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The Great Wall director defends Matt Damon casting decision

Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou has defended casting Hollywood star Matt Damon in his film The Great Wall.
The trailer for the film sparked controversy after Taiwanese-American actress Constance Wu blasted the movie as “racist”.
Wu objected to Damon’s leading role in the action movie, which follows the mythical story of a band of soldiers battling an ancient Chinese monster set on the Great Wall of China, which also stars Willem Dafoe, and Chinese superstars Andy Lau, Wang Junkai and Jing Tian.
“On The Great Wall: We have to stop perpetuating the racist myth that only a white man can save the world. It’s not based in actual fact,” Wu blasted in a missive she posted on social media.
In response, Yimou released a statement on Thursday (04Aug16) defending the decision to include the Jason Bourne star in the film, and explaining that he had not taken a role from a Chinese actor.
“Our film is not about the construction of the Great Wall,” the 64-year-old House of Flying Daggers director told website EW. “Matt Damon is not playing a role that was originally conceived for a Chinese actor. The arrival of his character in our story is an important plot point.”
The “whitewashing” of roles in Hollywood movies, where Caucasian actors have taken on characters originally envisioned as people of people of colour, such as Scarlett Johansson’s casting in a new remake of the Japanese anime classic Ghost in the Shell and Tilda Swinton’s take on the originally-Tibetan Ancient One in the forthcoming Doctor Strange have both been the subject of online debate.
However, the director of over 20 Chinese language films and artistic visionary behind the Beijing Olympics, insisted the 45-year-old was not the movie’s sole hero and that he would not “cast a film in a way that was untrue to my artistic vision”.
“There are five major heroes in our story and he is one of them – the other four are all Chinese. I hope when everyone sees the film and is armed with the facts they will agree,” he said.
The Great Wall, which at $150 million (£113 million) is reportedly the most expensive Chinese production ever, and looks set to be the first big-budget, English-language Chinese blockbuster, as China moves to make inroads in the mainstream film market, a move which Yimou believes should be embraced.
“For the first time, a film deeply rooted in Chinese culture, with one of the largest Chinese casts ever assembled, is being made at tent pole scale for a world audience. I believe that is a trend that should be embraced by our industry.”

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