Wu ji - La légende des cavaliers du vent

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.

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).

I've seen the movie and I liked it very much, even more than "Hero" or "Crouching tiger, hidden dragon" (and they were excellent!). The movie is colorful, the actors are good, the plot is magical and captivating, lots of battle scenes and martial arts.

The one thing that you should keep in mind when you decide to go and watch it, however, is that there's one important difference between "Promise" and "Tiger/Dragon", for example. While the latter was mainly about the martial arts, magical swords and true warriors searching for their destiny and characters' relationship remained peacefully in the background, "the Promise", despite its many combat scenes and stuff like this, is a love story, a fairy tale. Which makes it sort of similar to the "House of flying daggers".

The flaws? Well, I suppose there're some, because nothing is perfect. But, personally, I didn't notice any.

It's a beautiful love story and it's worth watching. There's a right time for everything and there are not many bad movies....

Enjoy it!

The Promise has delivered the message to the audience, ie, live life full , bravery to pursuit our love, and our ability to change our fate by choice.

The west have "superman" and "fantastic four". No one commented the movies are illogical. This promise has combined Chinese myth and faith. In such contact, it is unkind to comment the abilities of the slave to fly, run and step into another realm of time and life. Do not apply double standard in evaluating and judging the movie with our limited perspectives. The important thing is the message the movie trying to express to the audience.

The movie captured many beautiful moment, from flowers to sky, from facial expression to non verbal language.

The conversation among the cast are remarkable. It made us think of our own life. The Chinese language fully exploited to deliver the complexity of ideas and thought.

The concubine has made the choice to love the general. She even decided to pour her heart out to the "slave". At the end, she is the one decided to ignore the warning of the "goddess".

A movie worth watching again!

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.