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Wu ji
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Wu ji (2005) -- Empowered by the love of a slave (Jang), a royal concubine (Cheung) is given the chance to make an extraordinary decision.

Overview

User Rating:
5.6/10   5,169 votes
MOVIEmeter: ?
Down 13% in popularity this week. See rank & trends on IMDbPro.
Director:
Kaige Chen
Writer:
Kaige Chen (writer)
Contact:
View company contact information for The Promise on IMDbPro.
Release Date:
15 December 2005 (China) more
Genre:
Action | Drama | Fantasy more
Plot:
Empowered by the love of a slave (Jang), a royal concubine (Cheung) is given the chance to make an extraordinary decision. full summary | add synopsis
Plot Keywords:
more
Awards:
Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 6 nominations more
User Comments:
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 more

Cast

  (Credited cast)
Dong-Kun 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:

Anthony Wong ... (voice)
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Additional Details

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)
more
MPAA:
Rated PG-13 for stylized violence and martial arts action, and some sexual content.
Runtime:
121 min | USA:103 min (cut version)
Language:
Mandarin
Colour:
Colour
Aspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Fun Stuff

Trivia:
This is the most expensive film in Chinese history with a budget of 282,572,490 Yuan ($35 Million). more
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. more
Movie Connections:
Featured in The 63rd Annual Golden Globe Awards (2006) (TV) more

FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
73 out of 138 people found the following comment useful:-
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, 5 January 2006
9/10
Author: mjw51-1 from Canada

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?"

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Discuss this movie with other users on IMDb message board for Wu ji (2005)
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I was disappointed..... anafelix
Senseless Cow Murder Orestes55
They should have swapped the evil dude and the general IMO xxXUltravioletXxx
UK Release? jamesjamiesargent
Finally on Blu-ray! jrw3920
is that sean connery? belljar666
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