Title: Red Cliff Part 1
Running time: 2 hours 08 minutes
Director: John Woo
Genre: Action, Drama
Disappointment is a grossly understatement for this movie. After all the hype and publicity about this movie, it turned out to be a terrible movie with star-studded actors.
For those who did not know anything about China’s history, this movie is about a battle that was held at a place called Red Cliff. The battle is about how Zhou Yu, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei faced the overwhelming army of Chao Chao. This movie is also the part 1 of a 2 part movie by John Woo. Without looking at the name of the director, you would never know this is directed by John Woo if not for the pigeons (or was it doves?).
The movie started off in a rush… and in this case it was not a good thing. First of all, it erroneously assumed that everyone know all the characters in the Three Kingdoms. Oh, the director did introduce the characters one by one... but without any explanation at all. I think the director was trying to show just how powerful Guan Yu, Zhang Fei and Zhao Yun were by showing how they defeated hundreds of people relatively at ease. The thing is, Guan Yu who was extremely famed for his super strength was shown to be just as strong as all the other generals (on his side ones). The style of their fighting made me think that these people were just trying to show off rather than fight a war.
Of course, one could say that the director was showing how noble Guan Yu and Zhao Yun were by battling alone and let the villagers escape, but it did not feel that way. The actions were also nothing to scream about. It was just some pretty slash and hack… and the weapons of the generals under Liu Bei is always longer and quicker than the enemies.
Even Tony Leung and Takeshi did not fare very well as Zhou Yu and Zhu Geliang. Zhu Geliang had always been portrayed as a man with intelligence level that surpassed that of normal humans. His battle strategies were supposed to be mind-numbing. Well, my mind did go numb when he used the so-called Bagua (Eight Triagrams) formation to defeat the enormous and well-equipped army of Chao Chao. I supposed it was to impress us, but I was not impressed. That kind of formation had no battle value at all. It’s all just for show. The director also tried to insert some humour into the battle. Although the other people who were in the cinema with me were laughing, I think that the comedy shown was sort of forced.
Also, the deaths of Liu Bei's soldiers in the final battle were not really necessary if they did not just keep doing nothing when the enemies entered their ranks. It sort of shows Zhu Geliang as a really stupid strategist (which was not the case). The enemies themselves were also so stupid that it was the only thing I found funny despite being swarmed by the humours attempted by the director. I mean, all the enemy soldiers on horses carried spears. I just can’t see how they cannot kill the soldiers from the top even if they have tower shields in front of them. Instead, Chao Chao’s soldiers just walk into the battle formation as if Liu Bei’s soldiers were nothing but statues.
Also, there is just no chemistry between Takeshi and Tony Leung. They were acting as if they have forgotten their lines and the director was too afraid to ask them to enact the scene again. The jokes they made were also quite strained… laughable but it’s like the director suddenly tell the script writer to jam a joke or two into their conversations at the last minute.
The graphics were also not very good. At the beginning, it was quite nice but it quickly deteriorated and towards the end of the movie, the supposed mass naval army looked like poorly constructed matchboxes on a scaled model.
A final note, for those who wanted to relearn their China’s history by watching the movie, please find another movie or just go ahead and read Romance of the Three Kingdoms to get a much more accurate account of the history of Three Kingdoms. The plot twisted the history until it was barely recognizable if not for the characters.
Observation: The dove (or pigeon) was flying faster than any bird known on Earth to have cover vast distances at a really short time
Bottomline: Extreme disappointment…
Bamboo Ranking: 2.5 / 5.0
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