At the New York Comic-Con, ComicBook.com’s Brandon Davis recently caught up with Yimou Zhang and the legendary director dished on what his upcoming film The Great Wall was going to be like.
When asked about how he puts his signature touch on every project he directs, Zhang said, “Mainly, you got to make sure every movie is solid.” He continued, “It’s actually very hard to do. You’ve got to find out what’s special about each movie. You got to make sure the story is good. You got to have good characters. You have to do good homework, and be well-prepared.”
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Zhang also discussed the star-studded cast for the film and the rich characters they portray.
“The story is mainly the way we talked about it,” Zhang said. “It’s about Matt Damon, he played a European mercenary. He comes to China. He wants to steal the ‘black powder,’ and then he gets mixed up in a battle between a secret army on the Great Wall and monsters.”
He also revealed some insider info about the movie’s secret army.
“The Chinese army is really cool,” he said. “It’s very powerful. They know how to fight monsters.” He also said, “It’s kind of like a suicide squad, and it’s all women. And they have to be really brave to do this.”
Check out the full interview with Yimou Zhang above.
Also, ComicBook.com was able to chat with the lead actor in the film, Hollywood superstar Matt Damon, recently gave a synopsis of the plot.
Here’s how the 46-year-old actor described the movie:
“There are three Westerners in the movie; it’s Pedro and me and Willem Dafoe,” he said. “And we play these guys who are mercenaries who basically come to steal gun powder from the Chinese and we’ve heard of this legendary weapon and we want to bring it back to the West and try to conquer the West with it. And we kind of stumble upon this secretive army that basically exists to defend the Great Wall against these monsters that attack every 60-years. And we kind of stumble upon them on the eve of this battle and prove ourselves useful enough that we end of fighting with them against this assault of monsters.”
The Great Wall was directed by Yimou Zhang with writing credits for Max Brooks (World War Z), Carlos Bernard (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), Doug Miro (Narcos), Edward Zwick (The Last Samurai), Tony Gilroy (The Bourne Ultimatum), and Marshall Herskovitz (Love & Other Drugs).
The cast for the upcoming film features Damon, Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones), Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man), Numan Acar (Homeland), and Junkai Wang (A Love for Separation).
The Great Wall hits theaters on February 17, 2017.
Are you excited to see Yimou Zhang’s The Great Wall?
