Red Cliff (2008) 赤壁 John Woo starring Tony Leung

Red Cliff

Directed by John Woo

Starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Chi-Ling Lin, Zhao Wei

Genre | War Epic
July 2008

Red Cliff (2008) 赤壁
(Cantonese: Chek Bik || Mandarin: Chi Bi)

SYNOPSIS: John Woo’s historical drama The Battle of Red Cliff re-creates the legendary Chinese battle from 208 A.D. that led directly to the end of the Han Dynasty. Tony Leung stars in the film that is adapted from part of the beloved Chinese book Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

The story of RED CLIFF takes place in 208 AD in China during the Han Dynasty. Despite the presence of an emperor, Han Xiandi, China was then divided into many warring states.

The ambitious Prime Minister Cao Cao, by using the Emperor as his puppet, waged war on a kingdom in the west, Xu, ruled by the emperor’s uncle, Liu Bei. Cao Cao’s ultimate goal was to wipe out all the kingdoms and install himself as Emperor to a unified China. Liu Bei sent his military advisor Zhuge Liang as an envoy to the Wu Kingdom in the south, trying to persuade its ruler Sun Quan into joining forces. There he met Wu’s Viceroy Zhou Yu, and the two became friends amidst this uneasy alliance.

Enraged to learn that the two kingdoms have become allies, Cao Cao sent an army of eight hundred thousand soldiers and two thousand ships down south, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Cao Cao’s army set up camp at Crow Forest, across the Yangtze River from Red Cliff, where the allies were stationed.

With the food supply running short, and the army vastly outnumbered by Cao Cao’s, the allies seemed doomed. Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang had to rely on their combined wisdom to turn the tide of battle. Numerous battles of wits and forces, on land and on water, eventually culminated into the most famous battle in Chinese history, where two thousand ships were burned, and the course of China’s history was changed forever. That was the Battle of Red Cliff.

MOVIE TIDBITS: If John Woo’s historical war epic RED CLIFF were to be described in a single word it would simply be “big,” really big.

Woo and his backers are hell-bent on crushing audiences worldwide with the sheer weight and scale of their production. At $80 million, it is now China’s most expensive film to date.

The script was originally based on the Chinese literary classic “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” In his treatment, Woo made changes to put the story more in line with actual history.

The major difference is an altered treatment of Tony Leung’s character Zhou Yu, who is made to be a more heroic character. The film’s title and its central conflict are taken from the historical Battle of Red Cliffs where the allied forces of three southern warlords numbering approximately 50,000 strong took on northern warlord Cao Cao who commanded over 200,000 soldiers.

For its release in Asia, RED CLIFF will be divided into two films, one released in July and the second in December. The reason for this is that Woo wanted to do justice to the characters who will be well known to Chinese audiences. The fact that Western audiences do not know the characters well will likely result in both parts being combined into a single, shorter film for release overseas.

EXTRA TIDBITS: Two major stars — Chow Yun-fat and Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai — dropped out at the last minute, although Leung later rejoined the cast. A stuntman died in an accident and torrential rains washed away part of an outdoor set in northern China.