With a little bit of “Cyrano,” a dash of kung fu and a whole lot of ravishing visuals, “The Promise” is a Chinese action flick that’s closer to a fairy tale than most martial-arts movies.
Director Kaige Chen, who once made straightforward historical dramas like 1993’s “Farewell My Concubine,” goes Hollywood on this one. There’s hardly a shot that hasn’t been digitally sweetened; in many instances vast landscapes populated with armies have been generated by the computer.
At the film’s heart, though, is that old standby, the romantic triangle.
In the opening segment, the vain and powerful General Guangming (Hiroyuki Sanada) wins a major victory, ironically with the help of a slave, Kunlun (Jang Dong-Gun), whose superhuman speed turns the tide of battle. A bit later the general, incapacitated by wounds, dresses Kunlun in his distinctive red armor and sends him off to the imperial city on a key mission.
While there, the disguised slave rescues a beautiful princess, Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung). She falls for him without seeing his face behind his mask. Kunlun dutifully sends her to the general, who gets the credit for the rescue and the hand of the beauty, while the poor slave must watch from a distance.
There’s a convoluted back story about Kunlun’s origins in the Kingdom of Snow and a growing feud with an evil king.
But story is not the point here. Neither are the performances, which, thanks to the screenplay, are utterly devoid of psychological realism. Don’t expect the gut-wrenching emotion of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
No, it’s the look of “The Promise” that you’ll remember. The f/x work is accomplished without being hyperrealistic. There’s a studied artificiality and painterliness about the backgrounds that works nicely with a story that’s about as far from realism as you can get.
For many, that will be enough. For the rest of us, “The Promise” slowly slides into an exercise in art direction.
“The Promise” | ** 1/2
PG-13 for stylized violence and some sexual content|1 hour, 41 minutes| ARTFUL ACTION|Directed by Kaige Chen; starring Hiroyuki Sanada, Jang Dong-Gun, Cecilia Cheung|Opens today at the Esquire.
