The Spectacle of Co-Production in The Great Wall

This chapter offers a case study of Zhang Yimou’s film The Great Wall (2017) and the way it became emblematic of debates around co-productions between China and other filmmaking nations, especially the USA. Principally, it analyses the way visual effects are used to present fantastic imagery that shapes the visual identity of the film through a blend of Chinese and Hollywood conventions. A burgeoning visual effects industry in Chinese cinema, sustained by a wider interest in fantasy films, consumer electronics and the international marketability of visual spectacle, serves as a site of contest and cooperation, where national and cultural symbols are rendered with a combination of state-of-the-art technology and quasi-ancient designs. The production histories of The Great Wall, and the critical discourses accompanying its reception, illustrate how visual effects give visual form to the material infrastructure of film, inflected by the cultural contexts in which they are made, even as they work to efface and conceal the traces of their own manufacture.