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Chen Kaige’s The Promise finally crawls its way on to UK DVD and Blu-Ray, courtesy of Momentum Pictures. Originally released way back in December 2005 and reviewed by us shortly afterwards, it failed to spark any interest from UK distributors despite being given a limited release in the US, France, Germany, Greece, Russia – in fact just about everywhere else! Unsurprisingly Chen’s attempt to follow rival Zhang Yimou into wu xia territory met with mixed reactions. Indeed the core story itself holds a neat fable with beautifully baroque costume design (pre-empting Yimou’s Curse Of The Golden Flower), but relies perhaps a little too heavily on CGI to make it all happen.
Sadly, this is a ‘bonus feature lite’ DVD release, and worse still, it’s the edited US release, running some 20 minutes shorter. Mind you, guess better to have it than not at all (?)
Also out today, Afro Samurai: Resurrection on DVD from Manga Entertainment.
