I'm always amazed to consider how much culture and worldview the Chinese have stored in them and how little of it has been tapped yet. Compare with American films, how many we get on our screens all across the world and what trivial philosophy supports them. The Chinese are still in a process of committing their vast narrative to first images. So with these two films, it seems at this point that getting down the chronicle in a simple way and make it boisterous entertainment was enough. We get history that flattens and oversimplifies, good lords against cruel despot, freedom against oppression, and swathes of conflict without nuance. We get a lot of chintz and scale. The first movie was without worth, but they tap into something else with this second one.Most of it is taken up by the machinations of the two rival sides for control over the narrative; ways to tip on their side the fateful battle before it begins the next day across the Yangtze. Some of it simple, rafts with infected bodies sailed into the opposite side. A spy manipulated to spread a false story. It's the main stratagem however that elevates it to something more, gathering up a different view than just opera.The stratagem is that the direction of the wind on the fateful night when navies meet is going to be crucial, wind having the power to decide the course of empire depending on which way it blows, north or south. The Way of Heaven (as Chinese viewers will know it) central in how fates dispense worldly order.This is what's being set up in an earlier sequence where one of the protagonists (who we have registered before as a kind of Confucian adviser to a lord) is able to stage and manipulate illusion (the barges with straw soldiers to gather up arrows) by having the knowledge of observing the structures of Nature - warm morning wind after a cold night means a fog that day.And yet it still could have gone either way that night, the balance as fickle as a candleflame in the wind. It's the loving wife who has changed sides hoping to avert the war who tips the balance that night; seducing the tyrant with a tea ceremony that is just buying her husband time, another staged illusion that comes from knowing how to observe the weather of Man, fickle desire tricked by beauty.The ensuing battle is a rip-roaring wind that blows north and rolls up an entire landscape of boats, men, and fortifications. This is the part with the spectacle most viewers will want to see.I'd rather keep with me all the other stuff and how it suggests a vantage point rooted beyond appearances. They come from the far center of Chinese soul. Spontaneous nature carrying the way (the Chinese character for "heaven" also invokes "nature", "sky" and "spontaneous"). Letting yourself bend to the way of the wind, timing the pull. Weather in and out. I can imagine it coming from the hands of a tea master like Wong Kar Wai, who can make the camera bend to the way of things, permitting us to take our own place within them; love, regret, memory. Woo just forces things in his way like a warlord. The scene where the spy woman (the most spirited being here) returns from the enemy camp and she lets the fabric with the map unfold from her body - that's Kar Wai.

The battle of the Red Cliff, which is the climax from the first half of "Romance of the Three Kingdom" by Luo Guanzhong is perhaps the most spectacular war story in all of Asia. Until the outbreak of Russo-Japanese war, it certainly was one of the biggest battle of the region, and perhaps the biggest in terms of numbers of people involved.Director John Woo assembled an international talent of actors to create this one of a kind epic movie. He's described it as 50% fictional, but he must have put lot of thoughts into the fiction part, because all the filling that he puts in works to enhance the story, and brings excitement to each scene.The story is somewhat long, and for ones who are not familiar with the historic saga of this battle, may feel that it's overly protracted, but the movie was geared mainly for the Chinese audience (China bankrolled the film), who are intimately familiar with the characters described in this story. I'm sure many went to the theaters to see their favorite heroes come to life.The casting is done exceptionally well, as they convey the authority of the characters they are playing. Clever casting from different countries around Asia (China, Korea, Japan, and Taiwan) ensured that people of those countries will not see it as foreign film, but one of their own.This certainly is the best warrior based movie to come out of China, and even for the jaded director John Woo, the greatest masterpiece. Superbly crafted movie, and equally superb story telling, captures all the highlights of the Battle of the Red Cliff.Part 1 was good, but this blows the doors off of Part 1. One of the greatest movie to come out of Asia.

