The basic story is about Leo Fang, a Chinese-American man, who decides to take a month long vacation from his Silicon Valley job with his wife and son to his homeland. He hasn't been to China since he was ten years of age and since then he has made a pretty good middle class life for himself in San Francisco. Needless to say after a month long stay in China he and his family realize that they don't really fit into the culture.

The film, directed by Peter Wang – who is also the film's director – does a nice job of establishing the many characters: In the beginning it cross-cuts back-and-forth between the members and friends of the two families. And too there are no real movie stars in the film. Each of the characters seem to be real people playing themselves, which although they are probably not it's a testament to the filmmaker for eliciting such discreet and distinctive performances.

Both families are close to each other in their demographics; they both have one teenager in the house. The Fang's have a son (Kelvin Han Yee) and the Chao's have a daughter (Li Qinqin) but alas they do not pair up but they do make good friends. In fact, the scenes with the teenagers are the best in the film.

There are no major dramatics in the film or any eye-opening realizations about life. But that is also part of the film's charm. It hones pretty close to the way that First Generation American families and Chinese families would interact in real life.

The significance of A Great Wall is that it was made in 1986 – well before Asian-American films hit the Independent film circuit. And because of that it has an historical relevance but it also doesn't offer any insights we wouldn't expect. Basically both the Chinese culture and the U.S. American culture are at different but not necessarily conflicting. A wall seperates them.

Video:
The DVD is presented in letterbox 1.85 to 1 and looks pretty good. Some of the colors seem toned down a bit, which may be because the film was made in the mid 1980's and has not been restored. But there is no compression artifact that I could detect.

Audio:
Sound is presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono and includes dialogue in Chinese and English. There is nothing special about the sound but on a good stereo system it sounds good.

Extras:
There are no extras except subtitles.

Overall: This culture clash drama/comedy about a Chinese American family and a Chinese family is worth a look. It's billed as the first American comedy shot in China. The performances are good, the story is very good and the directing is skilled. The overall quality of the DVD is about average.