The Promise
Rating: ***.5
Director: Chen Kaige
Cast:
Dong-Kun Jang .... Kunlun (hero, the slave)
Hiroyuki Sanada .... General Guangming (subhero, the general)
Cecilia Cheung .... Princess Qingcheng (heroine, concubine)
Nicholas Tse .... Wuhuan (bad guy, the Duke)
Ye Liu .... Snow Wolf (assassin slave of the Duke, countryman of Kunlun)
Hong Chen .... Goddess Manshen
Cheng Qian .... The Emperor
Yahoo Movies Synopsis:
A tale of passion that unfolds against a backdrop of war as a beautiful and mysterious princess becomes the object of affection for three very different men--a powerful duke, a brave general and a lowly slave. As passions spark and egos clash, lives will be ruined and lovers spurned and no one will ever be the same.
The Nutshell
Note the cast and the notes I put there for who's who. This is a fable, or a parable, however you want to take it. It's about choices, fate, conflict, jealousy, selfishness, hopes, dreams, greed, trust and doubt. It is over the top, beautiful, full of itself, and epic.
A starving peasant girl steals food from corpses to survive and encounters an arrogant young boy who's father has been slain on the field. He demands that she be his slave and he'll surrender the food she's tried to steal. She agrees, then hurts him and runs off to feed her starving mother. She is intercepted by the Goddess who informs her her mother is dead and she'll offer the girl a choice - great beauty and in return for it all the worlds riches, as long as she's willing to never keep any man she truly loves. She agrees, and we fast forward.
The rest is a mix of mistaken identity and "kidnapping the girl." Our peasant girl has become the cocky and bitter Princess, who is kept by the Emperor. The Duke sets his assassin after the Emperor's head general to eliminate any obstructions, and pursues the Emperor, hoping to capture the Princess. The Duke is the ultimate anime villain - sexyhot, feminine, and skilled with sharp things. The Emperor is quickly written out of the story, and the Princess is saved from the Duke by whom she believes is the General.
Instead, the General lays wounded in the forest by the assassin Snow Wolf, and his trusty slave Kunlun has saved her, dressed in the General's armor. The pair run from the Duke, have a fateful moment on the run, fall in love, and are separated. The Princess is caged, and thus begins the back and forth across seasons and personal journeys that culminates in a battle between Kunlun, the General he respects and serves, and the vengeful Duke -- all for the love of this woman.
It's beautiful and complicated, preposterous and lyrical, funny and expansive, sometimes silly but always, always striking to see. In the end, it is a fable, a fairy tale, and not meant to be taken too seriously. It explores honor, duty, faith, things we of course have trouble really getting in the west sometimes - what people will do for it, how much it means.
Fable is meant only to make you think about what you would do in the same situation, or to think about why people do the stupid, selfish things they do. It is meant to touch you with the power of emotion, and pluck a chord with each image. Half the things in fairy tales don't make sense, but they don't have to, and they're not supposed to. They are told with all the intensity and strange coincidence of dreams, and are as powerful and provocative.
I just read Ebert's review and he tears this movie up, as if it was supposed to be a thesis or something. I think it served its purpose, and while it wasn't perfect, it was beautiful and did its job.
There are some moments that can be seen as wondrous or cheesy. Yes the CGI leaves much to be desired but the point is to literally create, in living, breathing blinding lushness, the images painted in songs and stories, on tapestries, hand painted on a kimono or a gown, built by thousands of hands into some magnificent building. The reason we watch film is because it transports us. This entire film is about transportation - to and away from love, that which you think is love or the one you love, to and away from your past, to and away from yourself, to and away from your enemy.
It is also about beauty - what you think is beauty, what you believe is beautiful. All these men fight for one woman who agreed to be beautiful and live off the riches of others in exchange. But the movie is called "The Promise." Where is the promise? Is it the promise she gave the Goddess, to agree and live the life she wanted but always lose the man she loves? Or was it the promise she gave the little boy, to be his slave, before she ran away with stolen bread?
Understandably she was a child, but the person we see her become - is she truly beautiful? Is she truly worth loving? Or is she as selfish and self-serving as the men? Even though she is being fought for and passed along between them, she is quick to turn her back on one unless she believes he will serve her or protect her. She is also happy to live off their wallets and kindness. As long as she can create an ideal in her mind (of rescue and grand love) she'll declare loyalty to the General. What kind of beauty is that?
An all-too-human kind. There is a grand orchestration in the story that follows our characters, and no one is completely good but Kunlun, the slave who clearly gives his life and wants over to someone else. To the bitter end, he does it, and one wonders if it was worth it, all he's done, because who knows what will happen down the road for him and the Princess.
Anyhoo, for the richness of story, the extravagance and the soaring emotionality of it, I say it's worth watching. No, it's no "Farewell, My Concubine" but sheesh, don't kick it to the curb. I would say that the ending is a bit unfinished ... they rushed through it as though they'd neatly tied up all the loose ends but they actually hadn't. But you can make up whatever little twist on it you need to to call it case closed. The movie is, after all, about interpretation.