RIDING HIGH: The Promise broke Chinese box-office records.

Chen, stopping by the Four Seasons on a publicity tour, says he was "strongly inspired by what's going on in Chinese society. My concern is that we're losing our essential value. Commercialism and materialism is very popular in China right now, and I think it's a big loss. It's sad to see a country with a long history and culture being thrown away. You never know when this kind of thing will come back again."

To that end, Chen seems to have conceived The Promise as a modern myth, almost (although he balks at the idea) a synthetic parable to replace the spiritual past annihilated during the Cultural Revolution. But if The Promise is meant as chicken soup for the Chinese soul, at least one of its ingredients comes as a surprise. During an hourlong conversation, Chen repeatedly cites the influence of American movies, both commercially and artistically.

The commercial influence is obvious. The film boasts a cast of pan-Asian stars, including rising Korean star Jang Don-Kun (Tae Guk Gi), Japanese legend Hiroyuki Sanada (Ringu) and Hong Kong beauties Cecilia Cheung and Nicholas Tse, as well as heavy use of (sometimes chintzy) CGI effects. "So many American films are being shown that the Chinese audience has very high expectations for their own directors," Chen says. "This is the reality. We have to face this." In part, Chen says, he wanted to use the film to "develop the Chinese market," raising almost all of the $30 million budget—the most by far for any Chinese production—within China itself, and the rest from pre-sales to Asian territories. But he also wanted to test his ability to reach a broader audience. "I could continue to do something called art-house films," he says, "but with the small-budget films, you cannot really attract big attention from Chinese audiences." On that account, The Promise has been an unqualified success, taking in a record $17 million at the Chinese box office.

But it wasn't merely the earning potential of American-scale filmmaking that attracted Chen. In the forceful simplicity of Hollywood film, Chen saw something he felt was missing from Chinese film. Namely, hope. "In the Chinese cinema, going back 20 years, everything is very sad," he says, implicitly including his own back catalog. That made sense, he says, "because there was a reason for us to be unhappy. But now things are slightly changing, and we're facing different possibilities for the future." Not all those possibilities are rosy, of course; Chen believes that, like The Promise's princess, many Chinese may be lured away from personal fulfillment by the promise of money and power. But, he adds, "I think there is always a chance for people to change their destiny by believing in something."

If the sentiment sounds saccharine, even (gasp!) Hollywood, the resemblance is intentional. Chen openly admires the broad-stroke idealism of Hollywood movies. "Chinese people would say, 'Oh, American people are very naive. Why are they so simple?' To be naive is a good thing! You are still pretty much like a child. You have fresh eyes to see the world." Chen goes so far as to compare The Promise to a Cat Stevens lyric "saying the world was made last night. I think this is the same: If you look at the film, you could say this is a new-made world. You need to see the film with very fresh eyes, like a child."

In The Promise, Chen says, "every character wants to change their own destiny. But they cannot change anything without love. Let me tell you, love is a very strange word in the Chinese dictionary. Nobody believes in love." Elaborating, he says, "Love is a power given by God. But we Chinese don't have a religion. How can people who are not religious believe in love? They don't know that love is a power, and it can help people."

The Promise opens Friday at Ritz Bourse. See Sam Adams' review on p. 42.