The Promise (AKA Master of the Crimson Armor) is Chen Kaige's blockbuster wuxia. After Ang Lee's CTHD and Zhang Yimou's Hero, everyone wants to do wuxia. It's the most expensive Chinese production to date ($35 million) won a Golden Horse, nominated for a Golden Globe, and was China's submission for best foreign film at this Academy Awards (it didn't make the final five).

It's nutty. I'm not a big fan of Chen's work, only Farewell My Concubine interested me, but that was such a long downer of a film. The Emperor and the Assassin, which was parallel to Hero in plot, bored me. The Promise is classic Chinese filmmaking, lifting ideas from other films flagerantly. It's Kung Fu Hustle meets Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Lord of the Rings and Legend of Zu, plus a few more. Lots of CGI. Lots of crazy cheesy CGI. Lots of flying about. Not much 'real' kung fu really - the fights are more like Spiderman or Fantastic Four, very comic book. That being said, I was thoroughly entertained by the visual aspect of it. The plot was a bit sappy, especially the finale, but there was some fine stuff, particularly how the immortal was depicted. I liked it, but I wouldn't recommend it to most kung fu film fans. I'd recommend it more to fans of psychotropic cinema.