Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

laojim This is a film about a little girl who is hungry so she steals bread but she meets a goddess who tells her that her she can be beautiful and rich but that she will never find true love. She is told that her fate is now settled and cannot be changed, now that she has made her promise. I can't recall exactly what the promise was, but it had something to do with all that and her life does indeed turn out that way until a slave, mistaken for a general, kills the girls paramour.It is impossible to explain what is interesting and annoying about this film without skipping to the end. The middle is filled with quite pretty scenes of the king, the slave, the guy from the snow country, the girl, now grown to be a princess, and a few others. The blurb insists that it is the most beautiful film ever made but it is nowhere near that. It is, however, quite pretty. I won't get into how all the characters finish up, but I have to tell you what happens at the very end, so you might want to come back after you have seen the film.There follows, of course, a long series of complicated ups and downs for all the characters until the very end when our heroine seems to have found love indeed. Is the goddess very irritated? Peeved? Not at all. She shows up and blithely tells everyone that promises made to the gods are as fragile as any other and that fate can be changed. Now, I don't know about you, but if I had made some deal with a goddess for some unchangeable fate and then when all the suffering and struggle was over had that goddess tell me that, well, you know, it can all be changed, can't it? I would be seriously angry.I frankly don't know if this is a case of bad writing in which the author couldn't figure out a good ending so he just has the goddess, the moving power behind all of it, show up and say that your should forget all about it or if this is some sort of thing that makes sense to the Chinese way of thinking.In the Buddhist way of thinking there are gods and goddesses, demons and devils, but they aren't really very important and one can well have a form of Buddhism without any gods. Some say that Buddhism is atheistic, but i think goes a bit far. In the Chinese tradition it seems true that the gods are unreliable. Every Chinese village has a shrine to some local god who has the duty of making sure things go well for the village. If things don't do well they tear down the shrine and build a new one to some other god who will jolly well see to it that the village prospers and keeps out of trouble. Perhaps there is something of the sort at work here, I don't know. It is very odd.

platewurm A few years ago, when I was sitting in a bus on my trip from Taipei to Kaohsiung (for those who do not live in Taiwan, it's a 5-hour trip), I turned on the LCD screen in front of me (Yes, that's right, some buses in Taiwan have LCD screens and movies for passengers to chose during the trip) and chose "The Promise" on the select screen. I watched it for 15 minutes, went back to the movie select menu, chose "Norbit" instead, finished "Norbit" and fell asleep.IT TOOK ME 2 MONTHS, OVER 14 TIMES TO FINALLY FINISHING "THE PROMISE".Why? Because EVERYTHING in "The Promise" hurts. Deep inside my soul, I cried in agony for the quality of this movie.I know some people in IMDb liked this movie. I'm not here to debate how wrong they are. I'm just here to say how "The Promise" made me felt.First, let's take a look at the story. It's been a few years, and I've seen re-runs of "The Promise" on televisions for a couple of times. Yet, I still don't understand what this movie is trying to tell me.To clear things out, I have to confess that I am a fan of MST3K. I had my share of bad movies. I even watched "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in the theater. However, I still don't have a clue what "The Promise" is about.The story of this movie makes me feel that the director, Kaige Chen, is trying to tell you five stories in ONE SINGLE MOVIE. And the bad thing is, he can't tell even ONE story well enough for me so I can understand at all.As for the acting... I don't know, I really don't know what to say. I can tell that this movie was starred by some really talented actors/actress, yet they were all hampered by the incompetence of the director.To be honest, I envy for those who loved this movie and weren't native Chinese speakers. They don't have to endure what I've been through. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.It hurts my eardrums every time when I hear those ridiculous lines. Really. Oh yeah, did I mentioned that two of the main actors in this movie didn't even speak Chinese? (They are Korean and Japanese) SO, what do we have here now? A bunch of actors/actress speaking ridiculous lines in a cheesy way? Have you ever played Resident Evil on Playstation? I'd say that voice acting in Resident Evil is better than those in "The Promise", and it's not the actor/actress's fault.I can go on and on and on and on for EVERYTHING I hate in this movie to no end. Yet, it soon occurs to me: OH MY GOD! THIS IS IT! "The Promise" is THE milestone for Chinese movie industry! Finally there's a movie can be as bad as "Battlefield Earth" or "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (OK, maybe not that bad) in Chinese. I think this is a major breakthrough for Chinese-speaking people like me.Yes, for me, "The Promise" can be viewed as movies as "Water World", "Superman IV", or even "Manos: The Hands of Fate". And YES, "The Promise" is a bad movie. It sucks in every aspect. But I feel pleased to see this movie. Because "The Promise" showed that China now have the potential to shoot expensive, flat-out, meaningless, BAD movies like this one.

lastliberal After having watched many Chines martial arts film, I was amazed that I could still be thrilled and surprised, but this film did just that.Writer/director Kaige Chen has put together a film that transcends countries and presents a tale of love and magic in a martial arts dance that is simply spectacular in its visual presentation.Starring Dong-Kun Jang (Typhoon) as the slave who seeks the princess (Cecilia Cheung) and saves her several times, and Hiroyuki Sanada (The Last Samurai) as the General who is both his boss and his rival.The magic and cinematography and costuming and music of this film all add together to present a timeless tale that will delight all.

Sean Flanigan This movie was fun and imaginative. I loved, Hero and House of Flying Daggers and while the three are not really up for comparison, I thought that this movie was in league with the other two. This movie was fun to watch. Some of the special effects are a little much like watching a rendering on a game console, but overall, the look and feel of the movie was uniquely constructed and thought out. As far as the storyline, it does not take long to become interesting. Did you see the 300? It draws you in as quickly as the tossing of the messengers into the well with a unique opening sequence. There are many contrasts and subtexts to film. The symbolism hits some people over the head while others may not experience it at all. I guess the only way to know for one to know is to experience it for one's self.