FSF, October-November 2006

by Spilogale, Inc

  Although The Promise clearly follows the wuxia tradition of chivalric fable, none of the characters in Chen's film ever seems heroic, or even—apart from the innocent and lost Kunlun—honorable. Likewise, the grand ill-fated passions that are supposed to inform their otherwise nonsensical actions are never fully expressed to the viewers. This is not in any way a tale of daring and devotion. And the only character who seems to express much emotion at all is a sad-sack assassin called the Snow Wolf (Liu Ye), who looks more like a moulting crow with a serious case of the mopes.

  This failure to connect emotionally to either the material or the audience is, I am sure, mostly the fault of the direction and writing of Chen and his co-scripter, Zhang Tan. However, some of the problem might lie in the trimming of approximately twenty minutes from the original film for its international release. (Not that I'm complaining, shorter is definitely better. At least in this case.)

  In addition, Chen clearly made a calculated business move to bring in an international Asian cast to broaden the film's appeal throughout the Pacific Rim. Sanada is Japanese. Jang is Korean. And several of the other cast members are native Cantonese speakers from Hong Kong. I have heard tell that some of the actors struggled mightily with their Mandarin dialogue—to either the disconcertion or amusement of Chinese audiences. The struggle to get a comprehensible line reading out can certainly compromise an actor's performance, as it seems to have done here.

  Chen, like every good businessman-filmmaker, has attempted to put a positive spin on his movie. Besides entertainment, he has told interviewers that he hopes that viewers leave his film feeling like “they had a spiritual shower.” When I left the theater after viewing his tragic fable, I felt only relief. My eyes were dry, and so was my soul. Although I did regretfully conclude that Chen, himself, was all wet.

  The filmmaker's countrymen were no more merciful. One of the biggest download hits of the web this past winter was a twenty-minute parody of the epic called The Bloody Case that Started from a Steamed Bun by a young blogger named Hu Ge.

  The Promise's writer-director was not amused. In fact, he was so outraged that he is attempting to sue his satirist. But the gentleman from Beijing needs to understand that a big budget, cheesy special effects and a bloated and confusing story made from scraps of a dozen legends do not (as most Hollywood actioners aptly illustrate) make for a great movie. And the kind of ponderous pretension Chen exhibits in The Promise has no place in a vital genre like the martial arts film.

  Perhaps Chen Kaige was merely a tool of the official Chinese film industry in its quest to create an all-things-for-all-people film product for the global marketplace. Perhaps this is even a Communist plot—Rummy, take note—of the Chinese government's attempt to eat Hollywood's lunch.

  If they can't bury us in cheap plastic crap, maybe they'll settle for lulling us into submissiveness with dull and unfathomable action movies.

  ...With By Good Intentions by Carrie Richerson

  Does anyone rival Texans when it comes to the tall tale? Everything's bigger in Texas, so doesn't it make sense that the biggest whoppers come from the Lone Star State? Naturalized Texan Carrie Richerson provides some evidence to the affirmative with this doozy of a yarn.

  "So, Mr. Sandoval—your company has won the bid for my little project. I suppose I don't need to tell you that you had some ... fierce ... competition?"

  The client smiles at Roy.

  A smile from the Big Man is a fearsome sight. It makes Roy want to run far, far away, very fast. Fortunately for his status as low-bidder on this project, certain portions of his anatomy are not cooperating. Inside his steel-capped work boots, all ten toes have begun to gibber and moan among themselves, and to try to slither back up inside his feet. (He is aware that other parts are trying to slither up inside elsewhere.) The toes are blocked in their efforts because the feet have swiftly and silently turned to stone. Rooted to the spot, Roy decides there is nothing to do but act like the professional he is.

  "S, and I guarantee we'll bring this project in on time and within budget."

  "You are aware, I trust, of the ... penalties ... that accrue for non-performance?” Now the client is beaming. Fangs glint in the ruddy light.

  Ice crawls up Roy's legs to his knees, which begin to quiver like an underdone flan. He tries to imagine a steel rebar shoring up his spine so he does not simply fall to the simmering ground and scream.

