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Albert Lanier checks out the USified 2 hour cut of John Woo's RED CLIFF at HIFF!
HIFF 29: RED-FACED WITH VICTORY
by Albert Lanier
I once had a professor in an English class in college once observe that "people say that war doesn't solve anything."
"Nonsense" he argued "war solves a lot of things."
I recall agreeing with him then and I still agree with him years later. The very nature of war provides an indelibly bloody series of answers to numerous questions. While many questions and problems arise in the wake of war, it can be argued that the massive projection of force can solve some problems.
Ideally and materially, war is nothing but a waste-of land, of resources, of lives. A destructive though all-encompassing malevolent force of chaos, a man-made tsunami of annihilation and devastation.
However, seen from a purely pragmatic point of view, war has its merits solely as a problem-solving mechanism.
I kept that in mind while I was watching RED CLIFF (CHI BI), director John Woo's return to Chinese cinema. A sprawling, impressive war epic, RED CLIFF recreates through CGI-laden special effects and numerous extras the Battle of the Red Cliffs, a conflict that weakened the dynasty of the Han Emperor of China.
Supposedly based on the novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (Woo has said in interviews that he actually based the film on the historical account "Records of Three Kingdoms"), RED CLIFF is set in 208 A.D. Han Prime Minister Cao Cao (played by Zhang Fenyi) has conquered numerous warlords and kingdoms bringing them under the fold of the Han Empire.
Cao Cao is manipulative and intimidating. He pushes the Han Emperor into declaring war against the Kingdoms of Xu-ruled by Liu Bei-and Wu-ruled by Sun Quan so that Cao Cao's thirst for war can continue to be sated.
The Han force under Cao Cao's control attacks Xu first causing hundreds if not thousands of civilians to flee. Xu's army is proving to be no match for the battle-trained forces of Han and lose several battles.
Xu does possess an ace up its sleeve-not a new weapon or battle plan but a man named Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), chief strategist for Xu. His plan is to form an alliance with the Eastern Kingdom of Wu-otherwise known as the Southlands-and use their combined remaining resources to defend and defeat the overwhelming powerful Han army.
And powerful the Han army is with 800,000 men under arms and a staggering fleet of troop ships that- thanks to computer digital effects- look like the Asian equivalent of the Spanish Armada.
Zhuge Liang hightails it to the Southlands where he meets with Sun Quan and more importantly, his Viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung). It is this team that hammers together the strategies that will allow both Kingdoms to ultimately repel and defeat the Han Imperial Forces.
I'm not going to reveal all their stratagems here-those of you reading this who seen this film in Asia or on bootleg DVDs or sites know what I am talking about and the rest of you will have to find out for yourselves.
One major effort I will reveal is that they use straw festooned boats to goad the Han forces into firing their arrows at them. The straw basically hold the arrows in place and make sure that the combine of Wu/Xu forces have 100,000 arrows at their disposal-thanks to their enemy.
Master director John Woo demonstrates in RED CLIFF that he knows how direct a large-scale war epic. Woo- who co-wrote the film's script with writers Khan Chen, Cheng Kuo and Heyu Sheng-knows to how to delineate his character well enough that we get a sense of the personalities and individual characters at work.
Woo appears to handle logistics well enough here as well-although most of the "soldiers" are CGI-and gets some fairly good performances from his actors especially Zhang Fenyi who plays Cao Cao not as some mustache-twirling villain but a man of supreme confidence and ambition who can lay the tactical and strategic chess game of battle well up to a point.
Takeshi Kaneshiro does a fine job of rounding out the role of strategist Zhuge Liang and Tony Leung puts on his hero face fairly well here as Zhou Yu.
The battle scenes contain the usual clash of steel and spinning bodies requisite in large Asian war films of this variety and are fairly well done though they can get tiring to watch at times.
The heart of the film is in the formation of strategy and battle tactics on the part of both camps. RED CLIFF -despite its battle scenes- feels at time more like a game of Go than a full-bodied demonstration of warfare.
RED CLIFF was an expensive undertaking, an $80 million epic that was shown in two parts throughout Asia and has grossed over $200 million dollars thus far.
The version I saw at HIFF was over two hours long. This has been trimmed for a release for Western audiences from the reported 280 minute version.
Is RED CLIFF a good film? Yes but nothing more than craftsman type work on an epic scale for Woo. It lacks the powerful personal connections of some of his earlier films though it must be said in his defense, it is hard to get too personal during a war epic.
Near the end of the film, Tony Leung's character states that "There is no victor here."
That sounded a false note because RED CLIFF above all is a celebration of warfare-not in and of it self but as a means of defense and conflict resolution.
The victory might seem slightly hollow but it is a victory after all. Problem solved.
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Red Cliff POWERFUL
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...and as much as I'd love another over-the-top, bullets-n-doves gangster gangbang from him, this might do quite nicely.
