Red Cliff Part I & II Blu-ray

For fans of John Woo's Hong Kong films of the late 1980sA China Film Group Corp. (in China)/Avex Entertainment (in Japan)/CMC Entertainment, 20th Century Fox (in Taiwan)/Showbox (in South Korea) release of a China Film Group, Chengtian Entertainment Intl. Holdings (China)/Avex Entertainment (Japan)/CMC Entertainment (Taiwan)/Showbox (South Korea)/John Woo presentation of a Lion Rock production. (International sales: Summit Entertainment, Los Angeles.) Produced by Terence Chang, Woo. Executive producers, Han Sanping, Masato Matsuura, Wu Kebo, Ryuhei Chiba, Dennis Wu, Ryu Jeong-hun, Woo. Co-producers, Anne Woo, Zhang Daxing, Yeh Ru-feng, David Tang, Wang Wei, Cheri Yeung. Directed by John Woo. Screenplay, Woo, Khan Chan, Kuo Cheng, Sheng Heyu. and early 90s, enamored with the choreographed "gun-fu" of A Better Tomorrow and The Killer, the director's subsequent career in the U.S. has been, if not outright disappointing, at least underwhelming. Sure, Face/Off was fun and Mission: Impossible II had its share of ridiculously over-the-top action set pieces, but Mr. Woo's Hollywood output in general has seemed disinterested, unoriginal, and even tame. Need I mention Paycheck, perhaps the most aptly titled film in the director's commercial canon? Well, ladies and gentlemen, after nearly twenty years of slumming it through dull actioners for the big Los Angeles studios, John Woo has returned to China to make his best film since 1992's Hard Boiled. Strictly speaking, Red Cliff isn't exactly a return to form—there's no frenetic gangster vs. cop gunplay in Hong Kong's seedy underbelly—but it is a return to passionate filmmaking and turning toward a new form for Woo: the historical wuxia epic, China's answer to the sword 'n' sandal genre. Released in two parts, the nearly five-hour Red Cliff was the highest budgeted and highest grossing Chinese film ever, even box-office besting Titanic and The Dark Knight in several Asian territories. A truncated version of the film, edited down to two and a half hours for U.S. audiences, also appeared stateside in selected cities, generating strong reviews. Magnolia Home Entertainment has seen fit to release both cuts on Blu-ray—we'll have a review of the single-disc U.S. theatrical edition up shortly—but this two-disc "Original International Version" is the one you'll want.The battle of Red Cliff is as well known to Chinese audiences as Gettysburg is in the U.S., but let's stop the comparison right there. For one, we're talking about warfare on a scale that's almost unimaginable, and two, it all happened nearly 2,000 years ago. Part one opens in 208 AD, as Chancellor Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) leads the imperial army on a search and destroy outing to quell the rebel southern warlords Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen). As in Star Wars, the rebels are the good guys here, and Cao Cao—a friendless, vindictive, and overly ambitious upstart—is on the warpath to further his own power-hungry agenda. Liu Bei sends his smart-as-a-whip military advisor, Zhu-ge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro, House of Flying Daggers) to reluctant leader Sun Quan's court to request an alliance, and under the leadership of Viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung, In the Mood for Love)—getting overwhelmed with names yet?—Liu Bei and Sun Quan's small armies amass at Red Cliff, on the bank of the Yangtze River, prepared to repel Cao Cao's 800,000 soldiers. After a massive land battle filled with tactical trickery and enough arterial bloodletting to overflow several Olympic-sized pools, part one comes to a cliffhanger conclusion as Cao Cao readies his navy and Sun Quan's spunky tomboy sister (Zhao Wei) sneaks into the enemy encampment on a self-ordered spy mission.With all the whos, whats, and whys established, part two progresses toward the end-game in a series of increasingly clever chess moves by strategist Zhu-ge Liang, who is so attuned with nature that he can forecast an incoming fog bank by feeling for the sweat on the underside of a turtle. (Move over, Al Roker.) As a whole, the film is like watching a cinematic version of a game of Risk—at almost five hours, it's just as long—between a good player and a great player. Cao Cao's brawn-over-brains attacks are no match for Zhu-ge Liang's preternatural intuition, and John Woo devises several satisfying comeuppance sequences