Review of Red Cliff (2008) by Steve H — 23 Jan 2010

RED CLIFF is a sweeping, endlessly engaging Chinese battle film. It is a smartly strategic as it is gently hospitable and wonderously magical in its making and telling. John Woo has found a juicy story to adapt and stylize to the big screen, and having gone back to his Chinese roots in history to do so is an honorable option done on his part.

He directs RED CLIFF with such style of camera moves, such verve of capturing the vibrant and passionate performances by his cast (especially Tony Leung as Viceroy Zhou Yu) and immediately awesome action on the battlfield that you know that it had to win stellar reviews in China and definetely high-ranking awards there as well.

RED CLIFF's story plays out like an opera. The dramatic air that the film brings to the story of 208 AD China's ongoing struggle to fight a violence-hungry general named Cao Cao and his fight against the forces of the Southlands and Northlands is just right for the film. So is the lovely and alternatively thrilling score, which I consider ot be in league with Howard Shore's from THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. That's all I'd like you to know going into the film. More information would spoil the experience. Yes, to experience RED CLIFF is to know the premise, but be pulled in by everything else.

The pace of the film never lets up in its telling, and that along with RED CLIFF'S passionate performances let the film strut its stuff very well. The epic action, on the other hand, is the showstopper of the film. RED CLIFF's battlefield action, to me, redefines the genre with its stylistic martial arts flourishes and swift sword and spear techniques. The violence and warfare in the film is approapriately and realistically bloody. The amazing scale of the special effects that capture the battles and the staggering amount of extras put to use in the opposing army forces of Cao Cao and the Northlands/Southlands is nothing like I've seen before in my lifetime (except for BEN-HUR).

If RED CLIFF is showing in a theater nearby you, you owe it to yourself to see the passionate performances, endlessly engaging pace, and showstopping action make RED CLIFF not only the greatest ancient war film of the 2000's in China, but also in the United States. You have to see it to believe it, only that 3-D cannot touch the gorgeous and epic scale of John Woo's RED CLIFF. John Woo is back and better than ever! Be ready for more Critiques and Opinions on Every Game and Movie I Can Get My Hands On!