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Article: Blossoms on steel; The Promise, China's biggest-budget movie, is worth every yuan. Plus: the ugliness of Art School.(Art School Confidential)(Movie review)
- Article from:
- New York
- Article date:
- May 8, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 New York Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WITH THE PROMISE, the Chinese director Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) bounds aboard the international martial-artsy express of Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers--the genre in which warriors don't just whack away at one another but do so amid slow-motion swirling cherry blossoms, with every picture a poem. Many of Chen's admirers will roll their eyes at this high-flying departure (Zhang was ridiculed in some quarters for the florid Daggers), but I found The Promise pretty hard to resist. A heady blend of sword-play, somersaults, fairy-tale romance, and computer-generated whoosh, the picture carries you along as fast as ...