I saw the original two-part five-hour Chinese release version of RED CLIFF on DVD earlier this year. I was eager to see the shortened two-and-a-half-hour North American theatrical release version for two reasons: 1) to see it on the big screen and 2) because I thought that shorter would be better. The five-hour original was simply way too long; there was plenty of material that could have been removed without sacrificing anything.Magnet Pictures released this film quietly in only two theaters in Manhattan and no theaters in my home borough. By the time I could devote an evening to see it, some three weeks after it opened, it was down to playing at one out-of-the-way theater on the Lower East Side and only at times that were impossible for working people, so I had to make a trip into Manhattan on the weekend for a morning show on Sunday, December 13, 2009. The good news is that I was quite pleased with the final result. I thought it played beautifully at two-and-a-half-hours and found it far more gripping, suspenseful and exciting than the longer version. There are plenty of moments that would have elicited applause, laughter and cheers had this played to a full multiplex crowd on a Friday night at a centrally located theater, say, in Times Square. Unfortunately, it did not have that opportunity. And because it's so inconvenient for most people to see, I can't go around recommending this to the people I think would enjoy it.I wish that John Woo and his producers had made more of an effort to find a suitable North American distributor for RED CLIFF, the most expensive film yet made in China. From what I've heard, Woo asserted that he made this film for his Chinese audience, to which I respond, what about your American fans? We championed your Hong Kong films for years and ensured a growing reputation here that enabled you to come over in 1993 and begin directing films in Hollywood—the start of a ten-year stretch that made you a wealthy man and a respected auteur the world over. You belong to the world, now, Mr. Woo. Aren't the rest of us entitled to see one of your best films in a proper theatrical setting? After all, five years ago Zhang Yimou's Chinese epic, HERO, was released by Miramax to multiplex theaters across the U.S. and even hit #1 at the box office for its opening weekend. I saw HERO on opening night in a sold-out house at a 42nd Street multiplex in Manhattan with a very respectful audience that seemed to appreciate its stylized tone, fanciful fight scenes, and all-star cast. While not as star-heavy, RED CLIFF is much more of a genuine crowd-pleaser, with a more engaging plot and far more action, and would certainly have sent exhilarated fans out to eagerly spread the word among their friends. Woo's American fanbase deserved the opportunity to do that. RED CLIFF offers narrative film-making in a classical style that used to be quite common in Hollywood. Among today's American filmmakers, only Quentin Tarantino comes close and only in select films like this year's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS. RED CLIFF reminds me of the epics that filled me with awe in neighborhood theaters as a child, most notably Anthony Mann's two spectacles, EL CID (1961) and FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (1964). The failure of RED CLIFF to reach its audience in the U.S. is emblematic of everything that's wrong with movie distribution in this country today.I've placed this review in the IMDb entry for RED CLIFF Part II, because that's the part that comprises the bulk of the North American release version.

I was so disgusted with Part 1, I didn't even bother going to the cinema to catch Part 2, and I have just watched Part 2 on DVD. I wish I'd done the reverse instead! although Part 2 is still marred with some of the irritatingly dumb dialogue, completely gratuitous, made up stories and "cute" characters and unnecessary "art" touches (John Woo calling Oscars...), it contains less fillers and the lavish production is amply showcased.Perhaps the fact that I sat through Part 1 inoculated me from the effects in Part 2, or maybe Woo heeded the audience's complaints and cut out more of the cr*p.Two outstanding elements that made the film worth watching - the actor who plays Cao Cao and the set with all the grand battle scenes. It got too pyrotechnical for me, but it screams money.There are plot lines that are quite unbelievable - as I'm not that familiar with the true historical context, I cannot ascertain if they actually took place, but a brilliant tactician like Cao Cao surely would not be as gullible as the film portrayed?In the end, there were far more interesting secondary characters with their subplots in the original history, not to mention the novel itself, without John Woo having to fabricate and invent paper thin ones with their equally shallow "stories". It also leads to an uneven script - alternating between brilliant prose from the novel and other classics and "dumbed down" meaningless drivel and "jokes" thought up by less refined modern minds. These "touches" irritate any audience who has a good knowledge of the original - they would feel insulted. I saw partial episodes of those made for TV series produced in China, very much less glamorous and low budget, but ultimately intelligent and engaging.For an audience with no inkling of the original, Red Cliff 2 - with less of those "Meng Meng" moments and more scenes from the tactical battles - is probably entertaining and satisfying enough. This I gathered from the feedback of others. Thus, I'm giving it 7 stars in my attempt to stay objective to the best of my ability.