Red Cliff (2009)

Camp, over-the-top and entirely unbelievable: in short, the best thing John Woo has made in years.

It’s all technically impressive, but with none of the characters having much personality, it rarely stirs your senses.

With some of the best battle scenes since Peter Jackson's The Two Towers, a smattering of 1980s love scenes and all the far eastern promise of a Twinings advert, you can't really beat Red Cliff as the classiest and most fabulous blockbuster of the summer.

The numerous battle scenes, culminating in the famous Battle of Red Cliff, prove Woo is an action director par excellence.

As old-fashioned mythic entertainment, ‘Red Cliff’ succeeds in solid, sometimes magnificent fashion.

A highly impressive historical epic, Red Cliff shows just how John Woo got his mojo back after a bumpy ride in Hollywood. Full of stunning action sequences, the only shame is how the international version leaves westerners wanting more.

After 15 years expertly playing the Hollywood game, the Hong Kong director John Woo returns to his roots, and to form. And what a relief it clearly is for the world’s slickest action director to spill copious amounts of blood.

At two and a half hours, it's a long haul. But there's entertainment and fun along the way.

Red Cliff makes brutal violence look gracefully balletic. In this period war film he's managed to temper the stylistic indulgences that Hollywood encouraged.

With superb planning and execution from Woo, his stuntmen and the backroom boys, the action unfolds like a game of Risk played on the grandest scale.