RED CLIFF UNCUT (China/Hong Kong, 2008/2009)
Directed by: John Woo
Starring: Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhao Wei
When John Woo’s massive, thundering return to form, RED CLIFF, was released in 2008 and 2009 it came out as two massive movies, each running well over two hours. Everywhere but in America, that is. Here in the land of the free and the home of the First Amendment, the two movies were chopped and stitched and stapled and cut until they became a two-and-a-half hour Franken-film. But now, on the Fourth of July, the day when we celebrate our freedom, we liberate John Woo's RED CLIFF from motion picture bondage and present it to you the way God - and John Woo - intended: as one massive five-hour motion picture experience.
Based on the greatest scene (the battle of Red Cliff) in the greatest classical work of Chinese literature (Romance of the Three Kingdoms) this is the kind of blood-and-thunder extravaganza that turns boys into men. Put two hundred babies in the cinema and they'll come out with hair on their chests and a burning urge to make war, ride horses, rescue the weak and defeat the wicked. Idiotic American critics often refer to John Woo as "just" an action director, but that's like saying Van Gogh was "just" a landscape painter. Plenty of people direct action, but few take it to the righteous, sometimes ridiculous, near-religious heights that Woo does. Because what he actually makes aren't action movies, they're love stories. John Woo movies (and RED CLIFF is no exception) are always about two men who are two halves of a whole, separated by fate, and over the course of the movie they circle warily around one another, gradually coming closer, until they finally unite in a passionate, fiery cataclysm.
In RED CLIFF, the two men are Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) each an advisor to a different southern warlord. China is divided into three parts and the evil chancellor, Cao Cao (who has become the Chinese equivalent of Satan over the years), is out to kill the southern warlords and grab more power for himself. Warlord #1 is Liu Bei, and his advisor, Zhuge Liang, manages to hook him up with Warlord #2, Sun Quan, and his advisor, Zhou Ye. With Cao Cao closing in, the two tiny southern armies unite to form a fighting force of 50,000 men which is nothing compared to Cao Cao's 800,000 soldiers. What follows is an ode to trickery as the two advisors use their smarts to out-think, out-strategize and out-flank the massive force from the north coming down to crush them.
The extra running time of RED CLIFF allows its characters to breathe and become three dimensional, as subplots suddenly re-emerge and add heft and weight to what was previously just a breathless bunch of battles. Suddenly what was a simple action movie becomes an immersive experience that leaves the audience battered and bruised but also invigorated and renewed. Climaxing in what might be one of the greatest set pieces in modern day filmmaking, RED CLIFF UNCUT is the kind of motion picture experience that you haven’t had since LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, GUNGA DIN or THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI.