More than a Promise

So I just saw "The Promise" by Chen Kaige, starring Cecilia Cheung, Jang Donggun, Nicholas Tse and Hiroyuki Sanada. Most people I know have hated this movie, for two main reasons --

1) The special effects are crap
2) Some sequences are literally unbelievable

But that's not the point of the movie. The movie's point isn't to be a narrative that takes you from point A to point B in the most logical route. It's meant to be a pure fantasy, with beautiful, beautiful imagery. It's easiest to think of it in terms of classical tragedy, with a simple story but complex subtexts.

It's like accusing the Illiad of being unbelievable -- who can believe that Αχιλλεύς was invulnerable except on his heel? Or of the Three Kingdoms having unrealistic characters -- when was the last time you saw a 6'11 Chinese (or taller)?

Of course, The Promise isn't anywhere in the league of the others, but it certainly tries to be. It's a simple story -- girl meets goddess, goddess curses girl with material happiness but spiritual desolation, general meets slave, slave saves general, girl meets slave (who's dressed as general), slave saves girl... and on and on and on.

Or maybe not so simple. But definitely gorgeous -- absolutely gorgeous.

What's especially not so simple about it are the subtexts which seethe under the surface of the movie. There are so many, so let's start with the first and easiest. Why would Chen Kaige cast Chinese, Japanese and Korean actors as leading roles? It certainly can't be coincidence - unlike reality, everything in movies happens for a reason. God knows there are enough good Chinese actors out there.

A mundane reason may be that the financial backers are partly Japanese and Korean, and would like to see their own actors included to expand the distribution network. But even so, there's a lot of other interplays.

Hiroyuki Sanada's character is clearly Japanese-inspired. His emblem is a cherry flower, he lives in a house with screens, futons and very little furniture, and he wears his face masked crimson armour with a samurai stomp.

Nicolas Tse's character is equally clearly Chinese. It's the classic evil nobleman full of plots, with the iron fist very clearly outlined through the velvet glove.

Jang Donggun's character however, starts out as a crawling slave, who rises to his feet when put in danger, who changes his abusive master for Hiroyuki Sanada (who still treats him as his slave), and who manages to get the beautiful Chinese princess to fall for him.

Is that clearly Korean? I'm sure it's not a very flattering image, but to my mind it pulled up how Korean culture is becoming particularly hot in China, at the expense of the Japanese...

I can't really go into all the details without throwing spoilers here and there, but there are interesting subtexts throughout the story about the relationship between the countries, using Cecilia Cheung as a stand in for the Chinese people...

This all could be hooey, but it's interesting to play around with mentally...

In any case "The Promise" is to my mind the best of the art-house gongfu genre, and is in part so because there's another leading actress than Zhang Ziyi.

Watch it for yourselves -- you'll probably hate it, but you will have to admit that it's damned beautiful.