Zhang Yimou's new vehicle to export Chinese culture

Zhang Yimou poses with four actors Jing Tian, Lu Han, Lin Gengxin and Huang Xuan and film executives at a press conference to promote his new film "The Great Wall" in Beijing on November 15, 2016.


Zhang Yimou attends a press conference to promote his new film "The Great Wall" in Beijing on November 15, 2016.

Jing Tian attends a press conference to promote her new film "The Great Wall" in Beijing on November 15, 2016.

Huang Xuan attends a press conference to promote his new film "The Great Wall" in Beijing on November 15, 2016.

Lin Gengxin attends a press conference to promote his new film "The Great Wall" in Beijing on November 15, 2016.

Lu Han attends a press conference to promote his new film "The Great Wall" in Beijing on November 15, 2016.

Legendary film director Zhang Yimou unveiled the mysteries of five armies in his new film "The Great Wall" in Beijing on Tuesday, believing he has found a new approach to export Chinese culture to the world audiences.

"I just flew back from Los Angeles where I finished post-production work of the film," Zhang said, when he attended a press conference in Beijing with four of the stars, Jing Tian, Lu Han, Lin Gengxin and Huang Xuan. "The reason I made 'The Great Wall' was out of the hope to use an international blockbuster as a vehicle to share Chinese culture and value with the world. This is an alternative way for Chinese film to go beyond our borders."

The film is the first big production from Zhang in years and his first English-speaking film. The film originally came from Legendary CEO Thomas Tull, who conceived the idea with "World War Z" writer Max Brooks. Though the script and story were produced by an outsider, Zhang managed to insert his own thoughts and Chinese elements into the film once he took over the project.

The new model to make Chinese-American co-productions may set a new standard, as previously many of this genres just added several Chinese scenes or Chinese actors, which displeased Chinese audiences. Meanwhile foreign audiences do not seem ready to flock to see purely Chinese films due to a cultural gap and many other reasons.

The film, which stars Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, and Andy Lau, is the most expensive film production in Chinese history, with an estimated budget of around US$135 million. It tells the story of an ancient Chinese folk tale in Song Dynasty surrounding the building of the world famous landmark, the Great Wall, and the horde of monsters that crept up on the wall at intervals of 60 years and the armies based there to repulse them.

The monster is identified as the Taotie, a beast of great greed from ancient Chinese mythology. Zhang also designed a plot for European mercenary soldiers to steal gunpowder technology from China, but only to discover they are caught up in a war to save the entire human race.

Zhang unveiled the mysterious armies in the film guarding the Great Wall from monster attack. Video footages show the "Shadowless Forbidden Armies" consist of different forces named after five animals - bear (close combat army), crane (female air strike soldiers), tiger (heavy weaponry army), deer (cavalry) and eagle (archers).

The director explained that the five animals, and the five colors that represent them, are directly drawn from traditional Chinese culture and he looked forward to more foreign audiences being able to enjoy the beauty of the cultural elements.

During the filmmaking, the director said the most impressive part for him was the presence of so many translators to handle communication as he assembled an international crew for the filming. More than 100 on-set translators worked with the various cast and crew members.

Another thing, Zhang stressed, was that he hoped Chinese film academies could teach students to act with imagination, "In the future, there will be more and more demands for actors to act before the green screen. From my observation, Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal are more experienced when they act with a green screen; they know how to act when they were told how the monsters would come to them."

"The Great Wall" is co-produced by China Film Co. Ltd., LeVision Pictures, Legendary Pictures and Universal Pictures. It will hit Chinese theaters on Dec. 16, 2016 and be released in the United States on Feb. 17, 2017.

Source: china.org

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