The Great Wall, China's most expensive movie, has Hollywood in its sights

The project is as ambitious as the subject matter. The Great Wall, a US$135 million fantasy epic directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Matt Damon and Andy Lau Tak-wah, is billed as the most expensive Chinese movie to be distributed globally. But unlike the 20,000km-long fortification that was originally built to defend the country from foreign invasion, this latest co-production (between Hollywood's Legendary Pictures, Universal Pictures and Atlas Entertainment; and Chinese enterprises China Films and Le Vision Pictures) is all about reaching out - and, hopefully, conquering - the international film market.

The Great Wall, which will be Zhang's first mostly English-language movie, is China's latest effort to make its presence and influence felt in the global entertainment industry. In February, for the first time, the country generated a higher monthly box office than the US, US$650 million to US$640.

The movie is also China's latest attempt to exert its "soft power", edging into a territory that thus far has been dominated by Western pop culture.

Zhang Zhao, chief executive of Le Vision Pictures, believes it's a gamble worth taking. Le Vision Pictures is a film distribution and production company that recently opened an office in Hollywood to recruit local talent for co-productions. Last year it co-financed The Expendables 3, the third instalment in the action movie franchise led by Sylvester Stallone.

Zhang believes The Great Wall will see the start of a trend - Chinese blockbusters becoming popular worldwide.

"The movie industry has reached the stage of globalisation," he says. "While we are making movies like Expendables, putting money into co-producing movies with Hollywood studios, those movies are still developed by them; meanwhile, we need to develop movies that allow them to work with us."