Academic

"Red Cliff" is awesome (but only if you get the international version)

By Tung Yin

We just finished watching the international version of "Red Cliff" on DVD over the past two nights.  Why two nights?  Because it's an epic movie lasting nearly 5 hours.  Directed by John Woo, it took five years of preparation and a year of principal photography to put together, and it shows.

It's the story of an colossal battle back in 208 (or 209) AD between the Prime Minister/top General of the Han Dynasty in China, and two warlords who stood up to him.  The Prime Minister, Cao Cao, has 800,000 troops under his command, while the two warlords have maybe 50,000.  But the warlords have a genius military strategist on their side, and a number of super-dedicated heroes who can single-handedly fight off dozens of soldiers at one time.

Woo has always been an amazing director of action scenes, but at times, I've gotten weary of his signature motiff -- the guy who leaps through the air while firing two guns . . . .  Since "Red Cliff" is set in 208/209 AD, there's none of that.  The action scenes are still spectacular, but more disciplined in a sense -- and panaromic to boot.  It really reminded me in a lot of ways of the stunning visual impact that the first "Lord of the Rings" movie had.

The only thing is, you have to watch the international version.  Apparently, there was concern that American (and British and Australian) audiences wouldn't sit through two 2+ hour parts, so the movie was somehow cut down to half its true length.  While there are a couple of subplots that could have been excised, there's not that much fat to trim, and it seems like just about everyone who's seen both versions agrees that the original version is better.  (I'm not sure I get the concern -- after all, parts 2 and 3 of "The Matrix" trilogy were released just six months apart.  "Red Cliff" got the same treatment in Asia.)

Anyway, I think for cultural heritage purposes, I'm going to have to go find the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (which is a romanticized version of the source material for the movie).

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on May 03, 2010 (boomark / email).