Saw this yesterday... Great stuff. Really epic feel to it, and really should be considered a great Summer Blockbuster, it's certainly a better film than trash like "Terminator - Salvation".... But of course, it's in Chinese and will be considered "arty", even though it's as much of an example of Commerical, mainstream film-making as "Gladiator" or "Kingdom of Heaven".... John Woo is back on great form here, back in China and back to doing what he does best - make truly stunning, fantastic action films with a brain and a heart.... Of course this is more a Historical Fantasy than his classic HK "bullet ballets", but here the bullets are replaced by arrows, and when you see these arrows and spears flying around all over the place you'll just think that it's all utterly awesome and get caught up in it all.... If the film has a weak point, it's really only in the area of some of the CGI effects shots which unfortunately DO look a bit like a Playstation game in places, but that's merely a quibble in an otherwise great film, and it kind of becomes virtually irrelevant because you can easily get caught up in the story itself....

 

There's no Chow Yun Fat here, but Woo's other main actor Tony Leung is in the starring role here as Zhou Yu, a rebel leader who resists the oppressive "Prime Minister" Cao Cao... Leung is ably supported by Takeshi Kaneshiro as the strategist Zhuge Liang.... It has to be stressed that "Red Cliff" has been seriously truncated from being a two-part film in Asia lasting over 4 hours in total, to being one single two and a half hour film for Western audiences (dont ask me why it was done, probably some studio bullsh!t <_< ).... I'm rather dismayed by this, as I'd've preferred to have seen both parts (even if it did mean that the parts came out maybe a month apart like "Che"..), but regardless, this is still a very good film even in this edited form, hopefully a future DVD release will give us the FULL story the way Woo probably intended....

 

So, it gets a 7/10 for now, because it's not the full story, but I have no doubt once I've seen the whole thing, it's gonna be a perfect '10'..... A great taster and still well worth a visit to the cinema though to see the big battles on a big screen.....

Cao Cao :heart: I've been waiting for this to come out on film.

 

I desperately wanted to see this film but it was hardly in the cinemas! Gutted! Oh well it should come out on DVD soon.

 

I'm a huge fan of Dynasty Warriors. I used to spend hours just playing the game.

 

By the way Grimly do you know when DW7 is due?

By the way Grimly do you know when DW7 is due?

 

No idea Kate....

 

TBH, in a way, you're probably better off waiting for the DVD as I have no doubt that the DVD will feature the full-on, 4.5 hour version of the film.....