Review of Red Cliff (2008) by Sitenoise ! — 20 Dec 2010

Red Cliff is the latest John Woo movie with the most expensive budget ever for an Asian film at around 80 mil. $. There are two versions released. One is released for Asian audience seperated in two parts with total length around four hours and the other is a one part movie with length around two and a half hours made for western audience. I've seen the latter and I must admit I made a pause when there was a short break between the first and the second part of the movie. It is long, but I still wouldn't say overlong because a great deal of attention is given to every possible aspect. John Woo himself stated that Asian audience is more familiar with the characters from their history so they should be able to memorise or even differ the characters more easily than the rest of the viewers.

For almost four centuries China is ruled by the Han Dynasty. In 208 AD prime minister Cao Cao goes on a campaign to eliminate warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan in the south, with the aprooval of Emperor Xiu. Movie draws us without hasitation into very first battles of the grand war about to expand. We are slowly introduced with the heroes, masterminds and the generals of the conflicted sides as they are highlited with extraordinary combat skills, or cunning. Going further into explaining the story would probably be pointless to most of you as you would get lost in the names and the characters. And let me tell you there is a lot of characters to be mentioned here.

Tony Leung plays a somewhat central figure of the movie as Zhou Yu. He is a Grand Viceroy (whatever the hell that means) and an older brother of Sun Quan. He leads Quan's army which resides at Red Cliff. Leung was really good here and I have enjoyed his performance as a profound leader of his army. He contributed greatly for his character to resemble itself and stand above all others. And that's a thing you have to value here. Takeshi Kaneshiro also impressed me here as this is the first movie I've seen him in. He played Liu Bei's chief advisor Zhuge Liang (by now you're probably lost in these chinese names and considering to abort reading this review). He was one of the rare characters that doesn't fight at all, yet his wisdom is greatly appreciated prior to the battles. He was probably the smartest character of the movie and Kaneshiro managed to convince me he really is an intelligent guy. My personal favourite was the warrior Zhao Yun as I have enjoyed his stunts the most. He had a particuralry impressive fight sequence while holding a baby. And throughout the whole movie he displays his superb fighting skills and devoted loyalty to his lord Liu Bei. There are a lot more great characters here that all have their fair share of screen time, but this review would go on forever if I'd to describe all of them.

There aren't really any significant flaws to this movie yet I gave it "only" 80% because I think most of the regular viewers will find it hard to stay put for the whole two and a half hours and fully comprehend the story and characters. I must admit that I have watched the first 20 minutes or so of the movie and then rewinded back to the beginning so I could follow it all fluently. Also, I resent the movie's, at times, cliched character interactions, but that clearly comes from Woo's many years of experience in Hollywood. But I believe that fact has much more positive effects on this movie than negative.

Finally, my recommendation for this movie is very high as Red Cliff isn't just an expensive movie with creative fights. It bears symbolysm in scenes prior to war and it is not at all superficial as one may think out of trailers or posters. I understand, there is audience that is just not attracted to these kind of films as Chinese history and their wars for power in 3rd century just seem repulsive. But for those of you who enjoy battles of truly epic scale and quite well covered historical events, you will find something of value here. Red Cliff defines the word epic when it comes to movies.