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Dick In Ass
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Oct 23, 2009 5:11:23 PM CDT
Three Kingdoms was real, Romance of the Three Kingdoms wasn't so
by monkey_king
more like a romanticized account of the Three Kingdoms story, much like the "real" story of the Tang monk was romanticized into XiYuJi aka Journey to the West(then bastardized centuries later and made into something called DRAGONBALL by Akira Toriyama). Interesting fact: the bones of he "real" Tang monk were stolen by the Japanese over 45 years ago and haven't been returned to China. Yet another reason for the Chinese to be pissed with Japan, but the raping of Nanjing was far worse to ignore or forgive.
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HARD BOILED and THE KILLER are close 2nd and 3rds.
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John Woo's best since Hard-Boiled. May even be his best films in many ways.
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.......AGREE!! Red Cliff was released in two different versions here in the UK (the shortened version, and the full 2-movie experience). I saw the whole shebang, and I was completely blown away - brilliant battles, stunning performances (Tony Leung oozes charisma as Zhou Yu), and a gorgeous soundtrack. District 9 was my favourite film of this year until this came along (I haven't seen Hurt Locker mind!!).
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Farewell, Milton Supman, you will all be missed. You were a delightful and, at times, subversive comic. You and White Fang, Black Tooth, & Pookie were a real delight for children's television.
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If this is as good as it sounds why dumb it down and cut it short.
DickInAss hahahahahahahahahhahah. so funny. hahahahahahahahahha -
Interesting perspective. And of course I agree - I used almost the exact same phrase in my review of Red Cliff film for Film Threat, posted on that site last week.
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in a talk back. He's obviously another in a long line of deceased celebs that AICN decided were not worthy of mention on these pages - Ed McMahon and Jack Elam immediately come to mind. Here's the obit I wrote. http://tiny.cc/OqATW
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Cause that opening bit about "war never solving anything" is a direct lift from the classroom scene at the beginning of the movie.
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...but it sure smells good!
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The shorter version, I've seen the film in it's two parts and both drag on terribly, I can't say whether certain parts (like the excruciating musical duel that wales on for 10 minutes) are simply Asian cinematic tradition or not, but I found myself longing for the most of the film to be cut out. It just doesn't work well - that said, trimmed down to just the good bits, I'm sure it's watchability would be much improved. So see the 2hr 'western' cut, don't bother with the full thing.
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with edited versions of these films? I love really long movies. The 280 minute cut is a masterpiece,in my opinion, and that's the one that should get released. Remember Leone's Once Upon a Time in America? The studio-edited US release was a complete mess. The original cut was fantastic. I hope this film fares much better, because I loved the 280 minute version.
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First thing that popped in my head reading this was "John Woo made a fucking Dynasty Warriors movie!" I know the historical significance and all that, but on the surface that's the first thing that popped in my head, like the Staypuft Marshmellow man.
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Oct 24, 2009 6:57:03 AM CDT
So the action is more strategy game than fighting game?
by dailysportspages
Good, i always liked Romance of the Three Kingdoms on the ol' Nintendo.
Sangokushi! -
i just ordered the blue rays on amazon on one special edition set. parts one and two. i dont like cutting movies down like this, but if some of you are just interested in the action aspects im sure this would work just fine.
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red cliff part 1 was decent but nothing special really. part 2 though is just something else. AICN posted my review of part 2 a while back. dont miss it when it comes near you! gone is the clone who tried to destroy woo's reputation. the real john woo, the man who directed face/off and hardboiled, is back!
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that is why the film is edited down. nothing is "excruciating" about the music scene he pointed, mind you. but you can see how in this ADD generation that a 280 minutes film just has to be shortened.
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"the grug's opinion is different than mine so he sucks and he has ADD and this is why we can't have nice things". I'm more inclined to ignore your opinion than grug's less offensive honest opinion.
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can go fuck itself and the faggots that decided it needed to be shortend. I've already downloaded the real, full version via torrent and will be ignoring the truncated theater release.
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he sucks. in my opinion. and my opinion is just as honest as his. but please, ignore us. see the films for yourself. then make up your own mind.
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Saw the full versions a while back. The main problem I found was that Cao Cao's forces were portrayed as far too inept overall. Maybe the writers were being faithful to the depiction of the Shu forces in "Romance of the Three Kingdoms"? But this didn't make for a very credible threat to the protagonists on the screen. The final battle was just a cakewalk.
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Do they even have the mini-game from the original game,where u try to eat a table filled with a lot of foods,as quickly as possible? I always played that game with the fat guy,he had some awesome moves.
just joking -
The two parts of the original movie are 280 minutes long together,or the first part of the movie is 280m?
and the usa version of the movie is the first part only,which is trimmed down to 2hours? or is it the whole movie? -
thats the game i was talking about,which ofc is based on the 7kingdoms saga.
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I was looking at it in Tesco yesterday.
146 minutes long. I felt saddened. -
The 2 part original is 280 minutes as a whole (it really is one film). The US version is a drastically edited cut of the original 280 minute version.
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i am going to dl and watch the original one then.i hate the trimmed films.
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Perhaps the US version lacks the powerful personal connections of some of his earlier films because....most of that stuff ended up on the cutting room floor. I can only hope that, at some point, the original cut is released on disc over here.
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