Wu ji - La légende des cavaliers du vent

Most comments for "The Promise", or "Wu Ji", on the IMDb forum are mainly negative. While it's obvious a film that could have been better, it still offers a stunning look that Chen Kaige has given it. It helps he was working with an excellent cinematographer, Peter Pau, who photographed this film with lovingly care. The result are exquisite images that might not mean a lot to the fans of films of this genre, but will delight others, like this viewer, who is not into this type of fantasy film. The music of Klaus Badelt plays well in the context of the movie. The film has some of the fabulous costumes of any film in recent memory.

It's easy to dismiss the film as a total failure. Other, more recent fare is cited as being much better, which could be true. But actually to experience the film as a gorgeous fantasy out of the talented director Chen Kaige's mind is worth the price of admission. Unfortunately, judging by the screening we attended recently, this film has not found an audience.

Dong-Kun-Jang is impressive as Kunlun. Hiroyuki Sanada also does good work as the General Quianming. The gorgeous Cecilia Cheung lends her beauty to her character, Princess Qingcheng.

The director will surely recover from this experience and concentrate on a more worthwhile story for his next venture. Chen Kaige deserves better and he will surely rise from the ashes like the magnificent phoenix he is.

When I was a kid, going to the movies gave me a rush like nothing else, but for the last few years my movie-going experience has been one disappointment after another. "The Promise" was a very rare exception.

I'm not saying this movie is for everybody. It's heavily stylized, and the mythical nature of the story requires a certain suspension of disbelief. BUT, if you crave stimulation for your eyes, your ears, and your imagination, this movie will deliver. The score is incredible, and every frame is stunning, visually. The story is a fairy tale. If you let yourself get lost in it, the experience will be magical. If you spend your time analyzing, breaking down the laws of physics, and worrying whether you're getting all the intended messages, you will most likely come away unsatisfied.

I had been forced to see a huge hypes bombing all over the places in Beijing, and according to all the news reports there were no any direct critical voices. And after I did watch the movie, it turned to be a huge disappointment and I doubt if the criticism has been banned by media for commercial and Golden Awards reasons?

YES, it is a BAD film. Story is simple and seems wanted to tell something but you may still have to have a script or novel in details on-hand to be able to understand what the earth the director Chen wants to talk about through such dull story(or I doubt if he have the ability to tell in this movie). As the casting stars are mainly not native Mandarin speakers (apart from Liu Ye)and have sort of facetious accent,It is rather making native Mandarin speakers such as me feel upset.It is not an important consideration for non-Chinese speaker but I got to let everybody aware that-- The dialogues in the film is rather awkward and afflictive and It is a film that can be ruined by the accents indeed.

And in terms of CG part, it is really so-so compared with the pre-declaration that it was gonna be "a Chinese Lord of the rings" movie--Anyhow I don't think anybody will dare to allege that again after watching it. For instance, I still felt like watching a PC-game effects at the most costly scene when the thousands of uruses rushing in the valley at the start of the film.

And in terms of martial art part, it is just another application of "Gravity Zero" technics popularised by Hong Kong movie industry.

As a director had ever made masterpieces such as "The Emperor and the Assassin" and "Farewell, My Concubine", Chen Kaige fails to make another remarkable movie ( comparably big investment is exceptional).

This film could have been very good if only they would have allocated that huge budget to better special effects. The other important thing that needed to be accomplished was to write a much better script.

There was some great visuals in this which hit the spot and were quite pleasing. Some of these scenes can be viewed in the film trailer.

I do not fault the actors for the shortcomings of this film, with the exception that they should have challenged the director more regarding some scenes and dialog which were absolutely stupid. Enough has been said by other reviewers concerning this.

I felt sorry for Cecilia Cheung in the fact that the director Chen Kaige seemed to try his best to make her look like a wax corpse, rather then a beautiful Princess.

This film had a lot of potential, but it got wasted. It is a shame. It is not the worst film in the world, it's just that it could have been really something special.

I challenge you to watch it and make your own conclusion. I am pretty confident you will agree with me after doing so.

SPOILER: In 'The Promise' Cecilia Cheung plays Qingcheng, an orphan girl trying to survive. While on a battlefield, she tries to find scraps of food from the dead soldiers to bring back to her sick mother. While trying to escape the son of one of the generals, Qingcheng runs into the goddess Manshen (Hong Chen). Manshen informs Qingcheng that her mother is dead and strikes a deal with her. From this day forth Qingcheng will always live in luxury, but every man she falls in love with she will eventually lose. Qingcheng agrees to the bargain.

This movie is a combination of 'Hero' and 'Bulletproof Monk'. This is another Chinese legend epic that really fails as a movie. The moral of the story is hard to follow and takes forever to get its point across. On the plus side, it is a very visually stunning movie. It better be since it is the most expensive film in Chinese history with a budget of $35 million.

If you like 'Hero' and 'House of Flying Daggers', you might like this. Else, don't go see it.