With an US$80 million budget, which makes Red Cliff (赤壁) the most lavish Asian production to date, and a running time of more than four hours, which has seen the movie split into two installments, John Woo's (吳宇森) Chinese sword-and-sandals epic marks a triumphant return home for the director after 16 years in Hollywood.
Set in the Three Kingdoms period of China's history and centering on the legendary Battle of Red Cliffs (赤壁之戰), the epic sees Woo live up to his reputation as a masterful storyteller who reinvigorates a somewhat overworked and cliched genre with a good old-fashioned narrative developed by a rich cast of capable actors.
Set during the Han Dynasty's death throes, the film opens with shrewd Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi, 張豐毅) sending his million-strong army and a sizable fleet off on an unprecedently large campaign to forge a unified empire. Unable to match Cao's army, the benevolent exiled leader Liu Bei (You Yong, 尤勇) sends his military strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro, 金城武) to secure an alliance with Sun Quan (Chang Chen, 張震), a southern warlord.
Buttressed by formidable warriors such as Zhao Yun, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu (Tony Leung Chiu-wai, 梁朝偉), Zhuge Liang successfully contrives to defeat Cao's vastly superior land force.
The victory proves to be Pyrrhic when the allied forces find themselves confronted by Cao's fleet of more than 2,000 warships anchored off shore. As the decisive battle looms, the two military masterminds scheme to secure victory.
Having opened in China, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan yesterday, this is the diptych's first segment. The second part is scheduled for release in Asia in January of next year. The epic's lengthy running time is justified by Woo's grand narrative, which is told in the vein of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. With the filmmaking luxury of length, Woo defines his characters through anecdotes and slowly builds up the tensions and the contrasts between the two opposing sides, which culminate in a Good vs Evil finale.
Though there are lavish sets, spectacular choreography and massive battle scenes enhanced by CGI effects, it is the substantive narrative that sets Red Cliff apart from the glut of big-budget Chinese historical dramas that have been released in recent years.
Audiences quickly find themselves falling for the colorful ensemble of characters and become absorbed in the film's narrative threads, which are enlivened by imaginative camera work, fast-paced editing and superbly executed choreography. Even ancient China's military wisdom is made sexy and enthralling when Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu-wai take on the roles of master tacticians in a complex battle that involves a maze-like military formation.
Woo's unconventional interpretations of historical figures have caused controversy. Doubts serviced when the director cast Japanese-Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro as one of China's most revered scholars. If audiences expect the heartthrob to exude Chinese virtue and be the living embodiment of intellectuality, they'll be sorely disappointed. Instead, the actor gives the crusty character Zhuge Liang a playful update, bringing a sometimes slightly sissy young scholarly strategist to the big screen.
The casting of Taiwanese supermodel Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) also raised a few eyebrows, but she manages to hold her own in the film.
With Red Cliff, Woo proves that China's rapidly developing film industry has both the know-how and talent to make Hollywood-style blockbusters. The country also has a seemingly inexhaustible archive of historical narratives to plunder at will, so expect many more to follow. Hopefully, more will be as well-made as this one.
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