Wu ji (2005)

Director:

Kaige Chen

Writer:

Kaige Chen (writer)

Release Date:

15 December 2005 (China)

Genre:

Action | Drama | Fantasy

Plot:

Empowered by the love of a slave (Jang), a royal concubine (Cheung) is given the chance to make an extraordinary decision.

Plot Keywords:

Princess | Armor | General | Slave | Barbarian

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 6 nominations

Cast

Dong-gun Jang	...	Kunlun
Hiroyuki Sanada	...	General Guangming
Cecilia Cheung	...	Princess Qingcheng
Nicholas Tse	...	Wuhuan
Ye Liu	...	Snow Wolf
Hong Chen	...	Goddess Manshen
Qian Cheng	...	The Emperor
Xiao Wei Yu	...	Ye Li
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Chun-Xiao	...	Princess Qingcheng (voice)
Anthony Wong	...	(voice)

Also Known As:

The Promise (International: English title) (Singapore: English title)
Master of the Crimson Armor (USA) (pre-release title)
Mo gik (Hong Kong: Cantonese title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for stylized violence and martial arts action, and some sexual content.

Runtime:

121 min | USA:103 min (cut version)

Country:

China | Hong Kong | Japan | South Korea

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Singapore:NC-16 | Singapore:PG (edited version) | Taiwan:PG-12 | USA:PG-13 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | France:U | Netherlands:12 | Malaysia:U | Brazil:12 | South Korea:12 | Germany:12 (f) | Portugal:M/12 (Qualidade) | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Hengdian World Studios, Heng Dian, China

Company:

21 Century Shengkai Film

Trivia:

The literal English translation of the original Chinese title "Wu Ji" (in Mandarin Chinese) is "completely devoid of worries, thought, or desires" (Wenlin dict.)

Quotes:

Goddess Manshen: Once you have accepted your destiny, nothing can alter it unless time flows backwards, snow falls in the spring, and the dead come back to life.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards (2006) (TV)

in the midst of carnage on a battlefield, a desperately hungry girl makes a Faustian bargain with a Chinese goddess and lives lavishly thereafter to regret it

I think that this is a very good film, in spite of what many people on this board have said. It is, however, a very different kind of film altogether; it is almost a pure transposition of folk tale to film, with all of the magic and illogic and quirky plotting that such tales involve. Films that attempt to transpose/translate comic books to film do so best when they manage to get the 'tone' of the comic onto the screen and recreate as much as possible the graphic and narrative style of the comic. _The Promise_ does this effectively for folk-tale/myth.

I should probably add that I also like _Operetta Tanuki Goten_, by Suzuki Seijun, which is also working the same territory, albeit in a very different way. Chen's film also references highly formalistic genres like Beijing Opera, hence the acting styles are sometimes very far from the boring "realism" of most contemporary film. Viewers who complain of a lack of realism or believable emotion in films like these should try to climb Rapunzel's hair, and stick to "classic" fare like _Red Sorghum_ and _Farewell My Concubine_, which, brilliant though they are, work in the very familiar idiom of 'Art Film', and provide no difficulty for the kind of viewer who used to say, "I don't watch TV, but I really like _Masterpiece Theatre_".

Yimou and Kaige, with their latest films, are pushing Chinese film, and therefore international film, in new directions altogether, and part of that push is clearly an attempt to escape the heavy yoke of the 'European Art Film' tradition, the 'quirky-Indie-imitation-thereof' tradition, and the narrow confines of the various 'martial arts film' traditions as well. I say, good on them, and shame to those who won't celebrate creative development because it betrays their deeply conservative and traditionalist expectations. As to the suggestion that their recent work betrays a kind of "Hollywood-ification", all I can say is, "huh?"