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ABOUT THE PROMISE (Wu Ji):
Synopsis: Known as the most expensive Chinese film to date, the latest from director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) boasts cinematography by Peter Pau (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and stunt coordinator Dion Lam (Infernal Affairs, Spiderman 2).
A romantic tale of love, loyalty, ambition and destiny, The Promise marks acclaimed director Chen Kaige’s foray into the martial arts fantasy genre. Richly imagined and breathtakingly realized, the film follows the intertwined fates of a beautiful princess (Cecilia Cheung) and the three men who fall in love with her: a general, his slave, and a rival Duke. Unbeknownst to the men, the princess made a pact with a goddess in her youth where she forsake the prospect of true love for The Promise of riches and power. Any man she loves, she will lose, a bargain which has hitherto bore no consequence for the princess, as haughty as she is lovely.
But when a slave (Jan Dong-Kun)-- disguised as a mighty general – defends first her honor and then her life with unflinching valor, the princess feels something stir within her for the first time. With the awakening of passion, she realizes with dread what destiny holds for her.
Enslaved to the fate that has befallen them, only the truest love of all can alter the course of their destiny…
The Promise 11min. Trailer
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Note From Chen Kaige: As human beings, are we free to live out our lives according to our own desires, in accordance with our will, or are we merely powerless pawns in the hand of destiny? These are potent questions that in some way or another confront us all, sometimes in the most unexpected of ways. In a sense, I do believe that our fate is pre-determined. Yet paradoxically, I do not believe that this absolves us of our responsibility to try to alter it for the greater good, nor do I believe that fate has the final word. We might even say we are co-authors with fate of our destiny.
Oddly enough, fate seemed to play a hand in how I came to make The Promise in the manner I did: from the creative partners with whom I collaborated, to the locations in which we shot, even down to some of the principal characters around whom the story is centered.
Of course, long before we began pre-production, I had conceptualized what the story would be: a beautiful Princess, a courageous Slave, an ambitious, charismatic Mighty General, an evil and cunning Duke, each propelled forward and entwined by vehement passions: greed, ambition, loyalty, revenge, the unremitting search for true love. Their dance with destiny would be choreographed not only by these powerful drives and desires, but also by promises and contracts made years before – each setting his or her own course for themselves earlier in life. Furthermore, I would set the story “3,000 years ago in the future, somewhere in Asia.” That was the essence of the film, the premise from which I started. Yet a series of synchronous events unfolded that shaped the film in distinct ways that I had not previously envisaged.
The role of the Slave is singularly important as so much of the story turns on his actions and his metamorphosis from an almost animal-like creature to a fully evolved, heroic human being. In this sense, he is the character who most seizes the opportunity to alter his fate and transcend his pre-destined existence – and the character in which I see a reflection of my own aspirations.
The film you “plan” on making is not the one which you end up shooting – the film will unfold as it will. Perhaps fate whispers stories to us in our dreams, in our subconscious, and we are compelled to tell them. And yet we do have an opportunity to shape them, to embellish them, to make them our own.
Cast List
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Cecilia Cheung |
Jan Dong-Kun |
Nicholas Tse |
Hiroyuki Sanada |
