Film review: Red Cliff

RED HOT: In Red Cliff, John Woo has made the historical epic fun, credible, and free of Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom.

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Quentin Tarantino, who knows a thing or two about creating onscreen violence, once remarked that saying John Woo could direct action sequences was like saying Michelangelo could paint ceilings.

Red Cliff sees the Hong Kong- born maestro take on a sweeping historical epic greater and grander than anything out of Asia in decades. Woo is no Johnny Big Potatoes when it comes to historical accuracy, but you'd be a harder critic than me if you came away unimpressed with what he can do with a few thousand extras, a couple of hundred boats and horses, and several million balsa wood arrows.

The battle of Red Cliff (the real one) was one of world history's defining kerfuffles. In 209 AD, the massed forces of the then Chinese government ranged themselves against two smaller provinces that were less than enamoured of the regime.

The battle effectively ended the Han dynasty's rule of China, and ushered in the era of "the three kingdoms". All of which might be fantastically useful background knowledge if you are off to see Red Cliff in an English-speaking country. That's because what we're getting down here is a pared-down version of Woo's four-hour original.

Effectively, "our" Red Cliff is most of the fighting, a moderate amount of the bonking, and just enough dialogue to make the film seem comprehensible - which you could argue is playing to Woo's acknowledged strengths anyway. If you've ever seen the man's The Killer, Hard Boiled, or Face/Off, don't be shy about spending your dollars on Red Cliff. No one - and I mean no one - can stage a fight like Woo. I missed the claustrophobic standoffs and orchestras of gunfire that characterised his early films, but seeing the great man with a massive budget and an army to play with has its own pleasures.

With Red Cliff, Woo manages to do what his Hollywood contemporaries could not do with Troy or Alexander; he has made the historical epic fun, credible, and a Brad Pitt- and Orlando Bloom-free zone. Someday, when I own a truly massive telly, I might rent the full version on DVD. I'm sure it's worth the effort. But in the meantime, this dumbed-down version will do. The performances are great, the story is engrossing, and the scraps are downright breathtaking.

Red Cliff
Rated: M
Runtime: 148 mins
Director: John Woo
Stars: Tony Leung, Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro
Trailer: Flicks.co.nz