Red Cliff - A Bloody Grand Adventure

Jan

9

Red Cliff - A Bloody Grand Adventure

≡ Category: Action, Highly Recommended, Hong Kong, Movie Reviews By Country |
≅ Written by: Michael Kydonieus

Country: Hong Kong
Genre: Action
Director: John Woo
Year: 2008

Rating:

TRASH CINEMA HIGHLY RECOMMENDED MOVIE

The opening credits for Red Cliff led me to expect the worst. The camera sails through CGI clouds and ends up at — you guessed it — a red cliff. Nothing wrong with that per se, but the images have all of the reality of one of those free screensavers that gives your computer a nice, fat trojan. I’m thinking to myself, “Oh, no! John Woo is going to use all of this ridiculously phony CGI!”

Fortunately, Red Cliff recovers nicely from that disastrous opening. The key to appreciating Red Cliff is that John Woo isn’t making a gritty war story set in the Han Dynasty. He’s making a grand adventure, like Lord of the Rings.

For example, when the army regulars are getting slaughtered left and right, one of the heroic generals swoops in to the rescue and makes mincemeat of dozens of of the enemy soldiers. It’s not meant to be realistic. As you might expect with John Woo, the red stuff flows and spurts quite often, but when you see the wounds inflicted, you don’t wince the way you might at a more naturalistic depiction.

The visuals are in line with Woo’s heroic conception. The matte paintings and computer drawings are lovely and not quite real, like a fairy tale, which Red Cliff most assuredly is. This is the sort of movie where the forces of good and evil are quite easy to identify.

Prime Minister Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang), a general in the northern army, intimidates the emperor into allowing him to attack the South. Of course, once Cao Cao prevails, he will overthrow the emperor.

In the South, the Wu nation, led by Sun Quan (Chen Chang) must join forces with the kingdom of Xu, led by Liu Bei (Yong You). The kings get a lot of help from their military strategists, men like Zhou Yu (Tony Leung ) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro).

Much of the entertainment value of Red Cliff is in observing the military tactics these two come up with.

The pageantry is gorgeous. The costumes, the sets, the cinematography are all sumptuous.

The acting is very entertaining, too, in a sort of swashbuckling Hong Kong version of the style of those old Errol Flynn flicks.

My only complaint is that John Woo’s camera is a little too hyperactive at times, like a little kid that can’t keep still. Too many unnecessary zooms draw attention to themselves.

But I can’t deny that Red Cliff is grand entertainment. I hugely enjoyed myself. Can’t wait to see the conclusion.

Here in the United States, a version was released that conflated parts 1 and 2. Sounds like the usual Miramax butcher job. Avoid that and rent or buy the real thing.