Marco Polo: A Direct Contradiction of Exodus Gods and Kings

For those of you who don't know, Exodus: Gods and Kings was recently released and prior to doing so the hashtag #boycottexodus became quite prominent within the Twitter-verse. The reason for this? Well, Exodus tells the story of Moses and Ramses and the plagues that came down upon Egypt because of the mistreatment of the Jewish slaves. A movie taking place in Africa should, one would think, should star individuals who could effectively represent not only tell the story but also represent it well. Meaning, that the cast should include it's fair share of people of color and it did.....but not as the main stars. Christian Bale, Joel Eggerton, Ben Kingsley, Sigourney Weaver, and Aaron Paul, all Caucasian, mainly British, all lead this film. The people of color play soldiers, thieves, and I believe that none, or very little of them, had more then a minor role. When asked about this, Ridley Scott made a fairly racist response, utilizing the phrase Mohammed something or other and blaming Hollywood. The biggest problem I had with this response, despite it being fairly racist, was the fact that he didn't state that he even attempted to pitch this movie and I believe that he didn't actually try. The story would have been entirely different had he stated that he had attempted to pitch this film but he didn't and because of that, there's been a bit of backlash regarding this film. But, I digress.

The reason I bring up this film, is because Marco Polo stand is the exact opposite of Exodus: Gods and Kings, with regards to accurate casting.

Marco Polo tells the story, of well, Marco Polo, Lorenzo Richelmy an Italian actor playing....an Italian, as he is forced into Kublai Khan's, played by Benedict Wong, court. This fantastic multi-ethnic cast included, Remy Hii, at Prince Jingim, the Khan's son, Tom Wu as Hundred Eyes, the blind kung-fu mentor to young Marco, Joan Chen as the sunning Empress Chabi, Mahesh Jadu, playing Ahmad one of Khan's most trusted adviser, and Chin Han playing Jia Sidao, the Southern Chinese Chancellor who is one of the last holdouts from Khan's army. This cast is fantastic in not only is it diverse, Benedict Wong and Chin Han, steal the show. Really, this show should be called Kublai Khan because not only does Benedict Wong get more screen time then young Marco but he runs circles around him.

And yes, this show does become slow at times and it is no comparison to Game of Thrones, I don't think they should be compared, anyway, a digression I will discuss later, but I think that a lot of stumbles are made up for with the excellent casting. Seriously. It's as if Netflix said lets make a story about Kublai Khan and Marco Polo and cast it accordingly and because of this, I give this show some major leeway.

Finally, so many have compared this show to Game of Thrones because of its budget and because it appears as though Game of Thrones is unstoppable but I think the comparison between the two are unfounded. Game of Thrones is a fantastic story with a number of different characters, families, and a book series to fall back on. Marco Polo does not. Game of Thrones has a intense fan base surrounding the books and the movie, Marco Polo does not. Game of Thrones is more about, I believe, cunning and politics and Marco Polo is more, I believe about family, trust, and self-discovery. I would honestly, believe that a better comparison would be made to Avatar: The Last Airbender, a fantastic show with themes similar to that of Marco Polo.

In conclusion, I think this show is great, it could be better, but the cast and the acting by those cast members are fantastic. Check it out and let me know what you think.