Red Cliff (Chi Bi)

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Red Cliff (Chi Bi)

75% Liked It
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Red Cliff (Chi Bi)

Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang, Chen Chang, Wei Zhao

Based on the events during the Three Kingdoms period in Ancient China in which specifically told in the title, The Battle of Red Cliffs.

Id: 10924389

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Red Cliff (Chi Bi) Recent Reviews
  • hypathio7
    December 10, 2009
    hypathio7
    A grand epic piece of entertainment. The editing seems a bit rushed in scenes other than the battle scenes. This may be because of the cutting down of the two part version released in China. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the theme song, A River that has No End...( read more) (?), if eligible, will be nominated for an Oscar. CGI was used to expand the horizon of wide shots and navy boats on the river. There really were massive numbers of live soldiers in the battle scenes though. Unlike Ninja Assassins, which I saw recently with its fighting sequences heavy on the CGI, this historical epic allows you to see the martial art skills of the lead figures in the battles. This is like China's version of War and Peace. Based on the 14th century novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the story is set roughly in the 3rd century CE.

    Prime minister Cao Cao (Zhang), who has conquered many warlords of northern China, bullies the young emperor into sending him to defeat two "rebel" armies to the south. Liu Bei (You) leads the smaller force and Sun Quan (Chang) is lord of the southern kingdom. Liu Bei's military strategist/diplomat/reader of signs of nature especially the weather, Zhuge Liang (Kaneshiro) travels to form an alliance between the two armies in preperation for Cao Cao's attack. Kaneshiro is awesome in this wise scholarly role. This is the type of wise adviser role usually played by an old man with a white beard, but he is young and easy on the eyes according to my wife. Sun Quan's viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) is the other major military strategist, who really appreciates the art of war and the beauty of music. Leung is also excellent in a strong heroic role. Sun Quan's sister wants in on the action too and serves as a spy for awhile. Zhou Yu's wife Xiao Qiao seeks peace and is willing to do what she can to further the success of the Alliance's cause. Other generals and skilled fighters in the Alliance include Zhao Yun, the ex-pirate Gan Xing, and Guan Yu. Some of these men are hard to keep track of in the heat of battle. But the military planning and missions each man takes on does a lot for making the elaborate clashes accessible for the audience. The brief moments of humor, the romance between Zhou Yu and his wife, the carefully planned attacks and counter attacks, the kinetic and disciplined hand to hand combat all add up to a historically epic story worth seeing!
  • her69eyes
    December 1, 2009
    her69eyes
    After spending much time in Hollywood (where he completed such pictures as "Face/Off" and "Mission Impossible II"), director John Woo has returned to Asia with his first feature since the early 1990s. The film, "Red Cliff", claimed the box office championship that "Titanic" forma...( read more)lly held in China. With soaring cameras, bodyparts hurled, and Woo's trademark doves fluttering in close up, "Red Cliff" further elaborates on Woo's enormous skills as a director of action.

    Set near the end of the Han Dynasty in 208 AD, the movie introduces us to the fearsome General Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi), a man deadset on ruling all territories. His first battle is with southern defectors, led by Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen). An alliance is soon formed with Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) after a visit by southern strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), as the two bond with a good-old fashioned third century jam session.

    The climactic battle is of a monumental scale - fire is thrown, fortresses are demolished, and hundreds (maybe thousands) of extras are multiplied to hundreds of thousands with digital effects. As impressive as this war is, however, perhaps Woo was too invested in this filmmaking challenge. The first battle of the film is a glorious one - innovative swordplay, impressive battle formations - whereas the last is a familiar spectacle of dark hellfire. Oddly enough, only in the final conflict did I begin to feel the two and a half hour runtime (condensed from a five hour cut released in two-parts elsewhere).

    I have not seen the original cut of the film, but this American cut certainly peaks my curiosity to see how much further the characters are developed in the Asian cut. The performers, particularly Tong Leung and Zhang Fengyi, are all excellent. Despite their efforts, however, many of the faces are blurred by the film's frenetic, rushed pace.

    The film is largely wall-to-wall war, but beyond the spectacle of the battlefield the film takes pleasure in showcasing the era's militaristic strategies. In one of the film's most successful episodes, Cao Cao's army sends dead bodies to their opposition in a cruel form of chemical warfare.

    "Red Cliff" is big, loud, and a lot of fun. The last battle perhaps hogs too big of a portion of the American cut of the film, but nevertheless Woo has undoubtedly made an epic on a scale that we don't often see.
  • DrZeek
    November 27, 2009
    DrZeek
    Liu Bei: Truth and illusion are often disguised as each other, Cao Cao likes to play this game, both with friends and foes.

    Action master John Woo returns to his native China to direct an action epic capturing one of China's most famous historical war stories. The film is an a...( read more)mazing accomplishment in terms of how its action is captured in the way that Woo is known for as a filmmaker. All of the elements of his signature style are present here, and combining that with a good cast headlined by Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro, the film is a well made historical action epic.

