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Red Cliff - Evening Gazette

 
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 8:23 pm    Post subject: Red Cliff - Evening Gazette Reply with quote

Title: Red Cliff

Source: Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England). (June 12, 2009): Arts and Entertainment: p5.



Document Type: Brief article

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 MGN Ltd.

http://www.trinitymirror.com/

Full Text:

STARRING: Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Zhao Wei, Hu Jun, Shidou Nakamura, Chiling Lin, You Yong, Ba Sen Zha Bu, Zang Jingsheng, Wang Ning

DIRECTOR: John Woo CERTIFICATE: 15 RUNNING TIME: 147mins REVIEWER'S RATING: . . . .

SHOWING: Cineworld and Showcase

VERDICT: Woo's visual trademarks are in evidence - a fluttering dove, face-to-face stand-offs - while his script hammers home the underlying themes of nobility and fraternal bonding

DIRECTOR John Woo helms the most expensive Chinese language film in history and, set during the rule of the Han Dynasty in 208 AD, the scale of his historical epic is jaw-dropping.

Though the film's terrific battle scenes feature a cast of thousands, certain breathtaking sequences like 2,000 ships sailing up the Yangtze River require digital trickery.

The computer-generated visual effects don't always pass muster, but when Woo's camera is in the midst of the hand-to-hand combat, Red Cliff is truly a feast for the eyes.

The five-hour film was released in two parts in Asia, but the subtitled version halves Woo's ambitious vision - a growling voiceover distils key historical facts over opulent opening scenes at the court of weak Emperor Han (Ning).

His scheming Prime Minister Cao Cao (Fengyi) proposes that the emperor's vast army invades the land to the south and west under the control of Liu Bei (Yong) and Sun Quan (Chen) to unify China.

Liu Bei and his plucky generals Zhao Yun (Jun), Guan Yu (Bu) and Zhang Fei (Jingsheng) are defeated by Cao Cao's military might. Liu Bei sends his brilliant strategist Zhu-Ge Liang (Kaneshiro) to seek help from the young, impetuous Sun Quan via his powerful viceroy Zhou Yu (Leung).

The two huge armies congregate on the banks of the Yangtze River at Red Cliff, where Sun Quan's loyal general Gan Xing (Nakamura) galvanises his men into action..

Meanwhile, two women - Zhou Yu's wife Xiao Qiao (Lin) and Sun Quan's sister Sun Shangxiang (Wei) - assume pivotal roles in the mission to undermine Cao Cao's assault.

Red Cliff is surprisingly easy to follow despite the constant distraction of subtitles amid all of the beautifully-orchestrated carnage, which includes a tortoise formation set-piece that gives each of the generals a chance to shine in blood-soaked slow motion.

You can almost feel the singeing heat of the fiery climax that takes the battle to the water..

Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
"Red Cliff." Evening Gazette [Middlesbrough, England] 12 June 2009: 5. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 27 Feb. 2013.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 9:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Title: Red Cliff

Author(s): Derek Elley

Source: Daily Variety. 300.11 (July 21, 2008): p6.

Document Type: Movie review

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2008 Reed Business Information, Inc. (US)
www.variety.com

Full Text:

(Chi bi) (China-Japan-Taiwan-South Korea-U.S.)

A China Film Group (in China)/Avex Entertainment (in Japan)/CMC Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox (in Taiwan)/Showbox (in S. Korea) release of a China Film Group, Chengtian Entertainment (China)/Avex Entertainment (Japan)/CMC Entertainment (Taiwan)/Showbox, Taewon Entertainment (S. Korea)/John Woo presentation of a Lion Rock Prods. production. (International sales: Summit Entertainment, L.A.) Produced by Terence Chang, Woo. Executive producers, Han Sanping, Wu Kebo, Masato Matsuura, Ryuhei Chiba, Huang Chin-wen, Kim Wootaek, Ryu Jeong-chun, Co-producers, Anne Woo, Zhang Daxing, Yeh Ju-feng, David Tang, Wang Wei, Cheri Yeung.

Directed by John Woo. Screenplay, Woo, Khan Chan, Kuo Cheng, Sheng Heyu. Camera (CineLabs Beijing color, widescreen), Lu Yue, Zhang Li; editors, Angie Lana, Yang Hongyu, Robert A. Ferretti; music, Taro Iwashiro; production-costume designer, Tina Yip; sound (Dolby Digital), Roger Savage; sound designer, Steve Burgess; visual effects supervisors, Craig Hayes, Kevin Rafferty; visual effects, the Orphanage, CafeFX, Hatch Prod.; stunt supervisor, Dion Lam; stunt coordinator, Guo Jianyong; assistant directors, Albert Cho, Richard L. Fox, Thomas Chow; second unit directors, Zhang Jinzhan (army battles), Patrick Leung (naval battle); action director, Corey Yuen; casting, Cheng Jie. Reviewed at CGV Bucheon 3, South Korea, Juiy 19, 2008. Running time: 131 MIN.

