Eugene Weekly : Movie Review : 05.25.06

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Floating Goddess

New martial arts fantasy is a head-scratcher.

BY MOLLY TEMPLETON

THE PROMISE: Directed by Chen Kaige. Story by Kaige; screenplay by Kaige and Zhang Tan. Starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Jang Dong-Gun, Cecilia Cheung, Nicholas Tse, Liu Yeh and Chen Hong. Warner Independent Pictures/Moonstone Entertainment, 2005. PG-13. 103 minutes.

Long, long ago and far, far away, in a magical kingdom in Asia, a little girl made a deal with a goddess: power and riches would be hers, but with no hope of true love. The little girl was very hungry and probably ready to trade anything for a future that included a hot meal, but that's too mundane a consideration for Chen Kaige's The Promise, an epic martial arts fantasy following the lead of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero. Kaige, whose outstanding Farewell My Concubine (1993) was the first Chinese film to win the Palme d'Or at Cannes, reaches for the emotional resonance and visual magic of those two films, but his inconsistent Promise falls short.

Nicholas Tse as the feather-loving Duke Wuhuan in The Promise.

After a lengthy two-part prologue, The Promise leaps forward twenty years to where that hungry little girl, Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung), is a princess and the kingdom is home to at least two warring armies. General Guangming (Hiroyuki Sanada), having defeated a barbarian horde thanks to the magical superfast running of his new slave Kunlun (Jang Dong-Gun), gets word that Duke Wuhuan (Nicholas Tse) has taken over the Imperial City. The wounded Guangming sends Kunlun off to save the king, outfitting the slave in the general's trademark crimson armor. But Kunlun finds the king waving a sword at Qingcheng, so he kills the king, rescues the girl and leaves the prissy Wuhuan elegantly peeved.

And what does the princess do? Well, she falls in love with the man she thinks is her rescuer, creating a tangle of mistaken identities that continues to the film's hopeful but bloody close. The fable-like Promise wears its themes like bright tokens tied to its sleeve: love is more important than power and riches; loyalty and sacrifice are even better; when you are a nasty, manipulative person, no matter how high your cheekbones, you will get what's coming to you; your destiny is in your hands, at least unless you make a bad deal with a floating goddess.

On these matters, the film is clear. On others, it's a little foggy. The Promise clearly intends to sweep us up in its fantastical, lush scenes, leaving behind petty concerns like narrative coherence and the believability of its cursed loves. For brief moments, it does just that, as when the speed-running Kunlun escapes the palace with the feather-clad princess flying behind him on a rich red thread. But the meant-to-enthrall effects waver between beautiful and hokey, making for a disconcerting viewing experience. Kaige's large-scale battles and dancing, artily staged fights lack the requisite appearance of effortless grace. Without it, they're just heavily choreographed set pieces, pretty enough but uninspired. Feathers and petals float through these scenes like a grab at weightlessness, but The Promise never quite gets off the ground.