    In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minster Cao Cao convinced the fickle Emperor Han the only way to unite all of China was to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus began a military campaign of unprecedented scale, led by the Prime Minister, himself. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu formed an unlikely alliance. The ruler of Wu, Sun Quan, calls on the rival warlord Liu Bei for help, but their two armies are still badly outnumbered. Numerous battles of strength and wit ensued, both on land and on water, eventually culminating in the battle of Red Cliff. During the battle, two thousand ships were burned, and the course of Chinese history was changed forever.

    Now, in China this film was actually two movies, with a total running time of five hours. For the American release, the film has been streamlined into one film and down to two and a half hours, complete with narration to help ease audiences into the story much better known to the Chinese. To this, I have to give credit to the studio, as this movie flows very well, with a much leaner presentation of the story, with enough dramatic arc to make it very compelling, while still leaving in all the awesome action that John Woo is very adept at handling.

    With all of the different characters interwoven into this story, I was taking my time in really getting into the film above an action standpoint, but once I did, this movie really took off. There are a lot of good actors present here, and many of them leave memorable impressions to keep you very interested in where this story will go.

    Of course, the main draw is to see John Woo go all "John Woo" on the action scenes, and he freaking delivers. Use of slow motion, explosions, well handled sense of scale, appropriate mix of effects, dual wielded weapons, Mexican standoffs, awesome stylized, often balletic sequences of action; all of things are present, and yes Woo even fits in some doves for good measure. There is action all over this movie, with two main sequences, which includes the fantastically epic climatic battle that lasts a good half hour and took over a year to get prepared for during production.

    The movie also manages to bring Woo's sense of melodrama concerning a couple characters, as well as his sense for overly-beautiful cinematography to keep the tone straight for his type of films. Its certainly another staple of Woo, but here he is doing it on a much more epic scale, which was necessary for getting one of China's most famous stories done right.

    A very well handled movie that delivers handsomely on its epic action.

    Cao Cao: This rag tag group of warriors mustn't be underestimated.
  • jsd35
    June 29, 2009
    jsd35
    This review is referring to the version of the movie released in the west (a compressed amalgamation of Red Cliff I & II).

    Ostensibly this is an adaptation of one section of the enormously famous (and generally enormous) historical opus The Romance of the Three ...( read more)Kindgoms. If you claim to be from Asia and don't know this novel, then you aren't from Asia. It's that famous. Written during the Ming dynasty it recreates a turbulent period of Chinese history at the end of the Han dynasty in the 3rd century. The impact of the novel is felt today, since a number of common idioms in the Chinese language are taken from this book.

    So, in other words, this is a film that many people in Asia may enter with preconceived ideas and high expectations.

    And if you want to make a Chinese film that any chance of acheiving them, you'd better cast Tony Leung. Which they did. Along with the same-old actors you find in all these films: Zhao Wei, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Chan Cheng. They're all here. All in glorious dub-o-vision.

    Er... why? Tony, for one, is quite capable of speaking Mandarin. Why is he dubbed?

    Anyway. does it work as a whole?

    Meh.

    It's okay.

    There are a number of minor irritations: the focus puller doesn't always keep his position as tightly as he might, the CG is at times way too distracting, there is one singularly terrible cut in the print I saw, and, as one-of my friends who was being overly pedantic pointed out, the music is not authentic (the flute in the film is not Chinese, for example).

    More problematic is that the cinematography is too self-consciously derivative of certain Hollywood blockbusters. And the star-actors detract from the story (particularly Takeshi Kaneshiro, who looks altogether too smug here). China is not a country short of potential actors (well, okay, this is largely shot with people from Hong Kong, who are a tad more limited). Why don't they test some new talent?

    This all sounds a little negative, and, in a film like this, I think a little too pedantic. I should add the film didn't bore me either. It's a reasonably decent production that has inspired me to go back to the source material again. It serves as a great introduction to an episode in Chinese history (albeit in a novelised form, and most Westerners will be unfamiliar with its context). I am keen to see the longer cut of it, and I'll reserve judgement on the final film 'til then.

    I just hope it doesn't have the growling English narration the Western release opens with.
  • DragonEyeMorrison
    December 20, 2008
    DragonEyeMorrison
    Well, i like it, this is a movie that actually deserves the "epic" label in the best sense possible. It has the right balance between wire-fights and brawling fights, between wide battle scenes and intimate moments with the characters. It never feels too long or that is wasting t...( read more)ime in pointless exposition. I'm not a nerd of the novels, so thankfully i don't have to occupy my mind comparing each character with each actor and thinking "OMG, this guy is not like the character in the book!" and so on.

    The cast is great on all fronts, Kaneshiro shows that he has acting skills and not just pretty looks. Tony Leung is Tony Leung and Fengyi Zhang is spot on as Cao Cao. Woo delivers action but actually cares about the characters. You could say that he has enough material to help him in that matter, but this could have failed hard and in so many different ways.

