A few years ago, when I was sitting in a bus on my trip from Taipei to Kaohsiung (for those who do not live in Taiwan, it's a 5-hour trip), I turned on the LCD screen in front of me (Yes, that's right, some buses in Taiwan have LCD screens and movies for passengers to chose during the trip) and chose "The Promise" on the select screen. I watched it for 15 minutes, went back to the movie select menu, chose "Norbit" instead, finished "Norbit" and fell asleep.<br /><br />IT TOOK ME 2 MONTHS, OVER 14 TIMES TO FINALLY FINISHING "THE PROMISE".<br /><br />Why? Because EVERYTHING in "The Promise" hurts. Deep inside my soul, I cried in agony for the quality of this movie.<br /><br />I know some people in IMDb liked this movie. I'm not here to debate how wrong they are. I'm just here to say how "The Promise" made me felt.<br /><br />First, let's take a look at the story. It's been a few years, and I've seen re-runs of "The Promise" on televisions for a couple of times. Yet, I still don't understand what this movie is trying to tell me.<br /><br />To clear things out, I have to confess that I am a fan of MST3K. I had my share of bad movies. I even watched "The Island of Dr. Moreau" in the theater. However, I still don't have a clue what "The Promise" is about.<br /><br />The story of this movie makes me feel that the director, Kaige Chen, is trying to tell you five stories in ONE SINGLE MOVIE. And the bad thing is, he can't tell even ONE story well enough for me so I can understand at all.<br /><br />As for the acting... I don't know, I really don't know what to say. I can tell that this movie was starred by some really talented actors/actress, yet they were all hampered by the incompetence of the director.<br /><br />To be honest, I envy for those who loved this movie and weren't native Chinese speakers. They don't have to endure what I've been through. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.<br /><br />It hurts my eardrums every time when I hear those ridiculous lines. Really. Oh yeah, did I mentioned that two of the main actors in this movie didn't even speak Chinese? (They are Korean and Japanese) SO, what do we have here now? A bunch of actors/actress speaking ridiculous lines in a cheesy way? Have you ever played Resident Evil on Playstation? I'd say that voice acting in Resident Evil is better than those in "The Promise", and it's not the actor/actress's fault.<br /><br />I can go on and on and on and on for EVERYTHING I hate in this movie to no end. Yet, it soon occurs to me: OH MY GOD! THIS IS IT! "The Promise" is THE milestone for Chinese movie industry! Finally there's a movie can be as bad as "Battlefield Earth" or "Plan 9 from Outer Space" (OK, maybe not that bad) in Chinese. I think this is a major breakthrough for Chinese-speaking people like me.<br /><br />Yes, for me, "The Promise" can be viewed as movies as "Water World", "Superman IV", or even "Manos: The Hands of Fate". And YES, "The Promise" is a bad movie. It sucks in every aspect. But I feel pleased to see this movie. Because "The Promise" showed that China now have the potential to shoot expensive, flat-out, meaningless, BAD movies like this one.