History Film / TheGreatWall

* GiantEyeOfDoom: Featured prominently in one teaser poster, and actually does a good job at concealing the [[EyesDoNotBelongThere uncanny location]] of said eyes.

During the [[UsefulNotes/SongLiaoJurchenJinAndWesternXiaDynasties Song Dynasty]] (sometime in the 11th century), European mercenaries William, his friend Tovar and other sellswords are traveling to China in search of the Chinese's revolutionary secret weapon: black powder, a substance said to transform into fire with great force and able to kill ten men in one blast. On their way, their group is decimated by the hill tribes and then a mysterious beast which William and Tovar fortunately manage to slay. The two remaining mercenaries then stumble upon the [[TheGreatWall Great Wall]], a massive fortification running along the mountains and guarded by a huge army. Taken prisoner, William and Tovar meet the commanders guarding the wall, among them Lin Mei of the all-female Crane Troops, the only commander able to speak English, and learn that the beast they killed, a Tao Tei, is a mere scout for the great swarm of Tao Tei which scourge the North of China and threaten its capital. As the Great Wall is the capital's only meaningful defense, it is up to the commanders to repel the beasts. For his part, William begins to warm up to the army and cannot stay neutral as they fight, but Tovar is here to remind him that they came to seek black powder, which the army has aplenty.

During the Song Dynasty (sometime in the 11th century), European mercenaries William, his friend Tovar and other sellswords are traveling to China in search of the Chinese's revolutionary secret weapon: black powder, a substance said to transform into fire with great force and able to kill ten men in one blast. On their way, their group is decimated by the hill tribes and then a mysterious beast which William and Tovar fortunately manage to slay. The two remaining mercenaries then stumble upon the [[TheGreatWall Great Wall]], a massive fortification running along the mountains and guarded by a huge army. Taken prisoner, William and Tovar meet the commanders guarding the wall, among them Lin Mei of the all-female Crane Troops, the only commander able to speak English, and learn that the beast they killed, a Tao Tei, is a mere scout for the great swarm of Tao Tei which scourge the North of China and threaten its capital. As the Great Wall is the capital's only meaningful defense, it is up to the commanders to repel the beasts. For his part, William begins to warm up to the army and cannot stay neutral as they fight, but Tovar is here to remind him that they came to seek black powder, which the army has aplenty.

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: The Chinese commanders are also the greatest individual warriors of their troops.

** Commander Lin dual wields spears in a showcase of AuthorityEqualsAsskicking.

* AnAxeToGrind: The suicide squadron on the wall are soldiers on ropes who hack on the climbing Tao Tei with heavy axes.

* WeaponOfChoice: William is good with a sword, but uses a bow primarily, while Lin uses spears. Tovar prefers to dual-wield either swords or knives.

During the Song Dynasty (between 960 A.D. - 1279 A.D.), European mercenaries William, his friend Tovar and other sellswords are traveling to China in search of the Chinese's revolutionary secret weapon: black powder, a substance said to transform into fire with great force and able to kill ten men in one blast. On their way, their group is decimated by the hill tribes and then a mysterious beast which William and Tovar fortunately manage to slay. The two remaining mercenaries then stumble upon the [[TheGreatWall Great Wall]], a massive fortification running along the mountains and guarded by a huge army. Taken prisoner, William and Tovar meet the commanders guarding the wall, among them Lin Mei of the all-female Crane Troops, the only commander able to speak English, and learn that the beast they killed, a Tao Tei, is a mere scout for the great swarm of Tao Tei which scourge the North of China and threaten its capital. As the Great Wall is the capital's only meaningful defense, it is up to the commanders to repel the beasts. For his part, William begins to warm up to the army and cannot stay neutral as they fight, but Tovar is here to remind him that they came to seek black powder, which the army has aplenty.

* AlienInvasion: The Tao Tei [[CameFromTheSky came with a comet]]. Their presence could be seen as this, but Chinese legend interprets them as a retribution from the gods to the same greedy Emperor who built the wall.

* DeathFromAbove: An example as unusual as it is awesome can be found in the Crane Troops, an all-female branch of the Order that basically [[RuleOfCool weaponizes bungee jumping]] by hurling themselves from the Wall, stabbing as many Tao Tei as possible to death with their spears, then getting pulled up again for another round. The Wall's defenders also make use of more traditional examples like entire catapult batteries loaded with fire bombs, and of course thousands of archers for the mandatory RainOfArrows.

