It was just me over at Joe's last Friday night. We watched a nearly 5 hour long epic on his 60 inch Samsung LCD. Red Cliff is John Woo's latest movie, half of which came out in 2008 and the other half earlier this year. Joe ordered the Bluray version right from China at 40 bucks a disc. The movie is shortened in the US release by about half. Joe didn't want to wait for an original version US release, if indeed one ever showed up. I don't know that I would need the Bluray version but they do look damn amazing. I'll wait and see. I don't even have a player yet. It's Woo's first movie since 2002's Windtalkers and that I did not care for. He worked on the Stranglehold video game but I don't know anything about that.
Red Cliff depicts the battle at Red Cliffs in 208. At the time China had split into several smaller kingdoms run by warlords of various sorts. Prime Minister Cao Cao leads an army to defeat Sun Quan and Liu Bei, claiming they are rebels. They aren't. He's just a right old bastard is the Prime Minister. He's pushed his way to the top and cowed the Emperor into giving him a mighty amount of control over the army. He wants to unify China by force. The warlords fight back, though they are vastly outnumbered. They kick Cao Cao's ass and send him packing. Back to his Emperor. The small kingdoms will prosper for about 60 years, then they're all defeated and China is reuited under the Jin Dynasty.
It's a great looking movie, lots of beautiful scenery and camera work. Some too obvious CGI but for the most part it looks better than worse. The water seems to the the weakest point. There are all sorts of things going on all the time. The camera is constantly moving. The sets are amazing too. You can build a lot for a little in China and they built a lot. Sun Quan's summer camp at Red Cliffs is pretty cool. Big stone and wood buildings. Cao Cao's camp across the Yangste is huge, with reviewing stands, towers, and soccer fields. Then there's all the ships. Beautiful.
Cao Cao hangs out across the river, bidding his time before they fight, holding soccer games. Enjoy your fun now Cao Cao, soon your men will enjoy their slaughter. That's what this movie really delivers on. Endless slaughter. There's one big battle after another. There's some yakkin' between the battles and some major amount of melodrama but the picture is so rich I didn't have time to get bored with the story.
There are some nice mountains in the area. Good for scenery, hard to fight in. Cao Cao brings a large navy, ten thousand ships down the Yangtze River. Most of them burn, along with the men and horses on board. Lots drowned, jumpin' in the water. If you were on land, you probably got an arrow stuck in you, hopefully you died quickly and didn't linger in the battlefield. One nice thing about after the battle. Someone comes and finishes off the near dead.
That's the woman Cao Cao has always loved. Problem is she is wife of the general under Sun Quan. That general is Zhou Yu, and he's played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, who I have always liked. He's been in some pretty popular Hong Kong movies. Zhou Yu teams up with the military adviser of Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, who is played by Takeshi Kaneshiro. He's got some sparkly eyes and amazing abilities. Between the two of them they out think Cao Cao at every step and their tiny army routs the big dog. The rest of the cast is great too. Some are bigger characters than others but they all do a great job. Well worth seeing. I'd seek out the longer Chinese version, it doesn't have to be on Bluray, but it sure looks great.
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