: (Klaus Badelt) Stylish Chinese fantasy
films have stunned worldwide audiences in the years since
attempts the same
transition. The most expensive Chinese film ever made,
tells the supernatural adventure and romance story of a
princess who has chosen immortality over love, and the three men
(ranging from a servant to a general and a duke) vying for her
affections. With even the melodrama written to epic proportions, every
aspect of the film was conceived in lavish extravagance, not to mention
the usual body-flying special effects specific to these Chinese martial
arts showcases. The unfortunate demise of
came when
it was edited from 128 minutes down to 108 for its American version,
leaving a significant portion of the character development in the first
half of the film to be assumed. As a result, the film was critically
assaulted for being a nonsensical display of art direction without a
plot, and
never received the kind of mainstream
popularity that was expected of it. One of the more bizarre parts of
to originally digest for Western audiences was the
assignment of Media Ventures clone Klaus Badelt to the film's scoring
duties. Despite his attachment to several successful American films and
scores, Badelt's career had largely been an intellectual wasteland,
littered at best with derivative and cliched romps like
. His music has always suffered a
lack of complexity that has been attributed to other Media Ventures
products as well, even in
, the score often cited as the
composer's best effort. With all this in mind, it's easy to cringe the
first time you pick up the album for
. Rarely do you
get a situation that seems so ill-fated, but as Clint Mansell reminded
us in 2005 with
, you can sometimes hear good and effective
music in the most unlikely situations. Badelt's work for
In its basic constructs, you can tell that
The
Promise is a typical Badelt score. The themes utilize all the same
typical, unimaginative chord progressions that often inhabit the scores
of Hans Zimmer and his minions, but beyond the structure of those
themes, the usual problem with such scores is the pairing of those basic
constructs with an equally bland sonic field of electronic instruments
and synthetic percussion. Of the two ills, the lack of diverse
instrumentation is by far the fatal element, for many maestros have
proven over time that even the most simplistic chord progressions in a
theme can be made deliciously enticing by their exotic execution.
Ironically, these simple thematic constructs can even be more
entertaining on album given the pleasurable nature of similar
progressions used in 90% of songs today, depending on how they are
orchestrated and performed. An excellent example of this phenomenon is
Badelt's
The Promise. In this highly engaging score, you still
hear the basic, underlying chord progressions of Badelt's more mundane
writing. He doesn't make much of an attempt to imitate the stereotypical
structures of the more authentic Chinese writing of Tan Dun, but rather
uses the harmonically pleasant simplicity of his themes to translate the
sound of
The Promise for more acceptable to Western ears. While
the love theme attempts to break free with its more dynamic range, the
main theme for the film will remind Hans Zimmer collectors of several
thematic passages in his 1994 score for
Beyond Rangoon. Where
The Promise strikes gold is in how it is rendered for The Chinese
National Symphony Orchestra and vocalist Hang Yue, providing an
opportunity to hear a nearly completely non-synthetic ensemble with
several notable instrumental soloists performing the writing that we
have, through the years, only struggled with hearing on keyboards. What
Badelt indeed proves with
The Promise is that there's nothing
inherently wrong with his writing, but rather the bleak, lifeless manner
with which he records it.
The Promise is filled with flourishing
orchestral creativity and a remarkable incorporation of vocals and
instrumental soloists, painting a vibrant and intoxicating picture with
the broad strokes of its imaginative colors. If only Hans Zimmer could
hire the Chinese National Symphony Orchestra to perform the next
Pirates of the Caribbean score and stock some fresh
orchestrators...
