Red Cliff
At last, the real John Woo has returned. I had been wondering if he’d been abducted and replaced by a second rate doppelganger. With the arguable exception of Face/Off, his miserable sojourn in Hollywood resulted in some decidedly below par offerings. Thankfully, Red Cliff, loosely based on a popular piece of Chinese history, marks a long overdue return to the thrilling excitement and innovation of his Hong Kong roots. It is also the best film he has made since the brilliant – and utterly deranged – Hard Boiled.
Pared down from an even longer Asian version (China showed it in two parts), Red Cliff is a terrific, blood-and-guts action epic with battle scenes that stand shoulder to armour-clad shoulder with the likes of Spartacus, Zulu and Braveheart, not mention countless Akira Kurosawa movies and recent pictures from Zhang Yimou such as Hero and House of Flying Daggers.
Despite a somewhat lumpy beginning – punctuated by an odd explanatory American voiceover that made me wonder for a few horrible seconds if I was watching a dubbed print instead of one with subtitles – everything clicked into place once the battles commenced. No doubt this voiceover was the result of the afore-mentioned editing down, but such flaws are soon forgotten in the face of some truly magnificent spectacle mingled in the best traditions of the epic with some fine human drama.
The plot, set around 200AD, concerns ambitious Prime Minister Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang), who wants to overthrow the Emperor. He has successfully subdued all the regional warlords but two Liu Bei (Yong You) and Sun Quan (Chen Chang), who decide to unite against him. The scene is set for a great battle against overwhelming odds.
Performances are all good, especially from the film’s main characters Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), a general in Sun Quan’s army, and Kongming (Takeshi Kaneshiro), Liu Bei’s military advisor. A great mutual respect and friendship develops between the two, and this forms the heart of the film. Other notable performances include Wei Zhao as Sun Shangxiang, the woman Cao Cao is determined to conquer a la Helen of Troy, and Chiling Ling as Xian Qiao, a warrior girl who bravely spies for Sun Quan.
Despite the occasional dodgy CG moment, this is hugely impressive stuff, and well worth seeing on the biggest screen possible. Much of the screenplay’s drama comes from the clever tactics employed by both sides, including a moment where the reflective inside of shields are used to dazzle the enemy, a cunning ruse to obtain arrows, and even an early use of biological warfare.
Morally, this is good, old-fashioned stuff extolling the virtues of loyalty, honour and friendship, as well as taking a courageous stand against evil whatever the cost. One moment near the end, far too good to spoil, is quite possibly the most heroic thing you’ll seen on screen all year. There is strong battle violence (with plenty of tomato ketchup, as my father would say), and an arguably gratuitous (though non-pornographic) sex scene between a married couple, but nothing struck me as offensive.
In short, despite being a little rough around the edges, Red Cliff is tremendous stuff, completely over-the-top, and well worth seeing. Welcome back John Woo.
Simon Dillon, June 2009.