that are as smart as they are brutal. Shields with mirrored backsides are used to blind incoming cavalry charges, the supposedly outdated "tortoise" formation becomes a mousetrap for Cao Cao's minions, and a fiery naval battle turns on Liang's predicted change in the wind. In his most brilliantly outsmarting maneuver, Liang figures out a way for the undersupplied rebel alliance to "harvest" arrows from the enemy, using little more than some sly, military sleight of hand. The frequent battle scenes are frenetic and sometimes a little overwhelming, but unlike other directors, who might've given the material the overused, shakey-cam, I can barely tell what the hell is going on approach, Woo stages the action with his characteristic gracefulness, a blood ballet where we can make sense of the dancers' moves. It's not a faultless presentation, as I've yet to see one of these epic warfare films that doesn't succumb to what I like to call "Braveheart Syndrome"—extras waving their swords around willy-nilly in the background—but if you can suspend your disbelief, Woo and his 100,000 soldiers on loan from the present-day Chinese army will have you thinking you're in the middle of a truly epic ancient conflict.While he can't quite muster the poetry and pathos of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers—he's working with way too many characters—John Woo knows that in a film of this scale, the human drama has to be just as important as the action. To this end, he has Cao Cao motivated by an obsession over Viceroy Zhou Yu's tender and beautiful wife Xiao Qiao (Lin Chi-ling), who easily bests Helen of Troy with a face that launches over 2,000 ships. Our modern sensibilities tell us that it's completely insane for countless foot soldiers to die over one man's desire to steal another man's wife—stealing another country's oil is a whole different matter—but we're in the realm of the epic romance here, and it doesn't play as falsely as you might think. Woo also convincingly brews the friendships that develop between the characters, especially the mutual respect and admiration shared by Zhou Yu and Zhu-ge Liang. Though they were the dual protagonists of Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung didn't share any real screentime, so it's good to see them leading the cast and formulating tactics together in Red Cliff. Both actors play off of one another marvelously, giving subtle and commanding performances that draw on reserves of quiet power. Even at a hefty 288 minutes, Red Cliff rarely sags, buoyed by some of the most massive action scenes ever set to celluloid and a David vs. Goliath drama with relatable themes of honor and courage. Woo frames the battle's conclusion in a Simply the second half of an almost five-hour movie rather than a self-contained pic in its own right, John Woo's costume actioner "Red Cliff II" delivers in spades for auds left hungry for more by last summer's first seg. With characters already established, this half is expectedly heavier on action, though nimble editing and charismatic perfs still pack beaucoup human interest prior to the final hour's barnstorming battle. Pic opened bracingly in China Jan. 7 and fans out this month through major Asian markets (with Japan in April), where biz should rank with that of "Red Cliff."
Given the success of Woo's high-stakes undertaking -- at $80 million, the most expensive Chinese-language movie ever -- it remains a crying shame that the two films may never be seen outside Asia on the bigscreen. (For hardcore buffs, the first pic is already available on DVD in Asia.) Non-Asian auds are meant to be content with a planned 2ฝ-hour "international version," which cannot hope to replicate the impressive detail and sheer epic sweep of the 280-minute original.
Rapid, two-minute recap of "Red Cliff" (beneath the main titles) serves more to get auds' pulses racing again than to educate newcomers. The year is 208 A.D., near the end of the 400-year-old Han Dynasty, and the opposing forces of prime-minister-cum-general Cao Cao (mainland vet Zhang Fengyi), repping the Emperor in the north, and a relatively small coalition led by Zhou Yu (Hong Kong idol Tony Leung Chiu-wai), repping "rebellious" southern warlords, are about to face off in a decisive battle at Red Cliff on the Yangtze River."there's no victor in war" message, but it's clear that with the famed director back in top form, we, the audience, are the real winners.