Led by Badelt's slow, flowing themes and rhythms --not
to mention that inescapable sense of power that seemingly always comes
from a Media Ventures score's expanded bass, a bass still electronically
enhanced in parts here --
The Promise is as satisfying a merging
of Chinese and Western sounds as we have heard in recent years, easily
eclipsing Dun's heralded entries in the genre. He writes distinct themes
for each of the film's four main characters, as well as an overarching
"Wuji" title theme for the entire picture. These themes are loyally
stated throughout the score, with none being a substantially weak link
in the fabric. They are heard in snapshot succession at the opening of
the lengthy album for
The Promise, starting with a sub-theme that
ironically eclipses the five main ideas to follow. The allure of
"Freedom of the Wa" exists in its exotic layering of Yue's voice in a
synthetic manner somewhat similar to the Mariam Stockley/Adiemus
world/new age albums, but with a distinctly Eastern touch. Over a bed of
conservatively mixed percussion and the full orchestral ensemble in
magnificent counterpoint, this piece is the highlight of the album. The
title theme follows, and its dizi bamboo flute solos yield to a massive
statement that can only be described as the kind of monumental sound
that you've always imagined hearing if only a huge, well-mixed orchestra
were to perform those synthetic Media Ventures anthems. The flute
continues with the delicate backing of cimbalom into the primary "Love
Theme" performance. Once again, the depth of the full ensemble,
especially in the string section, is astonishing in these cues. The
plight of the slave character is led by the erhu, elegantly providing
the authenticity of the score's location while also yielding, as the
other themes do, to a full group performance. The presence of cymbal and
gong rolls in this cue add a mysticism to the score that might have been
better pronounced had they been mixed at a higher gain. The theme for
the princess is largely understated, though a muting of her music's
romantic tendencies is perhaps an appropriate move. The theme for the
general is a flurry of brassy Media Ventures bombast once again made
interesting by its translation into a truly non-synthetic existence,
despite the usual chopping strings, brass blasts, and thumping
percussion (hearing the Chinese interpret this distinctly Americanized
sound is amazing). The duke's theme is as understated as that of the
princess, but with a darker minor key emphasis in its underplayed
menace.
Aside from the dedicated performances to the primary
themes, Badelt doesn't allow the score to dissolve into monotony at any
point. There may be some moments challenged by the testosterone of the
Media Ventures sound, as in the second half of "Princess Kite," but at
some point in each of these cues, the masterful orchestrations of
veteran Robert Elhai and others (leading to inevitable connections at
times to works like Elliot Goldenthal's
Final Fantasy: The Spirits
Within) save the score with a pronounced instrumental solo. The
remarkable vocal layering in "Freedom of the Wa" only returns in the
magical "Snow Country," a cue aided in majesty by a light choral
accompaniment. The love theme would triumph in the end, as expected,
with a resounding performance to finish "Wuhuan's Plan." An
astonishingly heartbreaking reprise of the theme for the slave is
presented (again with cymbals and gong) in "Come Back," and a similarly
powerful flourish of the love theme would grace "Waterfall." These
crescendos of theme exist throughout the score's massive action pieces
(such as "The Robe" and "Stampede," among others),
producing an enjoyable flow that alternates between the occasionally
haunting solo performances on flute and erhu and the full ensemble
explosions. The mid-range brass in these ensemble performances is
especially well rendered and mixed, reminiscent of Jerry Goldsmith's
work (especially the
Rambo scores). Few moments of downtime exist
in
The Promise, almost exhausting you by its conclusion. It
doesn't exhaust in the same fashion as a score like 2006's
Pans
Labyrinth from Javier Navarrete, which does so with its dense and
challenging constructs, but
The Promise rather overwhelms you
with the sheer size of its harmonious themes and the creative force
behind its action rhythms. In the end, it doesn't really matter if you
can keep all of Badelt's themes straight, for they are all so strongly
realized in performance that only an overwhelming impression of
magnificence is left upon the listener. There will still be a handful of
listeners who balk at the relative simplicity underneath all the noise,
and for those collectors, the recent work of Navarrete, Dario
Marianelli, and other emerging European composers in the action genre
will better satisfy your tastes. But
The Promise is still the
kind of score we're always hoping to hear from a composer like Klaus
Badelt, leaping to new territories and, more importantly, taking full
advantage of a wildly fresh opportunity.
***** @Amazon.com: CD or
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| Bias Check: |
For Klaus Badelt reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3
(in 11 reviews)
and the average viewer rating is 3.11
(in 104,590 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.
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