    Certainly surpassed my (low) expectations. After more than a decade of crap Woo can finally add another solid flick to his credits. Looking foward to the second part.
  • saifudin01
    December 13, 2009
    saifudin01
    great film... like it...
  • ahs15
    December 13, 2009
    ahs15
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  • holliewoodby
    December 11, 2009
    holliewoodby
    I really like this film! I enjoyed the acting and cinematograhy the most. Most stories of Epic battles are slightly predictable, but there were enough surprises to keep it interesting and move the plot along.
  • stratjas9
    December 7, 2009
    stratjas9
    Great action and really interesting and well acted story. Some great effects and super storyline. In the beginning I thought oh no not a martial arts stupid movie but then it developed well with it's charachters and was really entertaining. I liked how un-hollywood the ending w...( read more)as with "No one is a victor here" comment...nicely done. Great scenery too in China.
  • Dracula787
    December 5, 2009
    Dracula787
    Much the way the Indian film industry has kept the musical alive long after Hollywood stopped caring, Chinese filmmakers have been keeping alive the large scale swordplay epics that Hollywood?s abandoned in favor of superhero-fare and movies based on toy-lines. The Chinese Wuxia...( read more) genre, characterized by beautifully photographed fight scenes set in ancient China, has been one of the most popular genres of world cinema. Some of the most popular examples of this genre are Ang Lee?s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Zhang Yimou?s Hero and The House of Flying Daggers. I?ve got to say that I?m a sucker for these movies; they?re action movies that have some real ambition being made in a time when Hollywood action movies seem to be made by people who don?t really seem to take their craft seriously. I?m not sure if John Woo?s Red Cliff strictly qualifies as a Wuxia movie, but it has all the elements that have made me dig the genre to begin with.

    Set at the end of the Han Dynasty (around 200 C.E.), this film tells the story of the legendary Battle of Red Cliff. Ostensibly this is about a civil war between the Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi), whose taken power through brute force, and a pair of southern warlords named Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen). The movie opens with Liu Bei trying to defend civilian refugees from the oncoming army of Cao Cao, he?s able to escape but with massive casualties including his own wife. Knowing that he cannot beat Cao Cao alone, Liu Bei sends his chief strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to convince Sun Quan into an alliance. Eventually Sun Quan agrees to the alliance and the forces decide to hold fort at the City of Red Cliff and prepare as Cao Caos massive naval fleet slowly approaches.

    There is of course a lot more to this; in fact I didn?t even bring up Tony Leung?s character, Zhou Yu, who?s a warrior who takes part in a lot of the action scenes. The film is not meant to be a historically accurate take on the battle; it?s more like the recounting of an exaggerated legend. It also isn?t exactly a complex study of the politics at hand, it?s basically a battle good guys who are really good and bad guys who are really bad. This is old fashioned storytelling in many ways, which is just sort of something that has to be accepted in order to enjoy the movie. While this material isn?t exactly Shakespeare, there also isn?t anything about it that?s irritating, I don?t mind an action movie story that exists just to string together action scenes as long as it isn?t actively bad, and the story here is mostly decent.

    What?s really important here are the battle scenes which are some of the best of their kind since Ridley Scott?s Kingdom of Heaven. Woo does need to uses some middling CGI for the wide shots of massive armies, which are not really the movie?s fortes, but for a lot of its duration the movie uses real people for its action scenes and during the medium shots the action is very strong. The fighting is very stylized with warriors able to engage in elaborate combat in the midst of the battlefield. That said, the fighting is not quite as stylized as it is in some of these movies like Hero, in which the characters are able to engage in extra-super-human moves like bating arrows out of the air with swords and you won?t see much wire-work either. This is a war movie first and a martial arts film second, there are scenes where great warriors will pair off and fight mano-e-mano, but for the most part this is about fights between large armies. Also, because the Chinese had access to gunpowder in their ancient warfare, some stuff blows up really good towards the end.

    The film was released in two parts in China, and the first part?s release was made to coincide with the 2008 Olympics so as to show the world the country?s power in filmmaking. In this sense they?ve mostly succeeded, the action and production values in this are every bit as good as anything coming out of Hollywood. For its international release the film?s two parts have been spliced together into a single film, consequently, more than two hours have been cut from the film. These cuts are not invisible, there?s an English language voice over at the beginning that sets up the conflict, and captions have been added to help audiences keep the characters straight. The movie does feel rushed and the cuts may explain the simplicity of some of these characters, but I think the story mostly holds up. I hope to someday see the two part original version which will inevitably be available on DVD and Blu-Ray, but this is a movie that should be seen at least once in theaters and I understand the problems with bringing the original version to western theaters. This version will have to do.

    This is the first movie which director John Woo has made in China since he left for Hollywood since his 1992 magnum opus Hard Boiled. I don?t think Woo?s best Hollywood works are really as different from his Hong Kong movies as some people think they are, in some ways I think he was the victim of the higher standards people seem to have for American action movies than they do for the exotic Asian ones. Still, his last couple of projects in Hollywood were undeniably poor, and he clearly was never allowed to make anything on this scale by the studio system. This is a return to form. I?m not going to call this a perfect movie, and if Hollywood had been making something other than half-assed CGI-fest as of late I might not have been as enthusiastic about this, but the movie delivers everything you?d expect out of it.
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