** The commanders all fight besides their troops. It eventually costs General Zhao his life when he fights a Tao Tei.

* FunnyBackgroundEvent: When the Tao Tei pause to heed their queen's command in the first battle, one of the drones in the background gets an eyeful of arrow and drops dead just as it pauses to listen.

* KillItWithFire: The Chinese use abundant quantity of fire to repel the Tao Tei, but it's not a particular weakness of theirs.

* MaleGaze: When one of the Crane Troopers jump down the Wall, the camera briefly focuses on her chest area.

* MeaningfulEcho: Lin and William discuss each others lives, and see that they've lived all their lives in war. However, whereas Lin fought for her country and trusts her comrades, William is a mercenary and only trusts coin, thus leading to them saying that they're actually different. [[spoiler: At the end of the movie, after William's character development, he comments that they were wrong and that he and Lin are really the same kind of people deep down]].

* MightyWhitey: Zigzagged. It's William who learns a lesson about fighting for more than himself and trusting his comrades from the Chinese, although he does contribute heavily to the fight against the Tao Tei, killing several in his first encounters despite knowing nothing about them while the Chinese have trained their entire lives but go down easily for the most part. Overall, William is less a savior and more a foil to the Chinese; both are brave and heroic, but the Chinese fight for a unified purpose while William owes allegiance to no-one. His usefulness also mostly stems from his travels around the world and picking up knowledge along the way, such as whale hunting which is utilized later on. Some netizens in China actually refer to him as a glorified tour guide of the awesomeness that is ancient (fantasy) China.

* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: A single Tao Tei has shark-like teeth organized in several rows in the mouths. The Queen has such long and prominent teeth that she can't actually close her mouth properly and is left with a permanent sneer.

* PantheraAwesome: In comparison to her brutish, canid drones, the Tao Tei queen has an sleek, elegant, cheetah-like build and gait, rather surprising given that all she does is eat and give birth.

* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: The Nameless Order's entire command staff certainly counts. They're understandably wary of the shifty foreigners that just showed up at their doorstep chased by indigenous riders, but they're equally willing to listen to Strategist Wang's reasonable arguments. Once William and Tovar have proven themselves in battle, they're warmly welcomed into the fold and given free reign of the Wall. Even after [[spoiler:Tovar and Ballard abscond with the secrets of Chinese black powder and leave William behind to take the blame]], a furious Lin accepts the testimony of the very same lowly foot soldier who didn't exactly distinguish himself up to this point, and [[spoiler:merely imprisons William instead of having him executed right away]].

** When [[spoiler:Ballard and Tovar try to break into Wang's office]], they use a stick of black powder to blow up the lock but the explosion doesn't seem to come even if the fuse is spent. Ballard tells Tovar to check and immediately after he steps up, the sticks explodes.

* ActionGirl: Commander Lin, and by extension the all-female Crane Troops, who leap down the Great Wall to fight the Tao Tei up close. Their attrition rate is naturally very high but they jump anyway.

''The Great Wall'' (長城, ''Cháng Chéng'') is a 2016 epic HistoricalFantasy action movie directed by Creator/ZhangYimou featuring Creator/MattDamon as William, Creator/PedroPascal as Tovar, Creator/JingTian as Commander Lin Mei, Creator/AndyLau as Strategist Wang and Creator/WillemDafoe as Sir Ballard. It was released in China in December 15th, 2016, and was released in the United States on February 17, 2017.

''The Great Wall'' (長城, ''Cháng Chéng'') is a 2016 epic HistoricalFantasy movie directed by Creator/ZhangYimou featuring Creator/MattDamon as William, Creator/PedroPascal as Tovar, Creator/JingTian as Commander Lin Mei, Creator/AndyLau as Strategist Wang and Creator/WillemDafoe as Sir Ballard. It was released in China in December 15th, 2016, and was released in the United States on February 17, 2017.

* NotSoDifferent: Actually a persistent object of discussion between William and Lin. First it's [[InvokedTrope invoked]] by him, then rebutted by her in the same conversation, and [[CharacterDevelopment eventually]] amicably confirmed by both.