The Promise [Import]

Import Blu-ray/Region All pressing. At the start of the pic, a goddess offers a young female war orphan, who defied the son of a warrior, a life of riches - with the caveat that she's destined to lose every man she falls in love with. The only way to break the bond is to reverse time, or as some term it, "make the dead come to life." from the enchanting if bittersweet opening, the film moves ahead 20 years to an extended and frantically edited battle sequence intro'ing General Guangming, played by Hiroyuki Sanada ("The White Countess," "The Twilight Samurai") leading his trapped and outnumbered army against barbarian hordes. But slave Kunlun (Jang Dong-Gun, showing a portion of the intensity he fired up for Korean war epic "Tae-guk-gi") saves the day with superhuman speed that defies a stampede of bulls. Kunlun so impresses the General, now the wearer of crimson armor for his triumph, that the General makes him his personal slave. Pic's narrative pivot occurs during a nocturnal encounter in the woods between the General and Kunlun, en route to rescuing their King (Cheng Qian) from attack, and black-cloaked assassin Snow Wolf (Liu Ye). Kunlun, disguised as the General, races to save the potentate from arrogant invader Wuhuan (Nicholas Tse), but finds Qingcheng (Cecilia Cheung), the former orphan who's now a princess, being verbally upbraided, then physically attacked by the King for being strong-willed. Kunlun's rescue of Qingcheng from the King sends "The Promise" into an ever-thickening maze of plots twists as both master and slave fall deeply in love with the princess, and Wuhuan works his evil ways with ambushes and betrayals. In many respects, Chen's and Zhang Tan's script (based on Chen's story) relies on common motifs from innumerable "wuxha" fantasies, and spins around the basic idea that until very late into the action, Qingcheng is unaware that the hero she truly loves isn't the slightly pompous General, but rather the gutsy Kunlun posing as the General.