  "S. We'll be getting started now,” he forces himself to say. “There's just one thing, Seor,” he adds, as the Big Man starts to turn away.

  "And that is...?” The client's tone is silky; the gaze he fixes on Roy could strip the flesh from his bones.

  "You're required to supply me with a copy of the approved Environmental Impact Statement before we can start,” Roy manages to choke out past a tongue that wants only to flap in abject terror.

  "I'm required?” The Big Man is suddenly a lot bigger. A lot redder. A lot hotter. He looms over Roy like doom personified. He is almost as terrifying as Roy's abuela, Maria Luisa Carmina Portillo de Santiago, when she is voicing her disappointment in her grandson.

  Steam rises from Roy's sodden clothes, but he plunges ahead. “S. Section 47 of the contract, page 64: ‘Contractee agrees to obtain and provide contractor with certified approval of project from the Environmental Protection Agency, and any and all local approvals and licenses, before work can commence. Approved EIS must be available for public inspection at all times at the contractor's site headquarters. Failure of the contractee to obtain such approvals shall not be counted against contractor's performance. Failure to obtain such approvals within a timely fashion shall cause this contract to terminate without prejudice against contractor,” Roy quotes from memory. He pulls his damp copy of the contract from his jacket pocket in case the client is not convinced.

  The moment stretches out. The Big Man contemplates Roy, and Roy stares back, bug- and cross-eyed, unable even to wipe away the sweat that pours down his forehead. Then the client shrugs.

  "I can see that you are indeed the right man for the job, Mr. Sandoval. Here is your copy of the EIS.” He snaps his fingers and a thick document materializes in his hand. He hands it to Roy; fingerprints smolder in the margins.

  Roy checks the EIS carefully. It has all the correct stamps and approvals, and is signed by the commissioner of the EPA herself. Somehow Roy is not surprised to see the Big Man has that kind of pull. Appended to the document are all the necessary local approvals and waivers. He is acutely aware of the client hovering impatiently over him as he reads the papers, in part because of the overpowering reek of sulfur coming off the client's body. For a moment he considers mentioning to the client that there are deodorants to help such a manly Big Man with body odor, then he thinks better of the idea.

  "Everything appears to be in order, Seor."

  "Then you had better get started, hadn't you?” The client points a razored talon to the sun, already well above the eastern horizon. “Tick tock, Mr. Sandoval. Sundown on the seventh day comes apace.” He vanishes in a cloud of fume and ash. Only a smoking hoofprint remains.

  Roy gasps with relief and almost sags to the ground as his lower extremities unpetrify. He swings around and waves to his crew. “ndale, hombres!” Dozens of diesel engines cough to life and begin to puff black exhaust into the clear morning air. The biggest ‘dozer, under the command of Roy's gang boss Felipe, spins with almost dainty grace in a half circle and charges toward the survey flags marking the beginning of the route. The blade bangs down and bites into hardpan. Behind Felipe's ‘dozer, a conga line of dump trucks, front-end loaders, spreaders, graders, and rollers forms up. Rock crushers, slurry mixers, water trucks, sprayers, asphalt cookers, and all the support vehicles—cooks’ RV, first aid RV, Roy's office RV, and the bunk RVs needed for construction far from civilization—organize to the side. The project is underway.

  Roy whistles over a dump truck and swings into the cab beside the driver. He has a project, a budget, a deadline. A most i
nflexible deadline.

  * * * *

  The first two days they bust rock, tons and tons of it. The demolition crews rove ahead of the ‘dozers, blowing the largest boulders and rock ledges apart. The bulldozers blade the beginnings of a roadway through the rubble while front-end loaders shovel the debris into dump trucks, which take it to the crushers. More trucks bring the crushed product back to the route, where spreaders and graders form it into road base. The work proceeds with practiced smoothness.

  Roy employs the best demo expert in the business. It is widely acknowledged that Kath can trim dynamite sticks to the millimeter by eye, and juggle a dozen blasting caps at once, stone sober (which everyone knows is much harder than juggling them drunk). She brings the mountains low and levels valleys, makes the rough places smooth and plain as they follow the ruler-straight line of survey flags westward.

