Comments on: Review: Red Cliff (2009) ****

By: Craig Kennedy

Craig Kennedy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:58:18 +0000

I loved all the individual battles. They were all very clever, but the Turtle was particularly intense.

Of course the crazy fire battle at the end was spectacular.

I have to say great cast too. You can’t go wrong with Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro

By: amy

amy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:38:51 +0000

My favorite part was the Turtle tactic, it just went totally over my head. My mother and I looked at each other puzzled and said their thinking was too deep for us. xD

By: Craig Kennedy

Craig Kennedy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 17:01:56 +0000

It’s funny, I like both for different reasons. The US cut you sort of have to not think about it too much… the plot goes by really really quickly and it bounces from one action thing to another. I really liked that aspect of it, but in a completely different way I also enjoyed the 2 part cut (which I later bought on UK DVD). It was richer and a bit deeper though a bit more slowly paced.

Both versions were a lot of fun and I think it would depend on my mood which one I’d rather watch.

By: amy

amy — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 06:06:02 +0000

Wow, if you liked the International Cut, I think you will LOVE the two-part version, which is in fact (I suspect, I haven’t seen the Int. Cut) more through with events instead of just a mish-mash of action sequences.

By: Craig Kennedy

Craig Kennedy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 18:50:01 +0000

I can’t wait to see this thing again. The At The Movies dudes weren’t impressed (though Phillips recommended the 5 hour version of which he’d only seen the first half) but I think they’re comparing it too much to Woo’s early career.

Me? I was just taking it as an epic action flick and it totally worked. I had a lot of fun with it.

By: Alison Flynn

Alison Flynn — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 04:37:18 +0000

I love the still you used for this review too. Loved that fan and the way they used it in the movie. Empty seat with his fan left behind on it and you know he went off to kick some ass.

Takeshi Kaneshiro had some good fan action there too. :p

Never saw the Cory Yuen movie. Maybe I’ll check it out on Netflix.

By: Craig Kennedy

Craig Kennedy — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 02:37:57 +0000

Kaneshiro was in a Cory Yuen movie called Hero, but when I saw it in his filmography I thought they meant Zhang Yimou’s version so I took it off.

By: Alison Flynn

Alison Flynn — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 05:12:04 +0000

I loved this movie. Amazing action, terrific characters and it never felt like a two-and-a-half hour movie to me. It really moved at a great pace. The edition of the 100-chapter novel that I have consists of 4 separate paperback volumes, so I think either it has to be done in a series of television episodes or 2-hour movies (the way BBC does with adaptations of Charles Dickens' novels) or it has to be pared down smartly. I think Woo accomplished the second option beautifully. Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro are two of my favorite actors too, so seeing them together on screen was a great treat for me. And just a nitpicky thing, you have Hero as a credit after Kaneshiro's name, along with Chungking Express and House of Flying Daggers, but actually he wasn't in that. Tony Leung was the one in Hero - he played Broken Sword. Great review. @jb: Curse of the Golden Flower wasn't per se an action flick, but it was another Zhang Yimou epic that had many action sequences, lots of court intrigue and was a costume and drama spectacle of operatic proportions.

By: sartre

sartre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:41:31 +0000

In line with Craig’s prediction in his fine review, Glenn Kenney reviewing the two part version commented that “much of the pruning [in the abridged version] is from the film’s first part, and it includes a lot of poetic touches but also some character building”.

By: sartre

sartre — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:32:45 +0000

For those interested, the two-part version is available on blu ray at a good price and it’s region free (the review offer a tip for negotiating a hiccup for North American region A users of the first disc) ->

http://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Red-Cliff-Blu-ray-Review/7821/

By: jennybee

jennybee — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:48:42 +0000

Great review! You just made a close-to-3-hr foreign language sound like a whole lotta fun. I now have interest in seeing this. Before, I had none.

Seems like it’s been a while since we had any worthy Asian action epics. Am I forgetting something since Hero and House of Flying Daggers?