Review of Red Cliff (2008) by Kieran T — 18 Feb 2010

I was lucky enough, well I thought I was lucky, to see the original 2 full length feature films on the big screen. All 5 and a half hours of the story. That was until I walked out after Red Cliff Part I.

I'm sorry but I pretty much hated everything about this. The fight choreography, oh my boy Corey Yuen, what happened??? its just awful. The cinematography is awful. The characterization is so simplified. All these great actors together and yet nothing comes from it. The comedy drove me insane. OK I should have expected I this after-all Woo was once a great director, and then he made Mission Impossible II, so why did I have hopes for this at all????

I don't want to even mention how much I love some of these actors because I will just feel bad commenting on their work here, because it's not their fault, its the script. From inexperienced writers you can plainly tell this just needed alot of reworking. I've seen much better adaptations of the Three Kingdoms story-line im afraid.

What did I like? well Wei Zhao was cute, but I knew that from another terrible film in "My Dream Girl" and I hated how her character was used here. It was almost as if Woo said, ok here is a serious scene, oh and wait now here is a comedic scene, now here serious scene, now here comedic scene, fuck this movie.

Admittedly I don't really like epics, but then I saw Zhang Yimou's work.