by John P. Meyer

A hundred thousand warriors cannot equal a cup of Xiao Qiao's tea.

The story behind John Woo's epic Mandarin-language film undertaking, Red Cliff, is that it's based on a famous battle from Chinese history -- kind of the Eastern equivalent of Gettysburg or The Alamo, only times 300 (in terms of the scale of events).

Not being at all familiar with the historical narrative behind the film, I was surprised to discover that it's very much a "face that launched a thousand ships" kind of story. (Just add more ships -- I mean, LOTS more ships -- and you'll have the general idea.)

If you have some trepidation about sitting through a 2 1/2 hour subtitled movie about ancient Chinese history, make note of the fact that the two-part version released in China -- which ended up breaking all domestic box office records -- runs five hours. Keep in mind also that John Woo may be the most accomplished creator of cinematic action ever to step behind a camera, and that this trait emeges clearly and often in Red Cliff.

The time is 208 A.D., and the circumstances involve a power-mad warlord (Fengyi Zhang as Cao Cao) who travels south to confront a pair of provincial leaders who refuse to proclaim him High and Mighty. Traveling south with him (down the Yangtze) is the epic armada previously mentioned, and an equally burgeoning force of cavalry and infantry. Think overkill at its most profligate, given that the combined forces of Liu Bei (Yong You) and Sun Quan (Chen Chang) equal something like a factor of ten fewer.

The only hope of the southern generals may lie in the superior tactics and strategy employed by Kong Ming (Takeshi Kaneshiro), an advisor to Liu Bei whose battlefield-proven military acumen lands him the position of chief strategist in the council of the rebel warlords.

Another battle-proven veteran (in his case on the actual battlefield, as opposed to overlooking it) is Sun Quan's military advisor and most capable soldier, Zhou Yu (Tony Leung). When they meet on Zhou Yu's home turf, Kong and Zhou engage in a kind of duelling zither jam, proving they are both men of culture in addition to their skill at waging war.

(Watching from the sidelines is Zhou Yu's lovely wife Xiao Qiao -- played by Chiling Lin, who also looks great in traditional Chinese garb. It is Xiao whose face -- in the form of a painted tapestry carried from camp to camp along the route of his conquests -- leads Cao Cao deeper and deeper into a course of action that could very well lead to his downfall.)

To its credit, Red Cliff ends up being as much about personalities and character as it is about epic battles -- though the battle scenes themselves are indeed spectacularly staged, and as bloody as one might expect, given the employment of stakes, spears, swords, and sky-blotting flights of arrows. The course of the engagement resembles a chess game of maneuver and deployment in which -- much like the battle of D-Day -- the outcome finally hinges on a weather forecast.

The film's producers spent about $80 million U.S. on the film, and it actually looks like more than that. There's a scene in which a carrier pigeon makes a flyover of Cao Cao's invasion flotilla with the camera tracking behind it that epitomizes the vast scope of the picture. It's a beautiful, lyrical ode to human endeavor and the struggles of men at arms.

And, given the eventual disposition of this magnificent fleet, it also speaks to their folly.

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous

What do you think?