First Zhang Yimou made a film about the same subject as Chen Kaige had, now Kaige has followed Yimou by making a CGI led ‘wuxia pian’ movie – will these guys ever stop treading on each others toes?…
It’s hard not to read an awful lot of truth into the attributed rivalry between Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou. Ever since Zhang stopped being Chen’s cinematographer and started making films of his own, their careers have overlapped, as have their themes, and even their girlfriend (they both dated Gong Li, who has also played lead for both of them).
In the West, Kaige has never repeated the success of Farewell My Concubine, thanks largely to the wide distribution it received from Miramax at the time. Even Yimou – whose Raise The Red Lantern, like Concubine, collected Oscar nominations for best foreign film – didn’t repeat that kind of success until Hero. Which says a lot, both about the way Chinese films are promoted in the West (or not), and why Chinese directors may wish to join the mainstream (a point which we’ll return to later).
Yimou’s film Hero took the same theme as Kaige’s The Emperor And The Assassin, the real-life Emperor Qin who first united China, only took it to a far lighter, more Crouching Tiger or ‘wuxia pian’ territory.
More recently, Kaige became the first one of the pair to attempt a Western language US produced film, Killing Me Softly. where , let’s face it, Yimou is bound to follow soon. When that was not received to well, Kaige withdrew to his modest, low budget Together. Now Kaige has moved into his own CGI driven ‘wuxia pian’ story – But is it any good?
The Promise begins when the goddess Manshen offers an orphaned girl, Qingcheng, a bargain: to leave behind her poverty for the gift of riches and the admiration of every many she ever meets. The price: that she will never be with the man she loves. Knowing no better, the girl accepts.
Many years later, we meet the two men whose fates will become entwined with hers. General Guangming (Hiroyuki Sanada, Ring 2, The Last Samurai), wearer of the Crimson Armour, and his slave Kunlun (Jang Dong-Kun, Brotherhood), in fact the last survivor of the ‘Land of Snow’, able to run faster than time itself. When Guangming is injured rushing to protect his Emperor from Duke Wuhuan (Nicholas Tse, Gen-X Cops, Time And Tide, New Police Story), he sends Kunlun in his place disguise, hoping to break a prediction given to him by the goddess that the wearer of the Crimson Armour would kill his king.
That doesn’t stop the prediction coming true, as Kunlun saves the adult Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung, One Night In Mongkok, Failan, King Of Comedy), from the Emperor who believes she has been treacherous. The obvious confusion ensues, with Qingcheng falling in love with Kunlun, believing him to be Guangming, who in turn is blamed for murdering the Emperor. And what are the chances that Wuhuan will let any of them live in peace?
Another overblown romance, you can see why the film was so popular in China, rewarding what became the most expensive film in Chinese history with a record-breaking performance at the box office, outstripping even Kung Fu Hustle.
Following in Zhang Yimou’s footsteps has brought director Chen Kaige similar criticisms of losing his political edge for an over simplistic story, overusing CGI, etc. Fair comments to a point, but often overlook that directors may want to join the mainstream for a change. That they might want to work on a very different project and experience that might get them noticed, both on a national and even international scale. (If anything, the one place neither director has made any impact before their ‘wuxia pian’ movies was China, where many of their films had been banned.)
And let’s face it, we all like to try something different once in a while, don’t we?
More than Hero, the reliance on computer graphics is particularly obvious, yet with the character and costume designs, created by Japanese illustrator Kimiya Masago, there would be no other way to bring these visions to life. And many of them are truly inspired, with his previous work on Manga being a definite influence. For instance, when Kunlun escapes form the Emperors’ palace pulling Qingcheng on a rope, her feathered cape pulls her into the air like a kite. Often, the film feels more like a live action Studio Ghibli film, its characters are so stylised (not that that is a bad thing!).
The snag with so much of the film being CGI is how it seems to have limited the work of the cinematographer Peter Pau, who won an Oscar for his work on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in ways Chris Doyle wasn’t with his work on Hero. The less CGI, the more skilfully composed the film is. For instance, when the General is seen thrown into the air by his crimson dressed troops, or in his beautiful retreat, the film could hardly look better. And it’s not as if Pau has not worked with fictional settings before, take the sets for The Bride With White Hair or Saviour Of The Soul, for example. It’s almost as if he wasn’t consulted or particularly involved with the process after the technical bods got involved, and that’s a real shame.
It’s interesting to remember how fervently he rejected using CGI in his previous epic, the almost Shakespearian The Emperor And The Assassin. On that films commentary track, he discussed how he’d looked into using it for the big battle scene, but dismissed it using hundreds of extras instead.
The other drawback is the over simplicity of the story, and more so the characters. Even Hero had more depth, and Yimou’s follow-up House Of Flying Daggers managed to embed his characters with at least some of the flaws and profundity we’d seen in his films before. Coming back to that manga connection, Kaige characters are far too two-dimensional.
The Promise is not a bad film by any means, often inspired, but definitely flawed. If only Kaige had brought in some of the complexities seen in The Emperor And The Assassin or Farewell My Concubine, then we’d be looking at another classic.
DVD details
Distributor: Delta Mac (Hong Kong)
his Limited Edition version features nice packaging with 4 prints and a book of Kimiya Masago's designs. The colours of the transfer, like the first Hong Kong DVD release of House Of Flying Daggers, seem to bleed a little too much, and the quality of the picture is not quite what you'd expect.
There's plenty of extras on the send disc, including lengthy interviews and behind the scenes documentaries, as well as trailers, and the whole thing has English subtitles which is a definite plus!
