Movies IN SIGHT/Experimental epic turns fantasy multicultural02/10/2006
By AYAKO KARINO; Contributing Writer
WU JI (THE PROMISE) Opens Saturday ; 121 minutes, in Chinese ;Salonpas Louvre Marunouchi in Tokyo and elsewhere
If you've seen Zhang Yimou's "Hero" (2002) or "House of Flying Daggers" (2004), you'll be well-aware of the trend in Chinese cinema today for making stunning, special-effects enhanced epics that wow movie buffs the world over.
So you can imagine how high expectations were when Chen Kaige--another prominent Chinese filmmaker whose knack for examining human emotions is evident in such movies as "Farewell My Concubine" (1993)--set about tackling the genre with a budget of $30 million (3.6 billion yen), reportedly the largest sum ever invested in a Chinese film.
"I was interested in making a new Asian film," Chen said of the movie, titled "Wu Ji" (The Promise), through an interpreter at a recent news conference in Tokyo. "Now that we're in the 21st century, I think cinema needs to evolve according to its surrounding culture."
But "The Promise" doesn't manage to surpass Zhang's achievements. It's a fantasy film that's a feast for the eyes, but its lack of concrete storytelling and character development means it fails to appeal to viewers' emotions. Chen seems to have put so much effort into creating something new and dazzling that two of the film's most important elements--its narrative and characters--seem somewhat neglected.
That doesn't mean "The Promise" isn't engaging. The film makes a promising start when Chen welcomes viewers into a magical world somewhere in Asia where deities and humans coexist. There, a young war orphan called Qingcheng encounters the Goddess Hanshen (Chen Hong), who offers her all the riches she could ever wish for in exchange for losing every man she falls in love with. Only by reversing time or making the dead come to life can this bond be broken, the goddess says. Desperate to keep herself alive, the young Qingcheng agrees to this "promise."
The enchanting tone is disrupted almost immediately, however, when the film takes viewers 20 years into the future to a battle scene in which Gen. Guangming, played by Hiroyuki Sanada ("The Twilight Samurai," "The Last Samurai"), finds his army trapped and outnumbered. It's Kunlun (Jang Dong-Kun), one of Guangming's slaves and an exceptionally fast runner, who saves the day when he reroutes a herd of stampeding buffaloes. Guangming, resplendent in the crimson armor of a victor, is so taken with Kunlun's deed that he makes him his personal slave.
The plot thickens when Guangming is injured during a surprise attack by the black-shrouded assassin Snow Wolf (Liu Ye), sent by the evil Duke Wuhaun (Nicholas Tse), when Guangming and Kunlun are on their way to save their king (Qian Cheng) from an attack by the evil duke. Guangming has no choice but to let Kunlun wear his crimson armor to accomplish the task in his stead. But Kunlun ends up not saving the king at all. Instead he falls in love with Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung)--now a princess. He kills the king and jumps off a cliff to prove his love to Qingcheng.
The twists and turns increase after that. Qingcheng falls for the man in the crimson armor--Kunlun--but mistakenly thinks Guangming is her savior because he's the man widely known to wear the remarkable garb. Guangming, on the other hand, knows Qingcheng has mistaken him for Kunlun, but he, too, falls in love with Qingcheng almost immediately and takes advantage of her misunderstanding. Thus a love triangle forms among Qingcheng and the master and slave.
"I play a man at the peak of all his powers who falls to the nadir and becomes a slave of love," Sanada said at the news conference. "Jang, on the other hand, slowly discovers his identity and starts treading the noble path."
One of most distinctive aspects of the film is the multinational cast Chen assembled. Sanada is from Japan, while Jang is from South Korea and Cheung from Hong Kong.
"I had an international cast in mind from the start," said Chen. "This film is like an experiment on the cultural environment we're able to make in Asia today."
Sanada and Jang pull off their roles as Chinese characters relatively well on screen, despite the language difficulties. Well, at least for non-Mandarin speakers they do. As in "Memoirs of a Geisha," whose Asian cast members might have irritated some native speakers with their unconvincing attempts at English, it may well be a different story if you happen to be a native Mandarin speaker.
In every aspect, "The Promise" is an all-out fantasy that makes its own rules. The film gets even more complicated in the second half, as characters start running around all over the place and subplots multiply, including a tangent into how Snow Wolf became an assassin. Some supposedly serious scenes, such as when Kunlun runs at top speed through a field, start to come across as almost comical.
The best way to enjoy this film is to buy into the world Chen has created. Some scenes are stunningly beautiful, including the one when Qingcheng is imprisoned in a giant gilded bird cage as well as the illusory scene with the blooming cherry tree where the final battle among Guangming, Kunlun and Wuhaun takes place.
On the whole, while "The Promise" is not a must-see film, Chen's determination to create a powerful Asian epic like this makes it worth seeing.(IHT/Asahi: February 10,2006)
Source:
http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/...0602100156.html credit: YoonEe, Just Jang Dong Gun