Piece of the action
David Stratton | July 25, 2009
Article from: The Australian
Red Cliff (Chi bi) (MA15+)
3½ stars
National release
JOHN Woo's Red Cliff is one of the most spectacular epic movies made and is comparable to the classics of the genre: Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Seven Samurai.
Sadly, Australian audiences are not being given the opportunity to see the complete version of the film, at least not in cinemas; and if ever a film demanded to be seen on the big cinema screen with a full, theatrical sound system, this is it.
The running time of Red Cliff was originally four hours and 46 minutes, but the international version that screened at the Sydney Film Festival in June and which is now opening in Australian cinemas has been shortened by 2 1/4 hours and runs only 2 1/2 hours. Imagine the outcry if only half of Lawrence of Arabia was screened because it was considered too long.
Red Cliff, which cost $US80 million ($100m) to produce, is an unofficial co-production between China, Japan and South Korea, with production input from Taiwanese and US partners. During the past six months it has screened across Asia in two parts: part one (145minutes) opened in the middle of last year and part two (141 minutes) at the beginning of this year. The idea of releasing a very long film in two parts isn't new. Bernardo Bertolucci did it in 1976 with 1900, Steven Soderbergh is doing it with Che, and arguably the greatest anti-war film of all time, Masaki Kobayashi's almost 10-hour-long The Human Condition, was released as three three-hour-plus films between 1959 and 1961. Then there's Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, another hugely successful three-part movie.
Why, then, have audiences outside Asia not been given the opportunity to see Woo's epic in its integral version? Why have we been palmed off with a chopped-up, Reader's Digest-abridged edition? Asian film buffs can doubtless find DVDs of the complete version if they search hard enough, but they are not being given the opportunity to experience the complete film incinemas.
The story, which Woo has written in collaboration with three other screenwriters, is inspired by historical events (set down in Chen Shou's 3rd-century chronicle) and by the 14th-century Romance of Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. Several earlier films have been based on this material but none as lavish and powerful as this.
In the year AD208, during the decline of the Han dynasty, prime minister Cao Cao (played by Chinese actor Zhang Fengyi) bullies the weak emperor Xian (Wang Ning) into allowing him to lead a vast army to attack two rebel rulers in the south of the country. He has his sights set on Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen), and his aim is to forcibly unite China under hisrule.
The northern armies come into conflict with southern forces at the Battle of Changban, which is the first of many staggeringly well-staged action sequences in Woo's film.
Cao Cao is triumphant but the southerners unite under the control of two brilliant strategists, Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who serves Liu, and Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), who serves Sun. The complete version of the film follows these events in intricate detail, with time given to the growing friendship between Zhuge and Zhou -- enhanced by two tremendously charismatic performances from the actors involved -- and the wily plotting of the hypnotic Cao Cao. Time is also devoted to the relationship between Zhou and his wife (Lin Chi-ling). In the original version of the film there is much more to all of this. The battle scenes, including the titanic conflict below the cliffs on the Yangtze River which give the film its title, are presented in far more detail. Whole subplots and characters have been removed, including much of the character of the tomboy Shangxiang (Vicki Zhao) and her adventures disguised as a boy behind enemy lines. In the cut version there are references that no longer make sense because the original scenes have been deleted.
Despite this vandalism, the version of Red Cliff screening here is worth a look. Woo, who has shown his mettle in Hollywood films such as Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2, is a master of action, and with thousands of extras and material at his disposal he delivers the goods with energy and style. The style, at times, smacks more of Akira Kurosawa and the Japanese samurai tradition than Chinese cinema, but it's none the worse for that.
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.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25815408-15803,00.html