Zhou Yu Tony Leung Chiu-wai
Zhuge Liang Takeshi Kaneshiro
Cao Cao Zhang Fengyi
Sun Quan Chang Chen
Sun Shangxiang Vicki Zhao
Zhao Yun Hu Jun
Gan Xing Shido Nakamura
Xiao Qiao Lin Chi-ling
Liu Bei You Yong
Lu Su Hou Yong
Sun Shucai Tong Dawei
Li Ji Song Jia
Guan Yu Basenzabu
Zhang Fei Zang Jinsheng
Huang Gai Zhang Shan
Cao Hong Wang Hui
Jiang Gan Shi Xiaohong
Kong Rong Wang Qingxiang
Emperor Xian Wang Ning
Lady Mi He Yin

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

(Mandarin dialogue)

One of the most ballyhooed Asian productions in recent history, and the most expensive Chinese-language picture ever, John Woo's costume actioner "Red Cliff" scales the heights. First seg of the two-part, $80 million historical epic--with "The Battle of Red Cliff" to follow in late January--balances character, grit, spectacle and visceral action in a meaty, dramatically satisfying pic that delivers on the hype and will surprise many who felt the Hong Kong helmer progressively lost his mojo during his long years Stateside. Pic may, however, disappoint those simply looking for a costume retread of his kinetic, '80s H.K. classics.

Film is pitched more at an older demographic than traditional Asian youth auds, and the July 10 release (in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and South Korea) faces heavy competition from other summer titles after its first frame. But robust initial returns point to the two-parter putting black ink on most investors' ledgers--apart, maybe, from Japanese investor Avex, which bankrolled more than half the budget. Non-Asian returns look to be much smaller, especially as, in the West, the whole 4 1/2-hour movie will be available only in a single, 2 1/2-hour version that could end up losing much of the character detail that motors the production.

Detailing an incident familiar to auds throughout Asia, script by Woo and three other writers mixes elements from history (as recorded in a 3rd-century chronicle by Chen Shou), the freely fictionalized classic "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" by 14th-century scribe Luo Guanzhong and their own filmic imagination into a dramatic stew that has engendered beaucoup debate among Asian specialists and auds who already have their own ideas on the characters from multiple comicbook treatments, TV drama series and school textbooks. However, given that these often contradict each other--even down to details of who were the good and bad guys--pic always faced an uphill battle pleasing everyone.

But the picture indisputably works on its own terms. Though this first part is a long warm-up to the part-two naval battle on the Yangtze River that saw the forces of the North rebuffed by those of the South, it contains more than enough action and drama to justify its length, as well as a cliff-hanger ending that leaves auds hungry for more.

Yarn opens in summer A.D. 208, with prime minister-cum-general Cao Cao (powerful Mainland vet Zhang Fengyi) asking permission from Han dynasty Emperor Xian (Wang Ning) to lead an expedition south to take on "rebellious" warlords Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Taiwan thesp Chang Chen). Jittery mood in the imperial court sets the stage for the political machinations that marble the whole movie--and forecasts the period of turmoil, known as the Three Kingdoms, that followed the imminent collapse of the 400-year-old Han dynasty.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Socko, 20-minute action sequence, as Cao Cao's massive army sweeps south and meets Liu's forces in the battle of Changban, establishes the gritty, chaotic tone of the movie's land warfare. Cool, almost grungy color processing, and action that's exaggerated but not mangalike, is underpinned by realistic costumes and design by ace art director Tim Yip. There's no clear sense of geography in the skirmishes, but maybe that's the point.

As Liu & Co. lick their wounds after their retreat, Liu's canny strategist, Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), proposes an alliance between him and Sun Quan vs. Cao Cao's seemingly unstoppable forces. Pic's second act broadens here, establishing the nervous, indecisive character of Sun Quan; his tomboyish sister, Sun Shangxiang (lively Mainland babe Vicki Zhao)--and last but not least, Sun Quan's commander, Zhou Yu (H.K. heartthrob Tony Leung Chiu-wai).

