The film begins inauspiciously with an awful introductory voice-over that's meant to catch up non-Chinese audience members on the movie's historical context. For some reason, the narration is spoken in English, despite the fact that the rest of film is in Chinese with English subtitles. Mercifully, the setup is simple and the narration is brief. Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) is set upon iron-fisted domination of the entire Chinese kingdom, but two rebel warlords, Liu Bei and Sun Quan, stand in his way. Alone, Liu Bei and Sun Quan's armies have no chance against Cao Cao's rolling forces, but together, with some luck, they have a chance. So Liu Bei's military strategist, Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kenishiro), reaches out to Sun Quan's most trusted advisor, the war hero Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), and the two armies form an alliance. They array themselves at Red Cliff and await Cao Cao's inevitable attack.
And that's just about it, as far as the plot goes. Sure, it turns out that Cao Cao's whole reason for launching his evil plan is to win the hand Zhou Yu's gorgeous wife, Xiao Qiao (Chiling Lin), the most beautiful woman in all of China. And, sure, there are a few lyrical scenes involving Xiao Qiao preparing tea for her husband, and then for Cao Cao. But Red Cliff's beating heart is its battle sequences, not its tea ceremonies. I mean, come on--it's still a John Woo film.
The most interesting and freshest part of Red Cliff is its emphasis on battle strategy. A small squadron of boats steal the enemy's arrows in an ingenious way. Generals consult the weather to shape their battle plans. Armies strike elaborate formations, such as 'the turtle,' enabling them to defeat more numerous forces. Woo clearly relishes the staging of these sweeping clashes. At once, he captures the complex geometry of ancient battle formations and the poetic violence of individual soldiers slashing, slicing, impaling, and bludgeoning each other. In all, it's pretty fun to watch, but not so much fun to think about.
Indeed, there are more than a few holes in Red Cliff's story, which was released in two two-and-a-half-hour parts in China, but here has been cut in half and released as a standalone film. Characters explain in rote dialogue events that were cut in the non-Chinese version of the film. Night inexplicably becomes day in the middle of the film's climactic battle sequence, leaving the audience to wonder how time passed so quickly. (Answer: the editor's machete.) But problems such as these are easily ignored in a film that's as visually mesmerizing as Red Cliff.
People expecting to see something from the John Woo of Hard Boiled may be disappointed, while others hoping not to see the John Woo of Broken Arrow and Mission: Impossible II will be pleasantly surprised. Red Cliff, with its slashing swords and hurtling fireballs, its grim warriors and transcendent landscapes, is 148 minutes of good, old-fashioned mindless entertainment.
Aka Chi bi.
