RED CLIFF: EXTENDED VERSION (E1, 2008) D: John Woo, w/ Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro. Rating: NNNNN DVD package: NNN Rating: NNNNN
This is John Woo’s masterpiece, leagues above The Killer and Bullet In The Head and arguably the greatest epic ever put on film. The scope is immense, the battle scenes astounding, the human drama engrossing and the storytelling crystal clear.
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In 208 AD, veteran general Cao Cao sets out with 800,000 men and 5,000 ships to crush three warlords, one of whom realizes that their only hope is to form an alliance. He sends his best man, Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), to persuade the decidedly non-martial Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to join the cause. War ensues.
The growing friendship between Zhou and Zhuge forms half the movie’s emotional centre. The other half belongs to the relationship between Zhuge and his beautiful, accomplished wife, Xiao Qiao (Chi-Ling Lin). Both stories relate to the larger drama and, in the extended version, get ample time for telling detail and lyrical moments.
The extended cut is actually two full-length movies, as Woo intended and as they were released in Asia. Together, they run 288 minutes, and not a frame too long.
Two major battles anchor the movie, an infantry-versus-cavalry pitched battle and a night attack with fire boats that evolves into an all-out assault on the enemy stronghold. Woo’s fluid camera and editing make it breathtaking and clear. We can follow the strategy, tactics, chain-of-command, ebb and flow of battle, human suffering and occasional grim humour.
The year-long shoot was so plagued by disasters that they get their own making-of doc. It’s worth watching, but what’s really needed, at least for Western viewers unfamiliar with the Red Cliff battle, is the sort of in-depth historical commentary that Robin Lane Fox did for Oliver Stone’s Alexander. Guess we’ll have to wait for the Criterion edition. There’s bound to be one.
EXTRAS Making-of doc, disasters-of doc, director interview, storyboards, HDNet doc. Widescreen. Mandarin audio. English, French subtitles.
