Rating of
0.5/4
"The Promise" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 12/28/11
A famous and well respected general and his faithful slave vie for the affections of a beautiful princess while battling the evil ruler of their land. Inevitably trying to ape the epic scale and poetry of the likes of Crouching Tiger or Hero, The Promise is actually just a dim-witted fairy tale populated with badly acted cartoon characters who spout inane fortune cookie platitudes at one another. Visually, the costume design is as attractive as you'd expect but there's also some very dodgy set design and an overuse of awful, cheap looking CGI. There is no narrative flow or even logic to the story and Kaige Chen is clearly just a hack Michael Bay wannabe, making this stir-fried turkey one of the worst examples of the Americanization of Asian cinema I've yet seen. Avoid.
