‘Red Cliff’ Cannes trailer, posters

If John Woo’s upcoming historical war epic RED CLIFF 《赤壁》 were to be described in a single word it would simply be “big,” really big. Complete footage of a nine-minute promo trailer that appeared at Cannes has been posted at Sina and one thing is clear, Woo and his backers are hell-bent on crushing audiences worldwide with the sheer weight and scale of their production.

Extended trailer for RED CLIFF
http://video.sina.com.cn/ent/m/c/2008-05-22/071616114.shtml

RED CLIFF features an ensemble cast led by Tong Leung Chiu-wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhao Wei. At $80 million, it is now China’s most expensive film to date.

The script was originally based on the Chinese literary classic “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” In his treatment, Woo made changes to put the story more in line with actual history. The major difference is an altered treatment of Tony Leung’s character Zhou Yu, who is made to be a more heroic character.

The film’s title and its central conflict are taken from the historical Battle of Red Cliffs where the allied forces of three southern warlords numbering approximately 50,000 strong took on northern warlord Cao Cao who commanded over 200,000 soldiers.

For its release in Asia, RED CLIFF will be divided into two films, one released in July and the second in December. The reason for this is that Woo wanted to do justice to the characters who will be well known to Chinese audiences.

That fact that Western audiences do not know the characters well will likely result in both parts being combined into a single, shorter film for release overseas. It’s not yet known if a full-length director’s cut will be released outside of Asia on DVD.

Whether many of us care will largely hinge on Woo’s ability to steer his film past the pitfalls that have snared other mainland Chinese martial epics like THE PROMISE and CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER. The main issue is style over substance. These epics look great but rarely offer anything beyond eye candy. RED CLIFF has visual appeal in spades and looks to advance China’s ability to shoot period action sequences without relying solely on wuxia fantasy but may have a challenge in keeping the characters from drowning in a sea of CGI effects and large-scale land and sea battles. For now, the footage of RED CLIFF we are able to see looks proming.

Tags: John Woo, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, upcoming