Red Cliff: The Decisive Battle

[Bravery]

One word, Wow. Red Cliff is a movie that 10 years from now i'll still enjoy, if only for its atmosphere and perfomances. 30 minutes into the movie a heavy fog has covered the land and in a ploy to get more arrows Zhu Ge (Takeshi Kaneshiro) uses this fog in a brilliant move to get arrows. The scene is one of the many reasons I love these movies, the way John Woo uses the scenery is amazing. Red Cliff is his best work, imo. Watching the arrows move through the fog and watching the arrow filled boats move through the water was an amazing thing to watch.

As for the performances, still on par with the first movie, which is to say, everyone brought their A++ game. The surroundings in this movie is worth the price of admission, and althought the movie takes place primarily on water, it is still a thing of beauty nonetheless. The movie is light on action, but so was the first, and that won't stop your enjoyment of this masterpiece.

It is hard speak of this movie without giving it away, it is plot heavy, so I won't. Back stabbing, undercover agents and former friends. I'll just say that if you haven't watched these movies, pick up the first and purchase the sequel when it becomes available. It doesn't disappoint Also, Vicky Zhao is impressive in this movie. If you've read my review for the first movie, I held back scoring until I could watch this and I will change my 8 out of 10 on the first to a 9. These movies are near flawless, my only gripe with the sequel is that for a movie that should be heavy on strategy it wasn't. More duping the enemy than strategy, but still enjoyable.

CLASSIC in the making, trust me.

9.5 out of 10

[Milkyway]

Can't say this and part 1 were too enjoyable (some scenes were hard to sit through) but those are no doubt a comeback for John Woo after those disastrous times in Hollywood.

I'm all for what he will do next in China/HK, but it would be most interesting to see him update his talents in the crime genre.

[Bravery]

These films are a nice change from his Hollywood output, although I love Face Off.

[Delirious]

30 minutes into the movie a heavy fog has covered the land and in a ploy to get more arrows Zhu Ge (Takeshi Kaneshiro) uses this fog in a brilliant move to get arrows. The scene is one of the many reasons I love these movies, the way John Woo uses the scenery is amazing.


Indeed a well-made scene, but also one of the most illogical scene in warfare. When fighting in the fog they ALWAYS set arrow on fire because fire increases visibility of the enemies' whereabout. It is suprising Zhu Ge Liang's straw boats can last that long in the fog xd.

[xianzai]

When fighting in the fog they ALWAYS set arrow on fire because fire increases visibility of the enemies' whereabout.To be fair, later in the movie they showed the effort the armies went to for fire arrows.

But in general I found the movie very disappointing. A lot of posing and waiting around. The number of actual fights was quite low.

[The Dragon]

I found these films to be the best that John Woo has offered since Face Off. As far as not enough fighting, this was about stratigical advantages over an overconfident adversary. The acting overall was very good, and the film delivered on action. It is a War Film with a different take on it's subject matter other than bloodletting-which we all know JW Can pull off.

[HARDCUPID]

During the confrontation of the Three Kingdoms in China, The Battle of Red Cliffs acted as a decisive battle, which took place in 208 A.D. between the allied forces of the southern warlords Liu Bei (the Kingdom of Shu) and Sun Quan (the Kingdom of Wu), and the northern warlord, Cao Cao (the Kingdom of Wei). It is also a classic battle in Chinese history famous for the fewer and weaker defeating the more and stronger.

After the Duke of Wei, Cao Cao had controlled all of the North China Plain, he led the troop of 800.000 soldiers to south aiming to eliminate his main southern rivals swiftly and unify China. Meanwhile, Zhou Yu and Lu Su, the generals of Wu and Zhuge Liang of Shu accurately analyzed the situation and disadvantages of Cao army, including its unstable rear supply despite of the claimed 800 thousand soldiers, exhausting expedition and inexperience in water battle, and developed their strategy of confronting the army.

There were altogether 50,000 soldiers, including 30,000 trained naval soldiers led by Zhou Yu, the general of Wu and others led by Liu Bei of Shu organized to confront the Cao army. Since Cao Cao's troop was already decimated by seasickness and lack of water experience, it lost control in battle effectiveness and had to camp northern of the Yangtze River with the Wu and Shu troops in the south. Later Cao Cao ordered to chain his entire fleet together with strong iron chains to drill the navy. Zhou Yu then adopted Huang Gai’s plan of an attack that he pretended to surrender to Cao Cao and got the chance to get close to Cao’s fleet and attacked Cao Cao with fire ships. Cao Cao simply assumed that superiority in number would eventually defeat the Wu and Shu navy and gave Huang Gai the chance to approach his fleet. This eventually brought the debacle of his fleets, which were intruded by Huang Gai’s boats with all firewood ignited at the same time. The Cao army became a sea of fire immediately, which extended to the camps on bank and caused decisive damage of the army. Zhou Yu and others seized the opportunity and chased the Cao force along the way and successfully beat it. Cao Cao had to flee with the remaining troops. The ally then chased to enlarge their victory.

