The Great Wall” has definitely been the center of controversy regarding whitewashing due to the casting of Matt Damon as the starring role in a film largely based on Chinese culture.

Now, to be able to understand exactly why it is being criticized, it is important to understand what whitewashing means.

Whitewashing, simply put, is the tendency for media to be dominated by white characters and actors. In historical movies, it’s extremely prevalent when white actors often play the roles of non-white characters.

I honestly went into the movie theater with incredibly low expectations and expecting this movie to trivialize Chinese culture and overshadow every Asian actor with the “white savior” role I expected Matt Damon to play.

After seeing the film, I can say that I strongly say that in my opinion I do not believe it was whitewashed.

Sure, the starring role is filled in by a white actor, but the movie was not about a white guy saving all of China.

Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal play two western mercenaries by the names of William Garin and Pero Tovar.

These men are on their way to China in search for a very valuable gunpowder called black powder when they are suddenly thrown into a war against green-blooded monsters more formally known as the Tao Tei. And the Tao Tei not only threaten China, but the whole world.

While helping the Nameless Order figure out how to defeat the these monsters, William Garin changes for the better as the war against the Tao Tei moves from the Great Wall to the capital, Bianliang.

When it comes to the plot, it could definitely use some work because the minimal amount of plot I was able to find in the movie was overshadowed by fighting monsters.

Sadly, it was also pretty cliche in the fact that the whole plot was based around the idea that they needed to kill some kind of monster before it took over the world.

Moving back to the idea of whitewashing, the film honestly makes white people appear greedy and in desperate need for the honor China is offering.

Ballard, played by Willem Dafoe, is only searching for a way to get back to Europe with the treasured black powder in order to make a fortune back home.

I also found that the film is very refreshingly and surprisingly feminist. For a very long time, especially throughout the middle ages, it is well known that women were often seen as mere objects provided to men in order to repopulate the planet.

However, in director Yimou Zhang’s fictional interpretation of Song dynasty China, women are warriors of equal skill and status to men.

Commander Lin Mae, played by Jing Tian, leads a whole squadron of female warriors and is ranked among the senior commanders under the general.

Now of course there are many more points I would be able to make about the feminist aspect of this film, but that would lead me to have to include spoilers, which no one likes.

But if you like movies where the main goal is to defeat a terrifying monster and save the world, make sure to buy yourself a ticket because this is definitely the film for you.

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