Red Cliff (Dir. John Woo, 2h 28m, 2008)

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the four classic novels of Chinese literature; essentially a retelling of the period of the downfall of the Han Dynasty, and the subsequent civil war between three rival dynasties, it has recieved countless adaptions, from lavish television series to videogames to dozens of comic books, and films. Red Cliff, retelling the story of one of the single most important battles of the Three Kingdoms period, with rival kingdoms forced to ally together against Warlord Cao Cao (a spectacularly villainous Zhang Fengyi), is one of the best, a colossal feeling, sweeping adaption by John Woo that matches the dramatic with the grounded.

Beginning with the background to the period-the international cut of Red Cliff is a strange beast, the original two part version of the film, stretching for nearly five hours cut down to a more paletable two and a half hours-the film quickly introduces us to Cao Cao, and the degree of power he holds over the Emperor, eventually forcing his hand into going against the rebellious forces of fellow warlords Sun Quan (Chang Chen) and Liu Bei (You Yong), who pose a threat to Cao Cao's overall control of China. Even in the abbreviated form-these opening scenes are the only time we get English narration-and surprisingly breakneck pace, we get an instant sense of the political situation, Cao's motivation, and what our heroes are dealing with. Much of this is down to Fengyi's portrayal of Cao Cao himself, at once confident of his abilities and his men, even up to the film's denoument, and a cruel and often malicious figure, attacking innocent civilians and paranoid of the threat the other two factions pose.

From here, as Lui Bei oversees the flight of peasants from his lands as Cao's forces advance we are steadily introduced to his men, in an impressive pitched battle sequence. If Woo's ability to capture the quick moving polticial intrigue, to imbue it with life, is impressive, then his skill in shooting action is as vibrant and impressive as it has always been. In places, the battle scenes have a positively wuxai feel to them, twinned with Woo's characteristic use of slow motion, as spears fly past to be caught by our heroes, or impressive wire work flips characters through impossible jumps. Elsewhere they are viserally grounded, crunching and bloody affairs as spears, sword, arrows and explosions tear through people, blood is spattered and sprayed across the lens, and limbs are chopped off.

With the culmination of the battle, and the loss of Lui Bei's wife to the encroaching forces, so Liu Bei's advisor Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is sent south to meet with the reluctant Sun Quan and os chief general, Zhou Yu (Tony Leung). Zhou's introduction is, in all honesty, the best scene of the film, a slowly unravelling introduction that keeps the camera off the face of the general until his attention to detail, in minutely adjusting the pitch of a flute, comes to the fore-throughout this introducton, Woo's sense of scale, in the troops moving about in the background comes to the fore, but it is in the intimate moments between the two men, including a masterfully shot duet on traditional Chinese instruments that reveals far more about their relationship, and indeed their allied stance against Cao Cao.

Much of the story is told through these two men, and their preparation for battle against the colossal armies of their adversary, through the maverick approach that Liang has to warfare, of trusting the seasons, the elements, which eventually proves crucial to the plan at the battle of Red Cliff itself, whilst Zhou's approach is more that of the traditional warrior, trusting his men, and his ability as a general through the battles, even as the balance of the war against Cao Cao seems helplessly in their enemy's favour. It is also his relationship with his wife, Xiao Qiao (Ling Chi-Ling), that singles him out as the film's true protagonist, with Xiao Qiao playing an integral part in the battle of Red Cliff itself, as well as fleshing Zhou out to more than a warrior against a seemingly insurmountable enemy.

And nowhere is this better found than in the film's second half, as, it slowly mounts towards, and portrays, the Battle of Red Cliff, in colossal, ambitious, and positively gruelling detail-for all the comparisons, both in Chinese and western media,  the slog of Red Cliff is less Lord of the Rings and more Saving Private Ryan. This is a slog of a battle, in which blazing inferno of fire ships crashing into the unprepared forces of Cao Cao gives way to the chaos of siege warfare and open battle, depicted with all of Woo's typical bruising violence, with men cut down, set on fire or riddled with arrows. There is a bleaknesss, a downbeat nature to the ending, where one of its heroes declaims, even in their hour of victory, that nobody wins, that neatly offsets the film's otherwise masterful depiction of war and action.

If there is one issue with the Western version of Red Cliff, it is in the film's editing; whilst it is fair to Woo and indeed everyone involved in the orginal two-part version of this film that two films stretching for nearly five hours would not have had the success outside of its native China, the international cut of Red Cliff is, undeniably, a strange beast, a bare bones version of the story where almost every supporting character's development seems to fall by the wayside. Whilst its villain and its dual protagonists get the screentime they deserve, even a few more minutes to flesh out some of its more minor cast, or to lessen the pace that, in places feels needlessly frantic, would have been welcome.

Whether the original two part version of the film indicates Woo's ambition running away with him, or a lack of marketability for a two part foreign language film in the West, or simply because Woo felt his film would work better abbreviated for the audience he, after all, made most of his recent films for, the international cut of Red Cliff keeps much of its visual grandeur at the cost of occasional narrative cohesion.

Nevertheless, Red Cliff is by far Woo's most impressive film this decade, and his ability to nimbly balance the poles of typical depictions of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms is impressive-Red Cliff captures both the sweeping scale of its narrative, and the personal, of the spectacular and the intimate, and most of all reminds us why Woo is a master of action cinema on the grandest of scales. 

Rating: Highly Recommended.