The decisive battle of red cliffs was brought to an end under the background that Cao Cao held the favorable position but underestimated his enemy and made the wrong decision that led to his defeat. During the battle, Sun and Liu allied to repel the strong enemy, leveraged their advantage in water battle and adopted the fire attack to finally defeat the stronger with the weaker. The battle laid the foundation for the confrontation of the latter three kingdoms, Wei, Shu and Wu.

[the nothing]

Red cliff has easily made it into my top 5 films, it incorporates war, love, strategy and much more. It is a well rounded movie and i can watch time and time again.:wink:

[LeRolls]

Both Red Cliff movies are amazing IMO. The cinematography, story, characters, and attention to detail are through the roof. If you're not into big epic war movies I could see not being as enthusiastic about it but IMO these movies are top notch.

[kingofkungfu2002]

Red Cliff is getting released on dvd here in the UK on Monday 5th October.
They're releasing both the shorter international version, and the original versions (as a 2-Disc Special Edition). Details below:

http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=71588

[kingofkungfu2002]

I've already got the Mei Ah HK dvd's, but might pick up the UK special edition too.

[LeRolls]

I'm pretty happy with HK Blu-Rays since they look great. The damn watermark is pretty annoying though.

[Iron_Leopard]

Was I suppose to care about anything that happened in this movie? This was the most boring movie I think I have ever seen. How many scenes can we have of people talking about war and strategy? Why does every frame of this movie have to have 5 million people in it? I get its trying to be epic and its a war movie but to me it just felt as they were going overboard. A poor excuse to use CGI every chance they could get.

Red Cliff is no Lord of the Rings which it is clearly trying to be. I thought The Warlords was bad but it aint got nothing on Red Cliff.

I seriously think Cheh could have done a much better movie with a far less budget back in 72.

It is a pretty movie to look at but thats it.

[emeraldforest]

Red cliff has easily made it into my top 5 films, it incorporates war, love, strategy and much more. It is a well rounded movie and i can watch time and time again.:wink:

my feelings exactly! i thought these films were brilliant! a true masterpiece!
these stories are very famous in China, my wife knew the name of every charatcer and could almost predict thier every word and deed!
being one of the 4 classics in Chinese liturature this film brings to life the heroic epic very well known to all Chinese!
from the art of serving tea to the art of war all are depicted with grace and style!
i cant wait to see Reign of Assassins next !

:bigsmile:

[OpiumKungFuCracker]

Was I suppose to care about anything that happened in this movie? This was the most boring movie I think I have ever seen. How many scenes can we have of people talking about war and strategy? Why does every frame of this movie have to have 5 million people in it? I get its trying to be epic and its a war movie but to me it just felt as they were going overboard. A poor excuse to use CGI every chance they could get.

Red Cliff is no Lord of the Rings which it is clearly trying to be. I thought The Warlords was bad but it aint got nothing on Red Cliff.

I seriously think Cheh could have done a much better movie with a far less budget back in 72.

It is a pretty movie to look at but thats it.

The Warlords was even more boring and it was a shorter movie than Red Cliff.. Red Cliff was like 5 hrs long and I breeze through it so fast it felt like watching a 2 hr movie...

[phoenix_darshan]

it is always good to have some respectful debate/discussion, in my opinion the two parts were not very even in respectto actual fighting scenes, i loved those parts about chinese culture sucha s tea drinking and the gu zheng play.
for it foes not have to be battle all the way through. but after watching the first part red cliff was ranked in my topmovies no doubt and i waited a painstaking two years before i got to watch the uncut second part and to my disappointed individual fights got superseded in favor of whole army, gigantic battle scenes.
I also did not enjoy the CGI too much (the battle fleet) it felt like a computer game andwith a huge budget I expected a bit more to be honest.
I was eagerly anticipating the one on one fights of guan yu (关羽) but the second part fell short of the mark.
one word about the soundtrack: phenomenal.
neverthelessit will reamin one of my favs but wont be able to retain the top spot for the rest of my life that s for sure:)

[Chupaoor]

I have to say I really appreciated this movie, not only is it an exceptionnally beautiful production, but I loved the battle strategies... I always root for the underdog :-)