Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) is no longer a fifth-generation director; he’s become a maker of the blockbuster. Nothing wrong with that; The Promise (Wu Ji) is an exhilarating romp, with great care exercised in all departments. Photography, sets and costume design provide eye candy, while the SFX and action scenes will delight the most demanding audiences. Wu Ji’s a Chinese fantasy tale about a love triangle involving a slave, a general and a concubine, which gives moviegoers plenty to chew on for 128 minutes – about what you’d expect from the most expensive movie ever made in China (USD 42 million). The film reportedly broke the China opening weekend box office record pulling in USD 9 million (total earnings in China are expected to reach USD 25 million), which is good news for the marketing team. Premiere tickets were sold at an exorbitant (RMB 2,000), while ordinary tickets were 30 per cent dearer than usual – which is probably not the best way to fight piracy. Evidently designed for foreign audiences or the Chinese newly rich, The Promise doesn’t seem to fit the definition of cinema as “entertainment for the masses”.
China Film Group

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
February 2006 issue



Guanzhou Chief editor: Christopher Cottrell
February 2006 issue