The Promise aka Wu Ji

Plot Outline: Empowered by the love of a slave (Dong-kun), a royal concubine (Cheung) is given the chance to make an extraordinary decision.
Credited cast: Dong-Kun Jang .... Kunlun Hiroyuki Sanada .... The General Cecilia Cheung .... The Princess Nicholas Tse .... The Duke


I just came back from watching the movie and what a disappointment - all style and no substance. The cinematography was beautiful as were the costumes..I consider this movie is metaphysical and a wild fantasy.
Personally, I found lots of meanings and implication in it - love, fate, desire, resentment, pride, peace, fellowship, trust, faith, promise, kind, vicious, evil, loyalty, betrayal, freedom, equality and hope.... And they're all integrated into this movie in whole and in part. But I just cannot find out the central thought or meaning of this movie, actually I think no one can.




"The promise" at least doesnt pretend to be anything else other than a fantasy of raw emotions. The four men provide a field of varied contrasts, and are well casted. The simple, all-goodness slave is convincingly portrayed by Korean Jang Dong-Kun. Japanese Sanada Hiroyuki (look like Sivaji Ganesan a bit) as the flare and charisma for the indomitable spirit of the general who is all egos. Then, it is certainly a pleasure to see Nicholas Tse (he got a like scratchig ur back kind of a fork with a gold hand and ..wah lau eh....) in a role that could have been written for Johnny Depp, the evil and slightly campy duke. The one I like best, however, is Liu Ye, in a role that better than perfect for him, tragic to the bones.(aint life great)


As for the plot and the characters hmmm! It had about as much depth as a children's book, The story was too one dimensional and bland and I didn't feel any empathy for any of the characters ... there didn't seem to be any real passion or depth to any of them. Although the movie is about love, there was a big lack of smouldering passion on screen....Takda itu la any way thats that