Red Cliff

I really like watching movies. I do. But of course, there are certain genres I prefer to watch like Sci-fi, Comedy, Romance, Action ,etc. I never would have thought that I would like as movie which central theme was historical and at the same time, war. I never liked movies whose concept is war. I don't like watching lots of people killing each other. But a certain film really caught my eye, Red Cliff.

Theatrical Poster

 Movie Trailer

This film was based on a Chinese epic war, the Battle of the Red Cliffs. I watched the Asian release on DVD, which has 2 parts(which is more like, 2 DVDs haha). The move was directed by John Woo. He's also know for directing Hollywood films such as  Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2.

Here's the story plot. THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS.

The first part was about the Chinese General CaoCao(He's really in China's history, you can look it up if you want to) with a campaign to eliminate the southern warlord Liu Bei from the Kingdom of Xu , who had no choice but to retreat to the Kingdom of East Wu which was under Sun Quan when his land was attacked by CaoCao's army. With Liu Bei in East Wu, CaoCao plotted on attacking them. Zhuge Liang, Liu Bei's strategist, plans to form an alliance with Sun Quan, but the latter was hesitant but he was cleverly persuaded by the strategist.

Before Zhuge Liang persuaded Sun Quan, he first visited Sun Quan's viceroy, Zhou Yu. On his visit, the strategist helped Zhou Yu's wife to deliver a newborn horse. To celebrate the birth of the horse, they had a feast, the viceroy and the strategist, played the guqin, a chinese musical instrument from the zither family. It is revealed then that the answer to Zhuge Liang's call whether Zhou Yu will aid them in the upcoming war was in the music they played. On the day of the attack, CaoCao was confident since he had more men but he was overpowered by the strategies and tactics prepared for him by the Xu and East Wu alliance. Thus, CaoCao's army faced its first defeat.

 

This is a video depicting the Guqin scene of Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang

The Tortoise Formation

After their victory, the forces of Liu Bei and Sun Quan began formulating a plan to counter Caocao's army which was rapidly advancing towards Red Cliff in both land and water. While having a banquet to celebrate their victory, Zhuge Liang planned to send Sun Shangxiang, Sun Quan's sister to infiltrate CaoCao's army whose camp was just at the riverbank directly opposite their camp. The first part ends with Zhou Yu lighting his miniaturised battleships on a map based on the battle formation.

The second part of the film started where the first one left off. Sun Shangxiang, have infiltrated the enemy's camp, and communicates with Zhuge Liang via pigeons where she befriends an enemy soldier. CaoCao's camp was plagued by typhoid fever. CaoCao ordered that the soldiers who died from the plague be sent on floating rafts to the alliance's camp hoping that they will also be infected.
On the other hand, Zhou Yu's camp burnt the dead bodies in a funeral pyre as respect for the dead. Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang plans to rid of Cai Mao and Zhang Yun,who pledged their allegiance to CaoCao, and to produce 100,000 arrows. Zhuge Liang's plan on how to produce the 100,000 was brilliant (and HILARIOUS!). Here's a clip of how Zhuge Liang produced the 100,000 arrows:

Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang's plans worked quite well and Cai Mao and Zhang Yun were eliminated. Sun Shangxiang returned to their camp and showed Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang the map of the enemy formation. Meanwhile, Zhou Yu's wife, Ziaoqiao headed towards the enemy secretly in hopes of persuading CaoCao to withdraw from war but fails and instead she just bought time for her husband's troops. The battle commences, Sun Quan's forces attacked CaoCao's naval army. Liu Bei, who fled, returned and attacked CaoCao's army on the ground. By dawn, CaoCao's naval fleet was destroyed. The alliance launched another attack on CaoCao's ground army, stationed in the forts using a certain formation. They succeeded to in breaking through even though there were many casualties. The battle ends when CaoCao was left at the mercy of his enemies. Eventually, they spared CaoCao's life. The film ends with Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang having a conversation in the fields before Zhuge Liang walks away with the newborn horse named Mingming.

There, that's the story. What I loved about this movie is the witty plans, strategies,tactics and formation Zhuge Liang comes up with to defeat the enemy and also the amazing stunts such as a single person being able to defeat multiple number of foes. Also, I have deduced that, aside from expanding his scope of his power, CaoCao had another reason for starting the war, and that is to steal XiaoQiao from Zhou Yu. It can be perceived from the film since, CaoCao has been seen looking at a portrait of XiaoQiao multiple times. He even mistook a prostitute for being XiaoQiao and upon realizing that it is not her, he mercilessly killed the girl. Well, the reason of the war can be comparable to the reason behind the Trojan War. They are both about women, beautiful women to be exact.

To the actors/actresses, well, all I can say is they are very good in acting. HAHA. Aside from that, the fight and battle scenes are very well executed. They were awesome.

Here's some of the major characters:

From left to right: Tony Leung as Zhou Yu, Lin Chi-ling as XiaoQiao, Fengyi Zhang as CaoCao, Chen Chang as Sun Quan, and Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang.

 

 

 

 

Zhao Wei as Sun ShangXiang. She also starred in the films Shaolin Soccer and The Kingdom of Heaven and Earth

 

 

All in all, the movie was very fun to watch, aside from all that killings and deaths, the battle scenes and the scenes where they formulate plans, they have the right mixture of seriousness and humor. The comedic scenes gives a comedic relief from all of those deaths. I recommend that you watch the whole of the movie since you will be able to learn a part of China's History and it really is a good watch.