Bro rented the dvd of The Promise on the day of release (and damn! i was rushing my stuff! cos i have several deadlines to meet...) and i try to catch a bit of the so called epic, where the funny plot and the over-exaggerating CGI effects gives me a break from my schoolwork.
The million dollar comedy (to me, it is an over-exaggerating swordfighting film that becomes a comedy) gurantees you with popular cast from Asia. From left: Hiroku Sanada from Japan (seen in the 2 samurai flicks - Edward Zwick's Last Samurai with Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe and Yoji Yamada's Twilight Samurai) as Guangming the General, Nicholas Tse from HK as Wuhuan, the evil duke. (Need i intro? not rite?)
From middle to right: Cecilia Cheung from HK as Qingcheng, the most beautiful princess. (my god. Cecilia chio meh? Gong Li looks even better. ) Jang Dong Gun from Korea as Kunlun the slave who can run faster than the speed of light, Chen Hong from China as Man Shen, the Goddess of prophecy and...
Liu Ye from China, who plays Lan Yu! Oops...sorry. He plays Lan Yu in Lan Yu, the award winning gay drama. But this time round, he plays Gui Lang aka The Ghost Wolf, Wuhuan's assassin. (Sad to say, the handsome looking Liu was given a horrible look.)
Given a strong crew of Chen Kaige as the director (the only Chinese director that brings home the Palm D'ors in Cannes Film Fest 1994 for Farewell My Concubine), Peter Pau (the cinematographer) and Tim Yip (the art director ) who brings home the small little Oscar statue for Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the CGI crew behind 1998's Stormriders and 1999's A Man Called Hero plus various HK, Japanese and Australian crews and blah blah blah...
Eventually you are given a million dollar trash, where it stinks terribly, that Kong has thrown the film miles away on its opening week in S'pore.
The plot is lame. It's about Qingcheng, a poor little girl who steals food from the dead soldiers during the period of China 3000 years ago in the future. (?)
She drops her food into the river and here comes Man Sheng, the Goddess. Man Sheng promised Qingcheng that she will be given the best in everything in future. The best clothes, best food, luxurious home etc... at a very small price: giving up true love. She will never get true love eventually. Qingcheng agrees.
20 years later, Kunlun the slave of nobody becomes a slave for Guangming the General, after Guangming finds him able to run at the speed of light. The reason why Kunlun becomes a slave for Guangming: I have meat to eat when i follow you. On the other hand, Wuhuan lead a troop of army to demand the she-male king to hand over Qingcheng. (Oh yeah, the king has the face of a man, the hairstyle of a woman, the voice of a sissy, the figure of a man who dressed very flowery and colourful.) While earlier on, Man Sheng told Guangming that a man in crimson armor will kill the king, and Guangming is the owner of the crimson armor. Eventually, a man in crimson armor came to Qingcheng's rescue and have the king killed.
Qingcheng falls in love with the man in the crimson armor, who turns out to be Kunlun. She was captured by Wuhuan, but rescued by Kunlun later. (here comes the scene where Qingcheng flies like a kite and Kunlun is flying a kite.) However, Wuhuan came to arrest them and the man in the crimson armor came to Qingcheng's rescue again. Kunlun was eventually captured by Wuhuan, and Qingcheng falls in love with the man who came to her rescue: GuangMing.
In a nutshell: Qingcheng falls in love with the 3 men, and all 3 died for her eventually.
To be exact: Kunlun was stabbed by Wuhuan before Wuhuan died after he killed GuangMing, and he donned himiself into the lack robe, where it can bring a person from the verge of death to life. Time will reverse back and Kunlun brings Qingcheng out of the universe to change her destiny. The End.
What can i say more? The show is crappy, lame storyline with ridiculous scenario, over exaggerated CGI Effects, miscast of casts and waste of crews.
Chen now makes a promise to make The Promise 2. My god...
I would rather Chen breaks the promise and bring back his days of Concubine and Temptress Moon.