie set in China, is it equally unacceptable for, say, Jackie Chan to star in an American-made movie set in America? Just wondering what the limits are.

(That said, I don't like Matt Damon and don't understand why he's in the movie.)

Honestly, watch that YouTube clip Scythia posted. It does a great job of at least presenting the arguments and some of the historical forces at work for all three sides in this debate.

There were also a few phrases that made me genuinely cackle.

And to continue Thejeff's point, not only do Asian countries not have the background of culturally dominating uncouth Western countries, Western countries DO have a history of strip-mining the more palatable parts of non-European cultures and claiming them as their own. So there are possible contexts in which a Black or Asian elder coming into an American setting, teaching some backwards Americans how to do the thing, and proceed to save the day, might come off as culturally insensitive. In fact, except for the last step, there's quite a few tropes along those lines.

As an American minority myself, I have complicated feelings about the concept of cultural appropriation. Suffice to say, I don't necessarily agree with leftists on this one (and screw people that think a White person buying Mexican food is Cultural Appropriation YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT PHRASE MEANS). But it is something that happens, and people do call it out. So depending on the context, Jackie Chan coming into an American setting and bestowing orientalized "wisdom" to us benighted savages could, yes, come off wrong.

I don't disagree with anything you're saying here, but why are you speaking hypothetically about a Jackie Chan movie instead of just telling us your opinion of Shanghai Noon, Shanghai Knights and the Rush Hour movies?

The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this movie was produced for the international market, and we're demanding some sort of east asian purity because the director's name is Zhang Yimou instead of Guillermo Del Toro. Or maybe I just missed the discussion of cultural appropriation about Pacific Rim.


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Because I haven't seen most of them. The first Rush Hour didn't quite hit my offens-o-meter, but I haven't seen it in about twenty years so there may be some parts that flew over my head. But from what I recall, it didn't fall into what I was talking about.

"Beverly Hills Cop" falls closer along what I meant. These are great movies! Really funny, and they unleashed Eddie Murphy onto the world (for better or worse), but at heart they're about a caricature of a Black cop/former thief and his two bumbling White side kicks. He's the hero! Because he's got a Past and Cross-class skill ranks and is more "street wise' than the other two (read: he's a Black person that has a skill set that Black lower class people are expected to have, like breaking and entering). These movies pull it off without venturing into offensive, but it could have gone wrong.

I'm lost on your reference to Pacific Rim. That was an international cast playing an international group of characters that are part of a multinational armed force in a movie set in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Compare it to, say, the Godzilla movie in the late 90s.

That the director is Chinese is actually helping to quiet concerns about The Great Wall. Had the director been a Westerner, even one that showed a lot of deference to East Asian history and mythology, the cries of racism would have been much louder and a lot less confused than they are. Putting a White guy in a time and setting where White guys largely weren't is a weird choice. Weird choices tend to get questioned.


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AnimatedPaper wrote:


I'm lost on your reference to Pacific Rim. That was an international cast playing an international group of characters that are part of a multinational armed force in a movie set in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Compare it to, say, the Godzilla movie in the late 90s.

The only thing I can think of is apparently using giant robots and monsters is appropriating Japanese culture? Which is...slim, to say the least.


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Okay, I can sort of see that, but even along those lines, Kill Bill or Godzilla would have been the first that came to mind.


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thejeff wrote:
[There's no colonial tradition of Chinese people coming into backward European countries and exploiting them for their own good.

Of course not.


Kirth Gersen wrote:
thejeff wrote:
[There's no colonial tradition of Chinese people coming into backward European countries and exploiting them for their own good.
Of course not.

That kind of proves the point, I'd say. You have to reach back 1300 years to a conquest in central Asia for your example. They didn't even reach Europe.


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AnimatedPaper wrote:

Because I haven't seen most of them. The first Rush Hour didn't quite hit my offens-o-meter, but I haven't seen it in about twenty years so there may be some parts that flew over my head. But from what I recall, it didn't fall into what I was talking about.

