THE PROMISE RUINS EVERYONE'S GOOD TIME

A sharp-eyed reader translates and sends in this fun little nugget from Sina.com, China's massive internet portal. Apparently, when the Weinsteins dumped THE PROMISE it caused an enormous cloud of toxic fall-out to settle over China and other producers are terrified that THE PROMISE will devalue all their upcoming movies. Zhang Weiping, producer of many Zhang Yimou movies (CITY OF GOLDEN ARMOR, HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS, HERO, THE ROAD HOME), says everyone in Hollywood knows that the Weinsteins were willing to lose a lot of money and dump THE PROMISE because it was so bad, and now Hollywood has lost its faith in big budget Chinese movies.

His solution has been to turn the set of CITY OF GOLDEN ARMOR into a veritable three-ring-circus of press and high profile visitors in order to give it the highest profile possible and have as many opportunities as possible to distinguish it from THE PROMISE. He says that Zhang Yimou isn't too happy about this, but has accepted it because he knows the marketing is more important than ever. Cosequently, folks like Oliver Stone, Steven Spielberg, sales agents from US distributors, and lots of Chinese and international press have tromped through the CITY OF GOLDEN ARMOR set.

A spokesperson for THE PROMISE responded to these comments by saying that the Weinsteins dumped THE PROMISE because they suffered from "economic problems" and that it had nothing to do with the quality of the movie.