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Red Cliff Our rating: Your rating: 1 2 3 4 Your Comments: see all MPAA rating: R (for sequences of epic warfare) Genre: Drama, Foreign, Historical Theater release: November 20, 2009 Directed by: John Woo Runtime: 2 hours 28 minutes Cast: Tony Leung (Zhou Yu), Takeshi Kaneshiro (Zhuge Liang), Fengyi Zhang (Cao Cao), Chiling Lin (Xiao Qiao), Wei Zhao (Sun Shangxiang) Related: Talk About It/Family Corner

Many people see Red Cliff as Hong Kong actioneer John Woo's return to form. I'm not one of them. John Woo has never once made a film I've liked, though he has made at least one I've detested. For me, Red Cliff is not John Woo returning to form, but entirely redefining himself, transforming both his narrative and aesthetic style into something seldom even hinted at in his earlier work. Red Cliff is a visual masterpiece of both epic sweep and intimate detail. In ways both palpable and intangible, Red Cliff is like a mid-20th century Hollywood period spectacular—brimming with narrative optimism, thematic confidence and the courage of its three-dimensional characters. Sun Tzu had it right; indeed there is an art to war.

Red Cliff takes place in 208 A.D. and highlights a battle that heralded the end of the Han Dynasty's vice-like grip on mainland China. Power-hungry prime minister turned general Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) is the real power behind the impotent Han emperor Xian, a leader too young and terrified of his advisor to assert the crushing power his office bestows. Seeking to gobble up the southern provinces, the last holdouts against his geographical appetite, Cao Cao makes up a story of treasonous warlords and convinces the emperor that a military expedition must be launched at once.

Chiling Lin as Xiao Qiao

Realizing that the full weight of the emperor's massive army is about to be brought to bear on their peaceful realm, the southern warlords, Lui Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen), unite to repel the invaders. Spearheading their resistance is Bei's military strategist, Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who has an intuitive understanding of warfare as well as a keen empathy with nature, and General Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), who commands a small but powerful army at Red Cliff, a dramatic mountain range spilling into the Yangtze River. It is here that the southern warlords make their stand against an army and naval armada ten times their size. The outcome of the battle will decide not only their fates, but the fate of an entire nation.

Red Cliff, the most expensive Asian-financed film to date (and also one of the most profitable), was originally envisioned as a single film, but when the final cut ran nearly five hours in length, it was split and released to Chinese audience in two parts. These two parts were reunited and then gutted of 2 ½ hours to produce the 140-minute release in the West. As such, large sections deemed too convoluted for those unfamiliar with Chinese history are now gone, prompting Woo to add a lengthy and dense narration to several of the opening scenes. Rather than hobble the film, however, the narration sounds as if it is taken from an erudite historical text, and actually ends up doing exactly what it was intended to do—simplify the players, their enormous stage, and the context for the pending belligerencies.

Most war films, especially those that take place in a time when warfare invariably meant close-quarter, hand-to-hand combat with blade weaponry, love to offer their viewers breathtaking aerial views of opposing armies massed in perfect formation, colliding, surging into each other's ranks, and quickly becoming an indistinguishable mass of slashing swords and failing limbs. Red Cliff's first battle sequence falls into exactly this category and sets the viewer up to believe that the rest of the film will follow suit. But the filmmakers have a surprise up their sleeve. This is the first and last time we will see a clash of that nature, for this is a war film in which the most important muscle is the brain, not the bicep. When you are drastically outnumbered, you win not by sheer might, but by outwitting and outsmarting your opponent. In modern combat parlance, you fight smarter, not harder.

Director John Woo on the set

Red Cliff is like a cinematic approximation of a game of Risk, full of stratagems, tactics and carefully plotted campaigns. In this movie, even an innocent tea ceremony is a premeditated battle tactic. Undercover spies gather information about the enemy and relay it in tiny satchels strapped to the feet of white doves (this is a John Woo film after all; you didn't seriously think there wouldn't be doves?). Commanders use the information to plan complex and intricate counter offensives, carefully delineating battle formations and the movements of their war machines.

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