Review of The Red Cliff (1949) by Katherine C — 16 Dec 2009

Feel very happy finally I have time to see this movie just the night before I go back to Hong Kong. It's a good cut from a 5 hours version to a 2.5 hours, but maybe it's still a bit too long and a bit slow for foreigners.

BUT I still highly recommend you have to go to theater to see this movie coz this is a movie made for large screens. For people who are interested about IR (esp on China), it's also interesting to see this film - as 1/ you'll see the role women in war/IR affairs, 2/ terrorist suicide bombers as a strategy in Chinese political culture, it might not be invented by Chinese, but this strategy was clearly documented; 3/ the significant of this war: contrary to the conventional wisdom of Chinese unitary culture, the result of this war was the division of China into 3 Kingdoms, which was a perfect case of "balance of power" and "diplomacy"; 4/ movie was based on an ancient war epic which is well-known to all Chinese (and even in Asia).

Ian Johnston's book (Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History) didn't cover this book which is most disappointing as how the armies of different sides operate with strategic, mechanized efficiency is more enough to impress any fan of this topic.