Imagine for a moment that instead of three glorious epic films, Peter Jackson had instead decided to release his Lord of the Rings Trilogy as one three hour movie. The film would have the same overall plot as the trilogy, and contain most of the keynote scenes of the overarching plot, including all of the famous battle sequences. Now imagine that while the experience is no longer at the same masterpiece level as before, by some miracle it still ends up being really good movie. This picture still thrills and excites you with its amazing action and suspense, but also ends up losing character development and subtext along the way. This is the closest analogy I can find to watching the U.S. Theatrical Version of Red Cliff, the abbreviated edition of director John Woo’s two-part, five hour Chinese epic, shortened by two and a half hours for American audiences.
Most of the story is still there: Heroic characters from different factions must band together against a tyrant looking to conquer all of China. The film’s arc still makes sense, the pageantry is still on display, and the action is still amazing, but to those who have seen the full version of the movie, the movie is still missing key ingredients that would make it a masterwork. Still, with all its faults this version of the movie is still highly entertaining and is still better than most run-of-the-mill Hollywood epics.
A lot of the reason the movie is still as good as it is, is because of the fabulous job done by the cast. This version is still very kind to the work of Tony Leung as Zhou Yu, the leader of the resistance. This is an elegant performance, and of all the characters in the movie, it’s his scenes that stay the most intact. This version is also very interested in keeping the relationship between Zhou Yu and Takeshi Kaneshiro’s Zhuge Liang, the heroes’ main strategist, as fleshed out as possible. There’s an ebb and flow to their trust, as they keep trying to one up each other with ways to win the battles, and their chemistry onscreen is fascinating and really important to the film as a whole.
Also still very good is the power hungry Cao Cao, played by Fengyi Zhang. The actor, a veteran of big epics like Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin, absolutely shines here as a reserved sort of heavy, full of confident menace, despite the fact his knowledge of battle tactics isn’t as well versed as his adversaries. A sort of cat and mouse theme ensues between the two camps, as the villain uses his superior forces and occasional disregard for ethics to try and take the upper hand against the forces allied against him, while the heroes must devise intricate stratagems to try and obtain victory.
Thankfully, perhaps the most important element to the success of this version is that Woo’s mastery of action is still on display in full. From the movie’s opening skirmish, a heart-stopping sequence in which a loyal soldier must defend a small child, to the film’s final epic sequence, Red Cliff succeeds as an action packed adventure first and foremost. Whether you’re seeing one on one fights or a battle staged with the scope looking to match any giant movie you’ve ever seen, the action you get here is as top notch as it gets. Throughout Woo’s tenure as Hong Kong maverick and Hollywood director for hire, he has always excited us with his visceral and poetic images, but even in a WWII film like Windtalkers he’d never worked on a scale like this.
In fact, Red Cliff is one of the few films since Lord of the Rings that has managed to create such an enormous scope without just having the film’s battle scenes just seem overly crowded, ala Troy or Alexander. You get a sense of the size of these clashes, but unlike many Hollywood films in the last few years, it never feels like you’re just watching pointless CGI sequences. He keeps you interested with amazing choreography, and by enriching the combat with a mythic quality, almost akin to Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Western heroes. It’s as if these battles were filled with superheroes duking it out onscreen, but still managing to take these scenes as serious and brutally violent as you’d expect.
Still, with all this going for it, Red Cliff just doesn’t reach the same heights that the full length version manages to. This is still a very good movie, but misses the subtle nuance that keeps you invested on an emotional level the way the film does in its original form, having to cast out characters and sequences that are essential to giving you the full Red Cliff experience. For many, the sheer size of the action and heroics may be enough to satisfy, but one ends up missing the meticulous pacing, editing, and grand storytelling that comes from seeing all of Woo’s vision.
Gorgeous, epic, and nearly flawless are words you could use to describe the print on this disc. In both its forms, Red Cliff is a demo quality movie on Blu-ray. Very few prints I’ve ever seen are more beautiful than this one, especially for a live action movie. We’re talking about image detail and brightness of color that needs to be seen, especially if you’re an A/V junkie. While the disc also features an English dub, the movie’s Mandarin DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 is also quite superb and is really what you want to go with here to get the right experience with this movie.
The Making of Red Cliff: The Long Road – It’s not often that we get supplements that end up matching the scope of the movie that they’re documenting, but that’s what you get here. This documentary is nearly two and a half hours long and is ridiculously thorough in covering every aspect of the film. There’s tons of fascinating B-roll footage, interviews with everyone from the cast and crew to Chinese residents, all of whom speak about the importance of this story to them and their culture. John Woo goes in depth about his history with this story and his love for it, and the arduous task of bringing this movie to the screen, including a number of setbacks and tragedies along the way. This is an extra that is finally worth watching.
A Conversation with John Woo: The Heroism and History of Red Cliff – Going nearly half an hour, this is a truncated version of this interview, which is shown in its entirety on the Blu-ray for the International version of Red Cliff. Still, there are some wonderful insights into Woo’s history with this project, from his childhood recollections of these heroes to finally getting to see them come to life.
HDNet: A Look at Red Cliff – This is a short introduction to the story of Red Cliff
Storyboards
Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment Blu-ray – You get trailers for District B-13: Ultimatum and others here.
This U.S. Theatrical version of Red Cliff is worth watching for action fans, and is worth checking out as a curiosity if you’ve seen the full-length edition of the movie, but it isn’t able to reach the same level of quality, despite the many great things it still has to offer. The performances in this film as well as its action set-pieces are all terrific; you just lose the emotional quotient of Woo’s original cut. Still, by itself this is still as very good movie that manages to be a lot better than most of today’s action pictures. The Blu-ray is also chocked full of extras, all of which are worth looking at, and the print on this disc is absolutely phenomenal.
Magnolia presents Red Cliff: (The U.S. Theatrical Version). Directed by: John Woo Starring: Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Fengyi Zhang. Written by: John Woo and Khan Chan. Running time: 148 minutes. Rating: R. Released on Blu-ray: March 23, 2010. Available at Amazon.com.
