 The Great Wall, from director Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers, Hero), is the most-expensive Chinese film ever made, and it asks that big, important question: What if the Great Wall of China was designed to keep out scaly hell beasts? However, while the film’s new second trailer painstakingly draws your eye to every CGI bead of water and glistening cerulean breastplate, it is careful to never reveal said beasts in close-up, only in the wide. The overall effect is extremely reminiscent of World War Z’s ravening zombie hordes, which makes sense seeing as how writer Max Books created the story for both. Matt Damon stars as a warrior with a vaguely British accent (are we going to get a hand-wavy explanation for his presence in medieval China, or no?), alongside Game of Thrones’ Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, pop star Luhan, and Jing Tian. Some have criticized Damon’s casting as “whitewashing,†though the director points out Damon’s character was written as a white person and is joined by four Chinese protagonists. According to Zhang, “all aspects of the film are backed by either scientific or historical research,†other than the monsters, which are drawn from Chinese legends. You can watch the film’s first trailer below. The Great Wall premieres on February 17; no word on whether you’ll be able to see it from space.