  On the morning of the third day, out past Kingdom Come, Kath brings Roy the bad news. “Survey flags disappeared last night, boss."

  Roy has been expecting trouble since the moment they started the project; he is almost relieved that something definite has finally happened so his stomach can stop winding itself in knots. This problem will be easy to solve; he expects more serious attempts at delay to follow.

  "Get Jorge and his crew out there with the transit. And Kath—set guards tonight.” She nods and goes off to rouse the surveyors and to unlock the armory.

  The heat mounts by the hour, and by noon it is unbelievable. Roy makes sure his people have plenty to drink, but most shrug off the temperature. No es nada, they say, and work on stoically. Felipe pushes back his Stetson and spits into the dust. “This is nothin', Jefe. El Paso in July—now that's muy caliente."

  The afternoon brings a spot of good news. Roy's nephew, Ramn Benitez, brings him a sample of a new slurry. Ramn is Roy's sister's son, the first in the extended Sandoval familia to get a college degree. At Texas A&M University he studied chemical engineering and agronomy, and he is fond of saying “El Dios never made a better chemical engineering factory than the brown Jersey cow.” His great ambition is to own a small dairy herd of his own; for now he makes Roy's job easier by constant tinkering with the many surfacing, binding, and weather-proofing chemicals used in paving operations.

  He shows Roy a capped jar of thick, gray sludge, and a chunk of sulfurous, flaking rock. “It's this local brimstone, To Roy, from Hell's Half Acre. We can crush it and use it instead of fly ash. It saves us a lot of money, the slurry spreads easier, and sets up faster and harder.” Roy examines the test plot. The reformulated slurry has set up into a smooth, hard surface full of tiny glittering flakes. “Qu es?” he asks.

  "Iron pyrite, To. Fool's gold,” Ramn answers.

  Roy okays the change. It will save them more than money; it will save time they would have had to spend trucking in the fly ash from power plants back in East Texas. They start spreading the new slurry that afternoon. The first section will be ready to tar by the next morning.

  That night only a few survey flags disappear. Guards with rifles patrol the route, setting off road flares every few hundred feet. They report vague shapes skulking in the darkness just outside the circles of light, but only one sharpshooter connects with a target, and a skull-jangling howl greets his success. Morning reveals the corpse of a wolf-like creature four times the size of a Great Dane. “Hellhound,” Kath says, pushing the animal's lip back with the barrel of her rifle to show a fang as long as her hand.

  Kath brings the news to Roy, who is watching his tar boss roll on the first layer of asphalt sealer. Roy is an asphaltenophile, a connoisseur of heavy hydrocarbons. He knows his tars, from Athabascan bitumen to Trinidadian pitch. “I love the smell of asphalt in the morning,” he tells Kath. “It smells like ... progress.” He is in too good a humor to be dismayed by Kath's report of the Hellhound. He agrees with her plan to handle the beasts if they return.

  Roy has been running his crews in shifts from first light in the morning until full dark. He knows that toward the end, his people will have to work all night, under lights, but in these first days, he has let them get as much rest as possible for the sprint to come. It is during second shift lunch, right at noon on the fourth day, when the plague of snakes arrives.

  They are rattlesnakes, sidewinders as long as gravel trucks and with hides armored like a Caterpillar. They bite two lunching workers and an assistant cook, while bullets from side arms and rifles bounce off harmlessly. The toll would be higher, but for their habit of coiling before a strike. As one huge head, jaws agape and fangs dripping corrosive venom, weaves back and forth above her, Kath pitches a lit stick of dynamite into the gullet. BLAM! When the smoke and the rain of snake parts clears away, so have the snakes. Deep scores in the rock show the fleeing trails. Roy sends scouts armed with RPGs after the surviving snakes. They destroy two more and report the rest have vanished.

  Quick action in the emergency RV saves the workers’ lives. Roy has had his medics stock up on Holy Water as well as antivenom for just such contingencies. He directs the cleanup of the site and the careful butchering of the remains of the snakes. That evening the workers feast on rattlesnake fajitas, with mounds of corn tortillas and roasted chiles. “Delicioso!” They salute the cooks. “Tastes like pollo!"

