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« Where's My Juice? | Main | Return of the Commies » I Love Zhang Yimou, ButI'm not seeing this white savior movie. Sorry, Matt Damon. New York Comic Con has brought us some new information about Matt Damon's upcoming star turn in a creature feature set in ancient China called The Great Wall. As soon as early news about this movie emerged, so too did concerns that the movie would revolve around a classic "white savior" narrative involving Matt Damon's character coming to fight with the Chinese armies against the monsters and save them from the threat. Why do the Chinese characters in this movie need a Western outsider to show up and save them? To point out the white savior problem that seems to be exactly what they're marketing is apparently undermining our credibility because we've only seen the teaser and trailer and not the entire film. Well, if it's not a white savior movie, then mebbe you should try not marketing it that way and then we wouldn't have to have this discussion. And to add salt to that wound, The Great Wall won't be passing the Bechdel-Wallace Test. There appears to be only one woman in the movie's main cast, to be played by Jing Tian. In this trailer, she appears to be the only woman fighting on the battlefield, but for some reason, the movie isn't about her experiences becoming a warrior woman in ancient supernatural-universe China... even though that sounds way more interesting than whatever Matt Damon's character does, which is show up, steal stuff, and shoot arrows. In this trailer, Jing Tian's character looks like a by-the-books "Action Girl", the only woman on the team. I'm willing to stake money that she'll end up as someone's love interest and, also, end up getting captured by baddies and rescued at least once. Oh, she's totally going to end up a love interest. Most likely Damon's. Blech. By min | October 11, 2016, 9:26 AM | Liberal Outrage & Movies |