Brilliant and touching

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

Besides being badly marketed as a martial arts movie (it's not), apparently this movie has different versions, some with such inept editing that vital plot points are missing -- so viewer beware.I watched it in the original language with English subtitles and no editing. And I very much enjoyed it. This is a visually stunning Asian fairytale/legend comparable to The Princess Bride as it has all the great elements of romance and revenge. There's even the fun of a mistaken identity!Being a fairytale, this is not a story of great character development or a deep plot, but a story of concepts. It's one of hope, what love really is, and taking responsibility for your life and your actions.

As a little girl, Qingcheng (Xiaotong Guan) meets Goddess Manshen (Hong Chen), who makes her an offer: beauty and riches in exchange for a future in which romance will be fleeting. She accepts and grows up to be a beautiful princess (Cecilia Cheung).When fleet-footed slave Kunlun (Jang Dong-kun) poses as his injured master General Guangming (Hiroyuki Sanada) on a mission to protect their king from invader Wuhuan (Nicholas Tse), he saves the life of the princess, who immediately falls in love with her rescuer. Unfortunately for Kunlun, who was wearing his master's armour and mask, she believes that General Guangming is her saviour. The scene is now set for a tragic love triangle, with the evil Wuhuan making matters even more complicated.The Promise is a lavish, big-budget, romantic fantasy from director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine); it's heavy on the sumptuous visuals, rife with heroism and tragedy, blessed with stunning cinematography and features a shed-load of fancy wire-work and special effects. Although the storytelling is very muddled at first, it all makes sense by the end, and ultimately proves rather enchanting. Unfortunately, the film is hampered by some terrible CGI that does serve to weaken the overall effect, with an early scene in which Kunlun flees a stampede of bulls being one of the worst rendered computer generated moments in a big budget movie that I can remember.

This is the first time I write a review for this board and I wanted to write about this film from many a time.It seems that this film is quite polarizing for too many people. First of all let me state that the only version I had seen is the original two-hour cut of the film (Asian original version) and not the botched hour-and-half version -that the distributors found fit for the American public to see- and that was nailed by the critics. I previously owned the DVD (Also with the original cut) and had enjoyed the movie several times, and now I got it in Bluray and I am sure I am going to enjoy it many times more. This film is an Epic Fantasy in the "Wuxha" tradition but with more emphasis in the fantasy part -almost like a folk-tale- and like in all good fairy-tales, lessons are provided for all involved. Five different characters: an extremely loyal slave, who starts crawling and ends up flying (Tell me about cinematic metaphors!); an arrogant General (Who finally discovers love for the first time), a cunning beautiful Princess (Who is cursed to lose every man she loves), an evil Duke (Who at the end proves to be more insecure than evil), and a pitiable assassin (Who is on constant denial about himself). All the afore mentioned -under the hand of gifted Director Kaige Chen- will find their respective destinies at the same time providing us with some of the most incredible ravishing visuals, amazing wire-work and pathos of operatic proportions (Klaus Badelt composed the extraordinarily powerful but lyrical musical score). This is a somewhat story-wise complex film with several intertwined plots which deal with many different ideas (Loyalty, Friendship, Fate, Love, Envy, Sacrifice, etc) that at the end provide the core for some hard-earned lessons, like it should in any morality-play that all fairy-tales usually are. Many people have criticized the CGI of this movie and they are not at fault: the CGI in this film is quite far-reaching, and yes some is gorgeous (Fortunately most of the time) and some is poor (The bull's run for example), but do not let this to hinder your enjoyment of this stunningly beautiful film (Remember, as years progress by, last-year's best visual effects are going to look dated or clumsy). This film is not perfect (Sometimes it tries to reach more that it can grasp), but when it is good, it is exceedingly good. I suggest -if you have the chance- to give an opportunity to this incredible and fulfilling film.

I bought this movie randomly in a 'buy two get one free special' and I just picked this up after reading the summary in the back. I really didn't know what to expect to be honest.This is essentially a fairytale with many magical elements added to it. I wasn't sure where the story was going near the beginning, but I was really swept away by how beautiful the whole film was. This story really is about love. However, on saying that, I didn't feel as emotionally engaged as I would have liked in a story like this. There was something a bit missing in terms of these characters but I felt the ending was quite powerful in its own way.What you will admire most is just the awe dropping look of the film and its beautiful landscape. Everything is just gorgeous to look at. Cecilia Cheung is just stunning in almost every scene she is in and some scenes reminded me of scenes I saw in Hero with the leaves and trees blowing. Some of the visual effects are quite cheesy however.Just look at it as a fairytale fantasy because if you don't, then you will definitely not be able to enjoy this film. Some of the plot lines seem a little stupid and the ending is a bit silly. But it's not a film that is meant to be taken seriously anyway.