I would have given the original film at least a four-star rating; the cut version is diminished but not entirely ruined. The nuances may have been left on the cutting-room floor but the spectacle just about survives.
Red Cliff (2009)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:97
Fresh:86
Rotten:11
Average Rating:7.1/10
Consensus: Featuring some impressively grand battlefield action, John Woo returns to Asia and returns to form in the process for this lavish and slick historical epic.
Australian Theatrical Release:
Jul 23, 2009 Wide
US Box Office: $526,841
Synopsis: After directing stylish action films such as THE KILLERS and FACE-OFF, director John Woo turns to Chinese history for inspiration with RED CLIFF. The Han Dynasty is facing its death in third... After directing stylish action films such as THE KILLERS and FACE-OFF, director John Woo turns to Chinese history for inspiration with RED CLIFF. The Han Dynasty is facing its death in third century China, and the emperor raises a million-man army against two kingdoms that are hopelessly outmatched. This war film stars Tony Leung, the beloved actor best known for LUST, CAUTION and IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE. [More]
Starring: Tony Leung, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Chi-Ling Lin
Starring: Tony Leung, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Chi-Ling Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Hu Jun
Director: John Woo
Director: John Woo
Screenwriter: John Woo, Khan Chan, Kuo Zheng, Sheng Heyu
Producer: John Woo, Terence Chang
Studio: Magnolia Pictures
Reviews for Red Cliff
Red Cliff marks his return to form with the most expensive Chinese-speaking film ever made.
Like your chinese action? The huge battles, physics defying fight sequences, the sense of history in the making? Then you'll love Red Cliff.
The most beautiful Asian epic since Bernardo Bertolucci's Oscar triumph, The Last Emperor, 22 years ago.
A handsome, vigorous, entertaining film that never becomes exhilarating.
The decision to release only an ‘international’ cut-down version, combining the two original films and almost halving the running time is a terrible one -- it’s akin to screening half of Lawrence of Arabia.
Woo revels in a gritty realism that genuinely imparts both the brutality and creativity of ancient warfare.
The mix of real history and imagined events results in filmmaking of high quality, despite the gaps and possible confusion of the foreign story.
Woo has a knack for the spectacular, and Red Cliff is certainly something to behold.
John Woo returns to China to make a film he has been burning to make, an adaptation from the much read book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written in about the 14th century; many years after the events depicted, but then these events are as important in
You may have the biggest flat-screen DLP monitor in the city, but Red Cliff will never look half as spectacular as it will on the big -- and I mean really big -- screen.
John Woo's best work has always been mysterious to me. He makes operas - we don't need to understand the words to sense their power.
The result is an awfully big and powerful movie, even in abbreviated form.
This is one of the best foreign language films of 2009. Woo demonstrates a storytelling style of swiftness and grandeur that has been compared to the samurai classics of Akira Kurosawa.
A formidable prelude to an epic battle with resplendent effects and action spectacles.
As drama Red Cliff is overwrought. As spectacle, though, John Woo’s latest is the real thing, an old-fashioned cast-of-thousands collision of armies.
It reminded me of a Road Runner cartoon. The battlefield violence is essentially repetitious, but Woo -- the auteur as Wile E. Coyote -- introduces gimmicks ('the tortoise formation'), tricks and variations to keep things interesting.
As hard as it tries, Red Cliff just can’t muster the heavily filtered mythmaking of the war films of Steven Spielberg and David Lean. And thank goodness for that.
Latest News for Red Cliff
November 20, 2009:
Five Favorite Films with John Woo
With "Red Cliff" (starring Tony Leung and Zhang Fengyi) making its way into theaters, director John Woo stopped by The Rotten Tomatoes Show on Current TV to share his five... More...
November 19, 2009:
Critics Consensus: New Moon Wanes
This week at the movies, we've got hot teen vampires (The Twilight Saga: New Moon, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson); a football family (The Blind Side, starring... More...
October 16, 2009:
John Woo Prepares to Unleash Flying Tigers ![]()
His "Red Cliff" is finally reaching American theaters next month, but John Woo is already on to his next project, a war drama to be titled "Flying Tigers." More...
October 04, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review ![]()
More...
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