As human beings, are we free to live out our lives according to our own desires, in accordance with our will, or are we merely powerless pawns in the hand of destiny? These are potent questions that in some way or another confront us all, sometimes in the most unexpected of ways. In a sense, I do believe that our fate is pre-determined. Yet paradoxically, I do not believe that this absolves us of our responsibility to try to alter it for the greater good, nor do I believe that fate has the final word. We might even say we are co-authors with fate of our destiny.

Oddly enough, fate seemed to play a hand in how I came to make Wuji-The Promise in the manner I did: from the creative partners with whom I collaborated, to the locations in which we shot, even down to some of the principal characters around whom the story is centered.

Of course, long before we began pre-production, I had conceptualized what the story would be: a beautiful Princess, a courageous Slave, an ambitious, charismatic Mighty General, an evil and cunning Duke, each propelled forward and entwined by vehement passions: greed, ambition, loyalty, revenge, the unremitting search for true love. Their dance with destiny would be choreographed not only by these powerful drives and desires, but also by promises and contracts made years before – each setting his or her own course for themselves earlier in life. Furthermore, I would set the story “3,000 years ago in the future, somewhere in Asia.” That was the essence of the film, the premise from which I started. Yet a series of synchronicitous events unfolded that shaped the film in distinct ways that I had not previously envisaged.

The role of the Slave is singularly important as so much of the story turns on his actions and his metamorphosis from an almost animal-like creature to a fully evolved, heroic human being. In this sense, he is the character who most seizes the opportunity to alter his fate and transcend his pre-destined existence – and the character in who I see a reflection of my own aspirations.

The film you “plan” to make is not the one which you shoot – the film will unfold as it will. Perhaps fate whispers stories to us in our dreams, in our subconscious, and we are compelled to tell them. And yet we do have an opportunity to shape them, to embellish them, to make them our own.

Chen Kaige
Director/Writer

In 1993 Chen Kaige won the first Palme D’Or for a Chinese language film at the Cannes Film Festival for his epic Farewell, My Concubine. The film went on to gather critical praise, an Academy Award Nomination and was a box office success throughout the world.

Prior to the Chinese Cultural Revolution of 1966, Chen, the son of a respected film director, attended a school for privileged children in Beijing. When the revolution took hold, Chen, along with many thousands of his middle class contemporaries, was sent to the countryside for re-education and to work on the land; in his case clearing trees in the south of the country. From there he was inducted into the regional army and served five years before returning to Beijing.

In 1978 Chen was among the first intake of students at the newly reopened Beijing Film Academy. These talented students became known as the Fifth Generation Directors and included director Zhang Yimou, who originally collaborated with Chen as his cinematographer. As students, the Fifth Generation was influenced by Western European directors rather than Hollywood movies.

Yellow Earth, Chen Kaige’s debut film, was hailed as the audacious beginning to a new era of Chinese theatre, and was awarded prizes in festivals from London to Hawaii. His following films The Big Parade, King of Children and Life on a String, were interspersed by sojourn at the American University of Columbia. Following the international success of Farewell, My Concubine, Kaige directed Temptress Moon (1996), The Emperor and the Assassin (1999) and Together (2002).