Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Looks like Chow Yun Fat has dropped out of John Woo's RED CLIFF three days into shooting. Whoops.

The flick is a $70 million Chinese movie, the largest budgeted the country has ever produced. It's based on a well known (and 600 year old) novel ROMANCE AND THE THREE KINGDOMS that tells the story of the Han Dynasty during the 2nd and 3rd century.

The script came in really big... looks like a four hour epic as written, but the plan is to KILL BILL it and split it into two parts in Asia, but America's looking at getting the whole enchilada.

This comes only a few weeks after BULLET IN THE HEAD's Tony Leung dropped out.

Bummer... seems like John Woo has stumbled into Terry Gilliam's personal hell. Hopefully they find their footing, yeah?