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When she was a child, Princess Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung) was promised
everything by the Goddess Manshen (Chen Hong), all the wealth of the
earth, but in excehange she will lose everyone she loves.
20 years later: The country is torn between the Emperor (Qian Cheng)
and his loyal general Guangming (Huroyuki Sanada) on one side and the
conqueror Wuhuan (Nicholas Tse) on the other.
When he learns that the emperor is cornered by Wuhuan and his army, but
he himself is wounded and thus can't help, Guangming tells his loyal slave
Kunlun (Jang Dong-Kun) to put on his, the general's, armour rush to his
castle and save the Emperor in his stead. However, at the castle, Kunlun
grossly misinterprets the situation when he sees the emperor threaten an
innocent woman, so Kunlun himself kills the Emperor (to everyone's
surprise) and saves the woman, who turns out to be Qingcheng. However,
when making a getaway with Qingcheng, Kunlun is eventually cornered by
Wuhuan and his men at a waterfall, and Wuhuan offers to spare the
princess' life if Kunlun - whom Wuhuan and everybody else still think to
be the general - jumps down some cliffs ... which he does. From that
moment on, Qingcheng has fallen in love with the man, but unfortunately
even she thinks that her savious is Guangming.
General Guangming meanwhile is not only deserted by his army, they even
tie him to a tree and leave him to die ... only Kunlun is loyal enough to
free him and stay with him - even though it was him who got Guangming into
this mess in the first place.
Guangming figures that since he is already thought to be the saviour of
Qingcheng, he might as well free her from Wuhuan's clutches - with
Kunlun's help of course -, where she is kept in a gold cage.
Ultimately, Guangming manages to save the girl, but now Kunlun becomes
Wuhuan's prisoner, and Wuhuan wants his top assassin Snow Wolf (Liu Ye) to
execute him ... but when Snow Wolf sees how fast Kunlun can run - almost
as fast as himself - he figures that Kunlun must be like him from the Land
of Snow, and instead of fighting, the two escape together.
Kunlun returns to his master, but his master lets him go, since he has
found new happiness with Qingcheng - or so he thinks since their
relationship is based on a lie, and she still thinks he has saved her from
the emperor. Kunlun on the other hand has tender feelings for Qingcheng,
but for him loyalty to his master weighs heavier than love. So Kunlun and
Snow Wolf return to the Land of Snow, where Snow Wolf teaches Kunlun to
run faster than time - and Kunlun sees his people all massacred by Wuhuan,
all but Snow Wolf, who agreed to become Wuhuan's assassin when faced with
death, and all that keeps him alive now is a magic cloak handed to him by
Wuhuan ...
Meanwhile, Guangming is visited by his former brothers in arms, who
urge him to once again join them, and Guangming lets them persuade him,
even if that means breaking Qingcheng's heart ... and of course, all this
eventually turns out to be a trap set up by Wuhuan to defeat him after all
...
Kunlun returns to Qingcheng, but all she does it to urge him to save
Guangming ... and once he has saved Guangming - with the help of Snow
Wolf, who loses his cloak and life in the process - he learns that Wuhuan
has meanwhile captured Qingcheng as well. And when trying to free her,
both Kunlun and Guangming are captured once more.
Now Guangming is put to trial for having murdered the Emperor, but
Kunlun decides to save him by pretending to admit that he was
actually the killer wearing Guangming's armour - but somehow Wuhuan has
known all along that Kunlun was indeed the Emperor's assassin and so he
coaxes him in being too good in his confession - which makes Qingcheng
realize she has been withthe wrong man all the time ...
It all ends in a threeway fight, in which both Guangming and Wuhuan are
killed and Kunlun is mortally wounded ... but he has enough strength left
to reach Snow Wolf's magic coat that gives him a new lease on life - which
he plans to use to run back in time with Qingcheng, so let her change her
destiny ...
An intentionally cheesy, a bit childish and totally over-the-top
fantasy adventure, The Promise differs considerably from director
Chen Kaige's earlier film The
Emperor and the Assassin, with which it does share some concepts,
for better or worse. Don't expect the kind of arthouse cinema here that
Chen Kaige is normally associated with, this is kitsch-as-kitsch can that
will have you suspend disbelief more than once in scenes outrageous even
by Hong Kong martial arts/fantasy starndards .. but somehow, despite all
the kitsch, despite it being dead-serious at the same time, despite the
overconvoluted plot and quite some plotholes, the film works amazingly
well, one really gets sucked into the rather silly story and enjoys every
minute of it. The only point of critique are the truly desastrous
CGI-effects, which are not only not up-to-date with what can be done
today, some of the effects really could have looked much better had they
been filmed live in the first place, using wireworks or miniatures or
whatever (everything has been done before you know). And we are not
talking about some shoddy B-movie here, The Promise is supposed to
be the most expensive film ever shot in China to this date (early 2006).
Now this is really a shame, but it's not enough to bring the movie down,
if you are at all into childish fantasy, you will still watch in awe ...
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