The Promise (Wu Ji)

Chen Kaige’s Flight of Cinematic Fancy

By Pamela Lord

Director Chen Kaige and leading actors in The Promise: (from left) Nicholas Tse, Hiroyuki Sanada (Japanese), Chen Hong, Chen Kaige, Cecilia Cheung, Jang Dong-Kun (Korean), Liu Ye.	Princess Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung) and General Guangming(Hiroyuki Sanada).

Chen Kaige’s epic extravaganza The Promise (Wu Ji) is the product of three years’ work and 10,000 kms’ travel, having been shot on location in northeastern Inner Mongolia and southerly Zhejiang Province. The film’s hefty investment of US$ 35 million is only to be expected, in view of the pains its distinguished production and shooting crew, headed by Chen Kaige, director of the superb Farewell my Concubine, Life on a String, King of the Children, and Yellow Earth; art director Tim Yip, awarded an Oscar for his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, as was cinematographer Peter Pau; and martial arts directors Dong Wei and Lin Andi, who worked on The Matrix Trilogy and Spiderman, took in its creation.
The setting for The Promise, (billed as Master of the Crimson Armor in the US) the prologue explains, is “At that time long ago when the lives of gods and mortals intertwined.” As such, it gives Chen Kaige limitless scope in which to indulge the Chinese -- and indeed international – appetite for fantasy fare.

The movie’s heroines are the icily beautiful Princess Qingcheng (played by acclaimed Hong Kong actress Cecilia Cheung), and her Eastern-style fairy godmother, Manshen, the goddess of destiny (played by the film’s producer and spouse of Chen Kaige, Chen Hong) who upon meeting Qingcheng as an orphaned, impoverished child, tempts her into a Faustian pact that offers the life of a princess, adored by whomever beholds her and the recipient of luxury and treasure beyond measure, on condition she forfeit the chance ever to know true love.

The main male characters are General Guangming (played by Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada of The Last Samurai ), bold warrior and cunning strategist, the evil Baron Wuhuan (played by Hong Kong pop singer, TV and movie star Nicholas Tse), and two slaves – one named Kunlun (played by ROK actor and film idol Jang Dong-Kun), the enslaved mortal gifted with godly fleetness of foot, the other the wretchedly immortal wraith Guilang (played by Liu Ye, winner of the Best Actor award at the 38th Golden-Horse Film Festival and star of Lan Yu, Balzac and Little Chinese Seamstress and Postman of the Mountains), who is condemned to serve his earthly master, unscrupulous Baron Wuhuan, for all eternity. Of the three, Guilan alone does not yearn for the aloof Princess Qingcheng. All four characters are nonetheless bound together in time past and present by fate, magic and the power of true love.

Upon its release in China in December 2005, The Promise chalked up RMB 74.5 million (US $9 million) in four days, breaking the record of RMB 63 million (US$ 7.8 million) previously set by Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle. The movie continues to elicit cheers and whistles in packed mainland China cinemas.

A Golden Globe nominee, The Promise is among the 100 outstanding Chinese films selected by a Beijing panel of movie buffs in celebration of 100 years of Chinese film. It is also China’s official entry for the 2006 Academy awards.

A spectacular scercerio.	Nicholas Tse as Northen Baron Wuhuan.

The international response to this mega movie has been mixed. Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter is cool in his assessment, criticizing Chen Kaige for “… abandoning too much of his film to the digital realm.” It must be said that the film’s digitally enhanced sequences, most notably that of the stampeding herd of what looks to be about 10 thousand bulls, give it a comic-book quality, but whether or not this is to its detriment is debatable.

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, on the other hand, waxes lyrical in his praise:”Chen Kaige’s The Promise is lots of things all at once: an exquisite fairy tale, a glorious martial arts fantasy, a romantic epic of exceptional emotional resonance and a consideration of the paradoxical nature of destiny, in which Chen suggests that the workings of fate are no absolution for personal responsibility. The Promise is also one of the most beautiful films imaginable, a briskly paced adventure of the utmost cinematic effect. In short, it's a knockout that works on many levels.”

Your China Today reviewer enjoyed the film for living up to its Chinese title Wu Ji – no limits – as its protagonists indeed explore and break through the boundaries of time, defy the laws of gravity (as well as logic at times, but then what place has rationality in fantasy?), and escape the inevitability of destiny in visually stunning splendor.

As a Chinese contender for international laurels, Chen Kaige’s foray into fantasy is bound to be compared with Hero, directed by Zhang Yimou, his contemporary, fellow fifth generation film maker and former classmate at the Beijing Film School. But comparisons, as Oscar Wilde once said, are odious, and in this case inappropriate; Hero is an artistic and highly aesthetic interpretation of authentic Chinese history, whereas The Promise is an unabashedly exuberant celebration of pure phantasm.