  That night the Hellhounds return, but this time Kath has sent her teams out equipped with night-vision goggles, laser sights, and teflon-coated bullets. All night long Roy's dreams are punctuated with the crack of rifle fire, and in the morning he swings up the side of a dump truck to view a reeking pile of carcasses. “Treat them like el coyote,” he tells Kath.

  Ramn has come to report on the progress of his asphalt crews and overhears Roy's instruction. “What is she going to do with them, To Roy?"

  "Wait and see, nephew."

  A few hours later, Roy stops his pickup beside the canopy where Ramn has set up his headquarters for the day. As the radio dispatcher coordinates asphalt spreaders and rollers, Roy opens the truck door and motions Ramn inside. “Come, nephew. Let us ride the route and see how work is progressing."

  Behind the asphalt team, at the beginning of the route, crews are already building forms for the concrete, while at the far end of the route, the slurry teams are finishing the road base. Every few miles, Kath's hunters have hung up a Hellhound carcass beside the roadway. “Is that what you meant, To?"

  "S. With el coyote, you kill one and hang him up in the yard to warn the others. Figure it will work with Hellhounds, too. Remember this, nephew, for when you run the company—though let us hope you never have a project like this.” Roy grins at his nephew, then turns serious. “Ramn, even if we survive this, your mother my sister may never speak to me again for bringing you onto this project. If we fail, we lose everything—not just our lives, but our very hope of Paraso."

  Ramn squints into the sun dazzle out the windshield. “We won't fail, To Roy. This is the best road-building crew ever assembled, and they know what we stand to win. We won't fail you."

  Roy drops Ramn back at his dispatch hut. “We work the night through, nephew. Tell your people."

  "S, To Roy."

  That night, as the asphalt crews hasten to seal the road base ahead of the form construction teams, swarms of vampire bats, so thick they blot out the stars, swoop down to feast. But the cooks have been adding bushels of garlic to the daily menudo and posole, and the bats flutter away in confusion. The ultrasonic cries of so many might have damaged the workers’ hearing, but Roy has told his bosses to enforce the rule requiring earplugs on the job. At the height of the attack, Felipe turns on the ultra-high-frequency broadcaster. Stunned bats rain from the sky; the crews kick them off the roadway and work on.

  Ramn asks Roy, “Why didn't Felipe turn the power high enough to kill them, To?"

  Roy sips his coffee and smiles. “Think, nephew. Where do we get most of our paving contracts? From the Legislature in Austin. We don't need to acquire a bad reputation with those bat-huggers."

  Just before dawn,
Roy sends everyone but the forms construction teams for a few hours’ sleep. As the sun rises he sees maroon and purple clouds massing overhead. He tells the foremen to mount rain canopies over the RVs and heavy equipment and to move all other vehicles and tools under shelter. Then he turns in for a few hours of sleep himself.

  The rain of blood begins midmorning and continues all day. Under the canopies they have fashioned from the Hellsnake skins, the concrete crews begin pouring. Roy and the sleeping workers are lulled by the patter and hiss of smoking drops on the impervious hides.

  By early afternoon Roy wakes. He dons a chemical protection suit to go out into the bloody downpour to check the progress of the pour. They are using a quick-setting formulation of Portland cement and crushed brimstone that would harden even under water; the rain of blood has no effect on it except to tint the topmost layer a bright pink. Roy chats with the workers for a time as they swing the concrete chutes about and level and smooth the slabs. They swap stories of rains of blood past.

  "I was in a hurricane of blood once in Veracruz...."

  "That's nothing! I was in a blood tornado!"

  "My abuelo told me he was working cattle on a rancho near Harlingen once when there was a flash blood flood, and that's how come Santa Gertrudis cattle are red."

  By nightfall the blood eases off to a drizzle and by midnight it is over. Felipe reports to Roy that the first aid unit has treated a few burns, and everyone has a headache from the noxious smell, but no equipment has been lost, and they are still on the timetable.

  "Rain of blood—no problemo, Jefe. Now a rain of frogs—that would have been nasty!"