A 3,000-year-old promise, five hours in the delivery.

We are bussed up to the hills behind Cannes on the French Riviera to the village of Mougins, famed for good eating. One of the world's top chefs has his resto here.

Our bus does not stop in front of it. Instead, we are tumbled out in the middle of a curved road between two rustic bistros and told, 'Japan first, then Korea, then Others.'

Now I know how a Eurasian in Singapore used to feel to have 'Others' under Race on his identity card.

In this instance, one has no real cause for complaints. In fact, one is thrilled at the prospect ahead.

Lunch with the cast of The Promise, a Chen Kaige film, already touted as the Asian Lord Of The Rings!

Surely there is no cooler cast of hot guys assembled under the Provencal sun than Japan's Hiroyuki Sanada, Korea's Jang Dong Gun, China's Liu Ye and Hong Kong's Nicholas Tse?

Oh yes, female lead Cecilia Cheung's eating with us too. As well as the director and the more-than-slightly precious Peter Pau, the cinematographer.

The restaurant owners are beside themselves. None of us speaks French. Worse, we are also neglecting their fine cuisine.

Each time we try to put a forkful in the mouth, there is a sudden clattering of chairs, and we up and follow Nicholas into the garden, chase Cecilia across the road, dive into the bushes (oncoming car), try to get first crack at Dong Gun.

The Promise is a beautiful princess, a courageous slave, an ambitious general, an evil duke, each entwined by vehement passions: Greed, ambition, loyalty, revenge, the unremitting search for true love. In Kaige's words.

The Princess is first to interrupt our lunch.

'I like being a princess,' the very expressive Cheung expresses. She is not kidding - she is wearing a T-shirt lit by a sequinned Snow White (after SW became the princess).

'I like women like Julia Roberts,' Cheung says. She means actors, her favourites are all female.

Cheung is so very happy to be in the south of France promoting the epic film.

'For six months, we were like a family when we made this picture,' she says. 'I cried when it finished. I am so happy now we are together again, here.

'In Hong Kong I just shop and shop. Life is so rushed.'

She has not bought a thing in Cannes, where the streets are paved with only designer names.

The shoot was not easy. 'For 10 days, I spent eight hours for makeup. Even to film part of my hand, the director wants me fully made-up and in costume.'

THE MEN

She describes the three male leads her character interacts with.

'Sanada is like a playful schoolboy. He is smart and good.

'Nicholas is similar to me, we are both from the same generation. His Mandarin is better than mine.'

Director Chen, she finds charming. 'He is very European,' she says. 'Not traditional, very open. I don't want to have to guess, whether the director is happy with me.

'He tells me I am beautiful because I play the most beautiful princess. He gives me confidence this way.'

Nicholas is the Duke of the North. He is wearing a frilly shirt. Nice.

'My mother picked it for me, for Mother's Day,' the handsome boy tells us.

They were meeting for dinner and he'd told her he was in a T-shirt. 'No, you're not,' she said. So he gave in.

Nicholas had not originally been enamoured with the idea of The Promise. 'Chen Kaige said to me, 'You will love it so much you will not be able to leave your character.''

After 10 days, he had to admit the director was right. 'It is an amazing work of art,' Nicholas says. 'It is different from what I've done before.'

The media-dubbed 'bad boy' plays a villain. He insists he is equally matched with the two male leads even if his role is small. But he does credit Sanada's staying power.

'He spent three weeks dubbing in Mandarin till he got it right, I'd have said, 'Screw you, I'm out.''

Taegukgi's Dong Gun is the Slave. He is in all black, right up to his Ray-Bans. I ask if he can take them off. Cecilia had found him so charming, she dared not look in his eyes.

'My charm's too strong, I put on sunglasses,' he jokes via a translator.

HOT DISH

He had not met Cecilia Cheung before, though he knows of her screen roles.

He attempts an explanation at why kimchi is so hot. 'Korean films are very popular now because of great visual and emotional lines.'

Acting has been the turning point for the former fashion model and singer. And Taegukgi's phenomenal success means he is wildly greeted by fans across much of Asia.

'I anticipated acting difficulty in this film, different language also,' Dong Gun says. 'But with this director, he prepared me long before filming.

'He took away my fear, but the Mandarin was hard to master.'

They seem to be serving it up to Dong Gun on silver platters these days. He is now shooting Typhoon, the most costly project ever produced in Korea.

He has no girlfriend. I have invited him to Singapore.

Hiroyuki Sanada's name is forever linked to Twilight Samurai and The Last Samurai. In The Promise, he is the General. It was a mighty challenge.

'I had three coaches around me all the time,' he recalls. 'Like a student memorising daily text.'

Another challenge was surviving the locations.

'Yunnan, Mongolia, the food, the temperature, it was hard to keep up my condition, to stay fit.' Once on the set though, it was enjoyable, being with fellow actors under a great filmmaker.

'He (Kaige) would show us exactly what he wanted, and he performed so well I wanted to take the camera and shoot him.'

Kaige says simply that The Promise (which he also wrote) is 'a special film never seen before, with characters who are not people you can meet in real life. Almost animated'.

A fantastic fantasy, judging by the footage. Lunch was good too, though it took five hours.
- Additional reporting J F Susbielle