Henry Saw: Red Cliff

An entertaining but flawed epic from director John Woo...


Red Cliff, the newest film from John Woo, is a Chinese war film based on the real life Battle of Red Cliffs (or Battle of Chibi) that was fought in 209 AD between the allied front of the southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan and the numerically superior forces of the northern warlord Cao Cao. It is, according to Wikipedia, the most expensive Asian-financed film of all time with a budget of 80 Million dollars. In China Red Cliff was released as two separate films, with a total running time of 280 minutes, but the version we got in the United States is one film that has a truncated 148 minute running time.

While it's not accurate to call Red Cliff a Chinese version of Zack Snyder's 300, there are similarities, and it seems like an apt comparison to start off this review. Red Cliff is a glorified version of this famous and pivotal battle from Chinese history. John Woo focuses more on battle tactics and strategy than Zack Snyder did, and never quite weaves in the comic book fantasy elements that 300 played with, but both Red Cliff and 300 are highly stylized and slightly cartoony representations of a real life war.

To John Woo's credit the battle scenes are quite impressive. There is a silliness to them, they're not comedic but they are fairly ridiculous, yet they're all entertaining. I have to mention how much they reminded me of the video game Dynasty Warriors. If you had told me that this whole movie was an adaptation of Dynasty Warriors I definitely would have believed it.

There are many characters in Red Cliff, all based on real historical figures, but only two really stood out to this American viewer. One is Zhuge Liang (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro), chief advisor to Liu Bei, and who uses his cleverness and knowledge of the weather to help devise a battle strategy. The other is Zhou Yu (played by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), Sun Quan's Grand Viceroy, who takes up the charge of leading all the allied Southland forces against Cao Cao. Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu form a strong friendship that is the heart of the film.



Because this is two films smashed into one the audience is asked to just accept a lot of the characters' actions and motivations. I assume that in China these films are more nuanced, and distinguishes the principle characters to a greater degree, but the one film that we get is very broad and done in brush strokes. We quickly understand who to root for, get one trait for each supporting player (there's the warrior who likes knocking over horses, the one who uses two short swords, the woman who likes tea, etc.), and that's about it.

The film is also awkwardly put together. I suppose that is to be expected when you make two movies into one but it's still a problem. What's funny is that the Western version of Red Cliff could probably have been edited even further. There is a very solid 2 hour war film in here but there is a lot of fluff, probably left in to give us a taste of what the 4 1/2 hour version was like, that was not needed for American audiences.



I enjoyed Red Cliff but it's not actually that good. The action is fun but repetitive, the character interaction is mostly laughable, and there's very little suspense or drama in the climatic battle sequence. Still, it's an impressive film, and a movie I was very happy to have seen. It was fun to see how it still felt like a John Woo film despite the lack of handguns and sunglasses. There is a dove...he always has to have doves in his movies...but its an overly showy and obvious shot.

I kind of recommend Red Cliff. Watch it with someone else, you'll want to laugh and talk about the film as it plays, and don't expect too much, but Red Cliff is a fun experience. I'm somewhat certain I would have hated the "full length" version...I found this film to be too long as is...but I'd say that the "American" Red Cliff is worth 140 minutes of your time.

Grade: B-

Best Scene: The "Tortoise" formation scene where we see how a cavalry unit can be defeated by infantry.