Appearance 40 minutes in of toplined Leung (a last-minute replacement for Chow Yun-fat) adds some real emotional heft to the drama. Though not the most physically imposing thesp in the cast, Leung is easily the subtlest, and character's musical interests add extra layers to what, until then, has been simply a sturdy historical actioner.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Main cast has few weak links and traverses all shades of character. Zhang and Leung dominate the movie, while Kaneshiro is fine as wily strategist Zhuge, and Zhao adds welcome humor as the feisty princess. Chang is a tad lightweight in such company as the wimpish Sun, and Taiwanese supermodel Lin Chi-ling mostly decorative as Zhou's wife. Multitude of colorful supports is led by Mongolian actor Basenzabu as a warrior who's a one-man moving mountain.

Dark-toned color processing doesn't glamorize the period and adds gravitas to many of the youthful actors. Japanese composer Taro Iwashiro's multifaceted score--brazzy, playful, lyrical by turns--adds real dramatic clout throughout. Visual effects are just OK.

Version caught in South Korea (cut by local distrib-investor Showbox) was nine minutes shorter than that shown in Chinese-speaking territories, with a couple of scenes shortened, including a calligraphy sequence prior to Zhou making love to his wife. Japanese version, to be released later this year, will also be shorter than Woo's 140-minute cut.

Elley, Derek
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
Elley, Derek. "Red Cliff." Daily Variety 21 July 2008: 6+. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Title: to war; 'Red Cliff' brings ancient battle to life

Source: The Washington Times (Washington, DC). (Nov. 27, 2009): Arts and Entertainment: pB08.



Document Type: Column

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 The Washington Times LLC
http://www.washingtontimes.com/

Full Text:

Byline: Sonny Bunch, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

John Woo has been absent from the big screen for a while now, his last major film being 2003's Paycheck. He returned with a bang last year in China, debuting his two-part epic Chi bi Red Cliff ) to rave reviews and a box-office bonanza. The first chapter knocked off Titanic to become the highest-grossing film in China's history.

That four-hour epic has been condensed into one 2 1/2-hour movie for release in the United States. Those looking for the full experience can track down a region-free Blu-ray disc on eBay; those looking to cut to the chase and experience some expertly choreographed battle sequences with a minimum of back story can stick to the American release.

There is a legitimate trade-off between the two versions. Those with little knowledge of the Han dynasty's waning years (the third century A.D.) might be a little confused as to the power dynamics at play.

It seems that Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang) is in the process of overthrowing the Han emperor and needs to conquer the southlands - governed by Sun Quan (Chen Chang) and Liu Bei (Yong You) - to finish the job.

Sun and Liu must rely on their foremost advisers, Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), respectively, to take the battle to Cao Cao, who has encamped at the Red Cliffs.

In the U.S. version, all of this is secondary to the battle sequences, which are both numerous and impressively put together. Mr. Woo has always had a knack with action, and this movie is no exception: The hand-to-hand combat that takes up a good portion of the film is exciting and well-executed.

Perhaps even more impressively, Mr. Woo takes the time to show how the battle plans of Zhou and Zhuge come together. There is an emphasis on strategy that you don't often see in the sword-and-sandal-epic genre; the most entertaining sequence might come at sea without a single blow traded as Zhuge captures 100,000 of his enemies' arrows.

The actors are all top-notch, Mr. Leung in particular. A veteran of Asian cinema best known to Western audiences for his work with Wong Kar Wai in such movies as Ashes of Time, he has an innate grace and quiet ferocity that make for a fine combination in Red Cliff.

+++++

THREE STARS

TITLE: Red Cliff

RATING: R (sequences of epic warfare)

CREDITS: Directed by John Woo

RUNNING TIME: 150 minutes

WEB SITE: http://www.redcliff film.com/

MAXIMUM RATING: FOUR STARS

CAPTION(S):

Action-packed battle sequences and hand-to-hand combat take up a good portion of the U.S. version of Red Cliff. [NO CREDIT]

By Sonny Bunch, THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
"to war; 'Red Cliff' brings ancient battle to life." Washington Times [Washington, DC] 27 Nov. 2009: B08. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Title: THE REEL ESTATE: Woo's 'Red Cliff' technically high, dramatically low

Source: Daily News Egypt (Egypt). (Oct. 16, 2009): News:

Document Type: Article

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 Al Bawaba (Middle East) Ltd.
http://www.egyptdailynews.com/

Full Text:

This will probably provoke the ire of action film fans everywhere, but I have to get this off my chest: I've never been a fan of John Woo.

Yes, the same John Woo credited for ushering a new age of action in both Asia and Hollywood; the John Woo who brought Hong Kong cinema to the forefront of world attention with his signature brand of stylized and ultra-violent action.

Yet for all his technical innovations, operatic violence and dizzying spectacles, I always remained unmoved, even by his best films.