"Beverly Hills Cop" falls closer along what I meant. These are great movies! Really funny, and they unleashed Eddie Murphy onto the world (for better or worse), but at heart they're about a caricature of a Black cop/former thief and his two bumbling White side kicks. He's the hero! Because he's got a Past and Cross-class skill ranks and is more "street wise' than the other two (read: he's a Black person that has a skill set that Black lower class people are expected to have, like breaking and entering). These movies pull it off without venturing into offensive, but it could have gone wrong.

I'm lost on your reference to Pacific Rim. That was an international cast playing an international group of characters that are part of a multinational armed force in a movie set in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Compare it to, say, the Godzilla movie in the late 90s.

That the director is Chinese is actually helping to quiet concerns about The Great Wall. Had the director been a Westerner, even one that showed a lot of deference to East Asian history and mythology, the cries of racism would have been much louder and a lot less confused than they are. Putting a White guy in a time and setting where White guys largely weren't is a weird choice. Weird choices tend to get questioned.

My point about Pacific Rim was that it was made for the international market, and no one seemed to mind the use of east asian motifs. And, yes, when a movie presents the two solutions to the Kaiju problem as building a huge wall to keep them out or fighting them in giant robots, it's using east asian motifs.

I guess I'm just saying I think it's a fuzzy boundary between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation, and one that's in the eye of the beholder. Which, I hope everyone reading this understands, does not mean I believe that people are only allowed to be offended by the things that I find offensive.


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Sundakan wrote:
The only thing I can think of is apparently using giant robots and monsters is appropriating Japanese culture? Which is...slim, to say the least.

Particularly since the combat in Pacific Rim was far more heavily inspired by Lucha Libre than by Kaiju films.


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Well, I just got back from seeing the movie. I can confidently say that the "westerner saves X people" trope is the least of this movie's problems. There was one redeeming quality though. Commander Lin is the new best girl.


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I originally created this thread to talk about the movie "The Great Wall". Please take the cultural debate elsewhere? Please?
I go to movies to be entertained, as an escape. Guess what? I was very entertained while watching this movie. So, IMO, it is a success.


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Pacific Rim is the greatest film ever made.


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Fourshadow wrote:

I originally created this thread to talk about the movie "The Great Wall". Please take the cultural debate elsewhere? Please?

I go to movies to be entertained, as an escape. Guess what? I was very entertained while watching this movie. So, IMO, it is a success.

Even in that regard, it failed gloriously to me. The dialogue was mind-numbingly stupid, the action seemed straight out of a high-schooler's anime fanfic, the plot made absolutely no sense (even after including my very generous suspension of disbelief), and Matt Damon gave the worst performance I've ever seen from him. The only upsides were: the visuals were cool (lots of color contrasts), Pedro Pascal is an entertaining actor, and Commander Lin.


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Captain Battletoad wrote:
Fourshadow wrote:

I originally created this thread to talk about the movie "The Great Wall". Please take the cultural debate elsewhere? Please?

I go to movies to be entertained, as an escape. Guess what? I was very entertained while watching this movie. So, IMO, it is a success.
Even in that regard, it failed gloriously to me. The dialogue was mind-numbingly stupid, the action seemed straight out of a high-schooler's anime fanfic, the plot made absolutely no sense (even after including my very generous suspension of disbelief), and Matt Damon gave the worst performance I've ever seen from him. The only upsides were: the visuals were cool (lots of color contrasts), Pedro Pascal is an entertaining actor, and Commander Lin.

Hey, at least you made the effort to see it. Not going to argue as an opinion about such things can never be right or wrong! Thanks for giving it a chance.

Yes, the use of color in this movie is fun and we loved Commander Lin!


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Freehold DM wrote:
Pacific Rim is the greatest film ever made.

Agreed


Fourshadow wrote:
I originally created this thread to talk about the movie "The Great Wall". Please take the cultural debate elsewhere? Please?

Aw. But I just came up with the perfect argument that would totally change everyone's mind and make them come over to my way of thinking!

(Also, I seriously can't believe that anyone thought that Tom was the Western Savior; he's basically a text book case of Stockholm Weeabooism, in which he literally abandoned very thing that associated him with the wast to become friends with - but notably less skilled than - his once-foe that he'd been hired to defeat (he failed), and then was sworn to protect (he failed); he literally failed at everything except delivering someone else's message.)

Anyway, I'm interested seeing others' take on the film.

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