The Promise (2006)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

As a little girl, Qingcheng (Xiaotong Guan) meets Goddess Manshen (Hong Chen), who makes her an offer: beauty and riches in exchange for a future in which romance will be fleeting. She accepts and grows up to be a beautiful princess (Cecilia Cheung).When fleet-footed slave Kunlun (Jang Dong-kun) poses as his injured master General Guangming (Hiroyuki Sanada) on a mission to protect their king from invader Wuhuan (Nicholas Tse), he saves the life of the princess, who immediately falls in love with her rescuer. Unfortunately for Kunlun, who was wearing his master's armour and mask, she believes that General Guangming is her saviour. The scene is now set for a tragic love triangle, with the evil Wuhuan making matters even more complicated.The Promise is a lavish, big-budget, romantic fantasy from director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine); it's heavy on the sumptuous visuals, rife with heroism and tragedy, blessed with stunning cinematography and features a shed-load of fancy wire-work and special effects. Although the storytelling is very muddled at first, it all makes sense by the end, and ultimately proves rather enchanting. Unfortunately, the film is hampered by some terrible CGI that does serve to weaken the overall effect, with an early scene in which Kunlun flees a stampede of bulls being one of the worst rendered computer generated moments in a big budget movie that I can remember.

I bought this movie randomly in a 'buy two get one free special' and I just picked this up after reading the summary in the back. I really didn't know what to expect to be honest.This is essentially a fairytale with many magical elements added to it. I wasn't sure where the story was going near the beginning, but I was really swept away by how beautiful the whole film was. This story really is about love. However, on saying that, I didn't feel as emotionally engaged as I would have liked in a story like this. There was something a bit missing in terms of these characters but I felt the ending was quite powerful in its own way.What you will admire most is just the awe dropping look of the film and its beautiful landscape. Everything is just gorgeous to look at. Cecilia Cheung is just stunning in almost every scene she is in and some scenes reminded me of scenes I saw in Hero with the leaves and trees blowing. Some of the visual effects are quite cheesy however.Just look at it as a fairytale fantasy because if you don't, then you will definitely not be able to enjoy this film. Some of the plot lines seem a little stupid and the ending is a bit silly. But it's not a film that is meant to be taken seriously anyway.

I don't really like martial arts films unless there is plenty of flying through the air and way out special effects so this film did not disappoint at all in that direction. The imagery was beautiful and the story was interesting but I felt that something was missing from the film. In parts the editing was poor and it was hard to follow. Also the characters were rather "wooden" and didn't evoke much sympathy. I love "Hero" which had all the things that this lacked-but my favourite of all time is "Bichunmoo" which was wonderful and incredibly emotional throughout.Despite all that I did enjoy the film and may indeed watch it again! I feel that with more viewings it may grow on me, It certainly ticks all the right boxes with regard to production and story line. It may never become a classic but it is worth watching.

I beg everyone to read my comment because this is for crying out loud. I bought this movie today and I was very excited to see chinas new big event. But unfortunately this movie is not a movie. It has absolutely no plot, it is very slow, you don't understand the actions the characters are taking and all the chroma effects, as well CGI, are poorly shot and done. I know what I am talking about because I am working in this business.If that's what people like and will be the future of cinema (300 another poorly made movie) than I want to work as a street-cleaner.I don't understand how people prefer all this fake images instead of all the real thing or do I have to remind you older Chinese martial art films, with more difficult action scenes and no CGI.Of course the sequence with the Buffalo's or what ever they were, is kind of difficult to create in reality, But the fights and all the running? Anyway, it seems people like very fake and boring things like Shoot'em Up or 300. Because there is nothing original about that.