After five years in hiatus, Woo returned to his native soil with the $80 million historical epic blockbuster "Red Cliff," China's highest grossing film of all time. Technically, the film is utterly impressive: breathtaking action sequences, incredibly lavish sets, lush cinematography and commendable special effects. Yet, once again, I was quite impassive to the experience in general, and the reasons are clear: characterization is fairly thin, the story has little relevance to the present and Woo's handling of the drama remains as shallow as ever.

John Woo emerged in the mid-70s as part of Hong Kong's New Wave directors that included Jackie Chan and Hark Tsui. For the most part of the 60s, Hong Kong was known for its martial arts and Kung-Fu films. As the genre began to die causing several companies to fold, great Taiwanese producer Raymond Chow went to establish in the early 70s Golden Harvest, the legendary company that introduced Bruce Lee to the world.

The success of Golden Harvest opened Hong Kong cinema to the west. The special-effects hardware imported from the west aided the New Wave filmmakers to create a new style of flamboyant visuals and ingenious stunts. Their early works were rooted in classic Hollywood crime movies. Subsequent works returned to the Kung-Fu film conventions, dressed up in modern clothes via urban settings.Aa

Chan's films showed a strong inclination towards comedy while Hark was primary taken with fantasy. Woo, on the other hand, embraced the Kung-Fu themes of honor and male bonding, and it's those themes that informed his cohesive body work before he was discovered by Hollywood.Aa

A trio of films released in late 80s and early 90s established Woo as one of the most successful and influential Asian directors of his generation: "A Better Tomorrow" (1987), "The Killer" (1989) and "Hard Boiled" (1992). At that point, Woo's imprint was spread everywhere. Filmmakers the world over -- from Wong Kar-Wai and Quentin Tarantino to Egyptian directors Tarek El-Eryan and Mohammed El-Naggar -- were entranced by his style. Some, like El-Eryan, made an entire career out of ripping him off. Like him or not, Woo opened new possibilities for action that eschewed direct thrills for something grander, more poetic. And herein lies my problem with him.

I've always admired Woo's aesthetics and I do understand why his films are considered groundbreaking. But, apart from 1997's "Face/Off," none of his films truly engaged me. His notions of brotherhood and friendship never amounted to anything more than kitsch. His storylines were overdramatic while the homoerotic vibe that dominated his films was too blatant, bordering on parody.

The vast majority of Woo's films left me cringing in embarrassment, trying hard to like them but ending up with an unshakable feeling of indifference.

"Red Cliff" is Woo's best film since "Face/Off" and it's one of the very few pictures of his that I did enjoy.

Set in the year 208 AD near the end of the Han dynasty, the film chronicles the events leading to Red Cliff, the most famous battle in Chinese history as depicted in the 700-year-old classic Chinese novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

Zhang Fengyi plays Cao Cao, the sharp-witted, ambitious and blood-thirsty Prime Minister. Having conquered the North part of China, Cao Cao, under the pretense of wanting to unite all of China, launches a new campaign to overtake the Xu kingdom of the west.Aa

After enduring a crushing defeat by Cao Cao's army, Xu ruler Liu Bei (You Yong) realizes that his only hope to save his kingdom is to form an alliance with rival warlord Sun Quan (Chang Chen), ruler of the Wu kingdom. Liu Bei dispatches his wise military advisor Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro, from "House of Flying Daggers") to seal the deal with the Wu Viceroy Zhou Yu (Asian screen icon Tony Leung Chiu Wai).

There's a whole host of other characters, including Sun Quan's fearless tomboyish sister, Wei Zhao (Sun Shangxiang), who manages to infiltrate the enemy lines and Zhou Yu's faithful wife Xiao Qiao (gorgeous Taiwanese model Chiling Lin) whom Cao Cao covets.

The scope of Woo's vision reaches a new high with "Red Cliff," his first Asian film since "Hard Boiled." Stuffed with strikingly choreographed hand-to-hand combat, countless cunning strategies, imposing explosions, dazzling customs and bracing landscapes, "Red Cliff" is big, loud and brash.

All of Woo's hallmarks are in full display in here. The slow-mo action sequences, the occasional fast zooms, the swirling tracking shots, the freeze frames and his ubiquitous white dove. The latter is seen at the end of part one tearing up the sky to show the ground operations of Cao Cao's camp in a long, elaborate sequence that is both cheesy and oddly magnificent.

For all its sheer grandiosity and excess, "Red Cliff" could be Woo's most restrained film in a long time. The action sequences are far from realistic; men still glide in space while his infamous flying bullets have been replaced by razor-sharp arrows that catch fire along with a host of supplementary arsenal that incorporates bows and long spears.

