The characters function less as flesh-and-blood figures than obtuse archetypes. They look and act as if they know they belong in an epic.
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11/16/09
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Red Cliff (2009)
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Reviews Counted:63
Fresh:55
Rotten:8
Average Rating:7/10
Consensus: Featuring some impressively grand battlefield action, John Woo returns to Asia and returns to form in the process for this lavish and slick historical epic.
Theatrical Release:Nov 18, 2009 Limited
Synopsis: After directing stylish action films such as THE KILLERS and FACE-OFF, director John Woo turns to Chinese history for inspiration with RED CLIFF. The Han Dynasty is facing its death in third... [More]
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Reviews for Red Cliff
The film's shortcomings have less to do with Woo's orchestration of his ambitious tale and more to do with the Frankenstein hatchet job enacted against it.
11/15/09
John Woo fulfills on "Red Cliff's" reputation as the most expensive Chinese-language film ever made with a mesmerizing war epic that concentrates on ancient techniques of war strategy as played out on a grand stage.
11/12/09
The drama tends to be pitched over the top %u2026 Before, Woo could pull off such extremes because he did it in an operatic fashion of gonzo emotion, but here it often comes off as inadvertently hokey.
11/12/09
Any war picture in which the heroine stalls the villain with a quiet, painstaking tea ceremony until the wind shifts direction and the good guys can firebomb the bad guys into oblivion is too ineffably Zen not to love.
11/09/09
Top CriticTruly spectacular visually, John Woo's historical epic is not particularly engaging from a dramatic standpoint, and the U.S. abridged version (half in length of the Chinese) makes involvement evem more demanding.
10/05/09
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.
07/28/09
Red Cliff marks his return to form with the most expensive Chinese-speaking film ever made.
07/27/09
Like your chinese action? The huge battles, physics defying fight sequences, the sense of history in the making? Then you'll love Red Cliff.
07/27/09
[Woo] pulls out all the stops to recreate extensive battle scenes with high spectacle impact, but fails to capture the nuance and personal touch of his early action films.
07/24/09
The most beautiful Asian epic since Bernardo Bertolucci's Oscar triumph, The Last Emperor, 22 years ago.
07/24/09
A handsome, vigorous, entertaining film that never becomes exhilarating.
07/24/09
The decision to release only an ‘international’ cut-down version, combining the two original films and almost halving the running time is a terrible one -- it’s akin to screening half of Lawrence of Arabia.
07/24/09
John Woo's original two part epic telling of an ancient Chinese battle tale is amalgamated and cut to create a stylised but characterless piece with some spectacular fighting scenes.
07/23/09
Woo revels in a gritty realism that genuinely imparts both the brutality and creativity of ancient warfare.
07/22/09
The mix of real history and imagined events results in filmmaking of high quality, despite the gaps and possible confusion of the foreign story.
07/22/09
Woo has a knack for the spectacular, and Red Cliff is certainly something to behold.
07/22/09
John Woo returns to China to make a film he has been burning to make, an adaptation from the much read book, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, written in about the 14th century; many years after the events depicted, but then these events are as important in
07/16/09
Camp, over-the-top and entirely unbelievable: in short, the best thing John Woo has made in years.
06/16/09
It’s all technically impressive, but with none of the characters having much personality, it rarely stirs your senses.
06/16/09
Latest News for Red Cliff
November 19, 2009:
Critics Consensus: New Moon Wanes
This week at the movies, we've got hot teen vampires (The Twilight Saga: New Moon, starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson); a football family (The Blind Side, starring... More...
October 16, 2009:
John Woo Prepares to Unleash Flying Tigers 
His "Red Cliff" is finally reaching American theaters next month, but John Woo is already on to his next project, a war drama to be titled "Flying Tigers." More...
October 04, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review
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May 19, 2009:
Sydney Film Festival Gets Wooed
Hong Kong action maestro John Woo will appear at this year's Sydney Film Festival to present his latest epic, Red Cliff, which has its Australian premiere on June 9. The... More...
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