Matt Damon looks like he will be playing the lead in a joint American-Chinese Made Fantasy movie called The Great Wall. The movie producers have recieved criticism for making a non Chinese the lead in a movie set in China a thousand years ago. But the movie should be considered a fantasy movie and not a historical epic.
While making the lead a white dude might be a bit pandering to the western market, there were Europeans around in China in the 15th century (when the movie is set, I hear).
The movie is supposed to be set in the Northern Song dynasty period which was from 959 AD to 1126 AD. Much earlier than the 15th century. Maybe he is playing as a Tocharian. I am not sure.
Marco Polo's journey to China was much earlier than the 15th century. Damon's character stayed behind. Problem solved (on that front). It would be a significant issue if Damon was playing the role of an actual Chinese historical figure. As it is, the complaints will likely echo those directed at Dances with Wolves or The Last Samurai--white dude shows locals how to be better versions of themselves. However, given a non-western filmmaker, and not having seen it, I plan to reserve further judgement.
They might be aliens, or that mist could be psychedelic. 1700 years building a wall because of mass hysteria caused from swamp-gas? Sweet.
Made by two Chinese production companies and directed by a Chinese person - clearly all self-hating racists. More seriously I was discussing this over steamed buns with some Chinese friends this morning - they see it as following what they call 'rule one' = where's the money?
I think this sadly is just due to the fact that if you really want to get mainstream audiences to pay attention to a movie like this you need a white guy in the lead role. It is definitely annoying though, and it would have been nice to see an Asian actor like Donnie Yen or Jet Li in the lead.
Is there someone exactly the same as Donnie or Jet but younger than 30, who has more than 20 year of making good movies ahead of them? If they had hired a Chinese lead, would the movie have still been in English?
"I was Bourne...into battle" I couldn't help thinking of Game of Thrones with the wall and dragons and all. I can't find my clutching pearls at the moment but I'm sure plenty of people will go on about it until the movie is released. I think the worse one is The Forbidden Kingdom, did anyone care for that white guy? However, we had a lot of laughs with Nic Cage in Outcast. I guess the white guy helps get it into US markets which is the point. There seems to be a number of Chinese/Hong Kong movies (some with Jet Li) like this but they go to video. I can't think of a film since Crouching Tiger that has gone to the silver screen without it. Is it just a white guy though? Would people complain had it been Idris Elba instead?
Matt Damon is only 8 years younger than Donnie Yen and Jet Lit. Yen and Li are both 53 and Damon is 45.
Here, we went through a phase shortly after Crouching Tiger where we got a few movies like that, but it does seem to be in phases. Flying Daggers, The Banquet (I think it was called Curse of the Golden Dragon here?), Hero, and Red Cliff are all ones I remember seeing on the big screen (obviously these were different years though), but there were others that we didn't. - There are still bucket loads of direct to dvd ones though.
Marco Polo's journey to China happened three hundred years after the timeframe of this movie. However, the Silk Road was around for more than a thousand years before Marco Polo was even born. Damon's character doesn't need Marco Polo to have a reason to be in China. Although I do like the idea that he's a Tocharian, or a descendant of them...
I guess they want to make this a big hit in the West. The flim also has American producers as well as two American companies involved, Legendary Entertainment and Atlas Entertainment.
If people want the "white male lead" problem to go away, all they have to do is stop going to see movies with white male leads.
Damon is too old too. Older people fight differently to young people because their bodies are different. I was watching Major Crimes and the young guy in that is over 50, who is getting reprimanded for chasing a criminal by himself without back up from his parter. His explanation, Julio's explanation was "Lieutenant Provenza does not run" which made me laugh out loud, seriously. Provenza, G. W. Baily, was the baddie in the Police Academy movies, that guy. He's over 70, and most certainly does not run. What he did do is, is walk to his car, and then follow his partner in his car, running after the perp, and then run the perp over with his police car, ending the chase. Old people fight smarter, because they usually don't have a choice. What was the life expectancy in 10th century China?
Old guys don't jump around on treetops either but they do so sometimes in movies. In the old kung fu movies the old guys with long white hair were usually the biggest badasses of them all.