Mainland Directors Are Underestimating Western Audiences
However, compared with Wu Xia fantasy film classics like "Chinese Ghost Story" or "Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain", the Promise looks like a pretentious, commercial, CG filled, piece of crap.Agreed. More recent wuxia, including Hero and Flying Daggers, have been sacrificing plot and character development for 'eye candy' (CGI, colors, choreography, etc). There's a more recent attempt by mainland film dirctors, since the success of Crouching Tiger, to go commercial to appeal to a wider international audience. But Ang Lee has the advantage over most of them, including Zhang Yimou, of having studied filmmaking in the US. So he better understands what Western audiences would like and appreciate.
Mainland directors have been trying to emulate his success. But I don't think they get it. They're assuming Western audiences want eye candy and that plot and characters matter little to them -- style over substance. For someone who's had limited success in the West, I'm surprised Chen Kaige would make this pile of shjt. Clearly, he doesn't get it. People have criticized The Legend of Zu for being incredibly beautiful to watch but lacking in sense. Well, The Promise is even more so. Even more incredibly beautiful to watch but making even less sense.
If mainland directors want to emulate Ang Lee's success with Crouching Tiger, they have to first come up with better scripts, then produce films with stronger characters with greater emphasis on plot and less so on 'eye candy'. As is, they're underestimating Western audiences imo. Some of us want much more from wuxia than just beautiful colors an choreography. [please] We want good, well produced stories too. THAT is what's missing from The Promise. An IMDb rating of 5.1 is more than fair imo. Maybe even a bit generous, really...
Just to be fair, I thought The Promise had potential. The pieces are there. It just could've been done much better than it was. The focus (style over substance) is all wrong. And keep an eye on Liu Ye. That guy is going places. You can see it in his acting in this and his previous films. He costars with Val Kilmer and Meryl Streep in a new film coming out soon. Too bad he wasn't given a better script in this one though. He could've done even better with better material to work with...
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