For its deviation from gravity and laws of nature, "Red Cliff" is mostly grounded in reality; a refreshing change for a Woo film.

The real attraction of the film is the battle of wits between the two enemies that result in fantastic, highly entertaining tactics. Chief among them are an advancing tortoise formation, a ship full of large straw blocks that steals the enemy's arrow ammunition and the terrific naval battle at the end of the film.AaAaAa

The drama, on the other hand, is tediously flat. Woo's quintessential themes of male camaraderie, sacrifice and courage are front in center in "Red Cliff." But there's no tangible tension, mainly because of how one-dimensional the characters are. What we get instead are tacky scenes between Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu that see them expressing admiration for each other's talents and playing sweet music on ancient Chinese instruments.

The homoerotic ambiance is ever-present, but it feels so tired, adding nothing substantial to the drama as the relationship between the two heroes, and the other characters, remains fundamentally stagnant.

Subtlety has never been Woo's game, and "Red Cliff" is no exception. I enjoyed the mood of the film, savored the chivalry, nobility and valor of that time and was thoroughly entertained by the action and sumptuous production. But I left the film wanting more drama.

Woo's action works so well when the audience invest heavily in the drama. When they fail to do so, the impact falls dramatically. I personally didn't, and felt remote from the characters for nearly the entire duration of the film. The images that left a lasting impression on me are of burning ships, ravaging battles and cool swordfights. But no human face registered with me.

Daily NewsEgypt 2009

Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
"THE REEL ESTATE: Woo's 'Red Cliff' technically high, dramatically low." Daily News Egypt [Egypt] 16 Oct. 2009. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Title: Beyond the Blood, It's All About the Bonding

Author(s): Terrence Rafferty

Source: The New York Times. 158.54797 (Sept. 13, 2009): Arts and Entertainment: p36(L).



Document Type: Article

The New York Times

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com

Full Text:

UNTHINKABLY, no bullets fly in John Woo's ''Red Cliff,'' this Hong Kong action master's first new movie in six years. It's as hard to imagine a Woo film without firearms as it is to contemplate a Fellini movie without fat people. But ''Red Cliff'' is set at the beginning of the third century, in the contentious waning days of China's Han Dynasty, so Mr. Woo, though not by nature a stickler for realism, has to forego the solace of his customary ordnance -- automatic, semiautomatic, even the quaint revolver -- in favor of quieter instruments of death, like bows and arrows and long, sharp spears.

He's not entirely outside his comfort zone: things did, fortunately, catch fire every now and then in the third century, and sometimes exploded (though not, perhaps, quite as often or as spectacularly as they do in ''Red Cliff''). There were doves. And in the heat of battle men bonded, which is all John Woo needs to make even this ancient, gun-free tale his own.

When the smoke clears (which tends to take a while), Mr. Woo's movies almost invariably turn out to be about the mysteries and the sorrows of male camaraderie, as revealed, then heightened, by the threat of violent, untimely demise. ''Red Cliff'' (Nov. 20) is a grand-scale war movie -- it tells the story of a famous battle in the year 208, in which the forces of two of China's kingdoms combined to defeat the army and navy of a far more powerful third -- but practically all Mr. Woo's films are war movies at heart.

The Hong Kong gangster pictures that made his reputation, ''A Better Tomorrow'' (1986), ''The Killer'' (1989) and ''Hard-Boiled'' (1992), are notable for the sheer numbers of lethal gunmen they deploy on screen. In the big action scenes sharkskin-suited triad killers surge toward the camera in wave upon wave upon wave like an angry sea. Mid mayhem, the action often stops to allow the bloodied, valiant heroes to exchange a soulful look -- a moment Mr. Woo sometimes even freeze-frames for maximum virile significance.

Constrained a little by history, Mr. Woo indulges his taste for macho lyricism in ''Red Cliff'' somewhat less flamboyantly than he has in the past, but it's still present in measurable quantities, notably in the relationship between the Viceroy of the Kingdom of East Wu, named Zhou Yu (Tony Leung), and the cunning, quasi-mystical military strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Both are legendary figures in Chinese history, celebrated in fiction and poetry, and Mr. Woo, as is his custom, imagines them as larger-than-life brothers in arms, united in their deep understanding of the arts and rigors of war. They even play a duet on the Chinese zither called the guqin, harmonizing perfectly. (Zhuge Liang was well known for his proficiency on the instrument.) In Mr. Woo's films the heroes, one way or another, always make beautiful music together.

It's easy to ridicule these male-bonding fantasies, and the impossible forms they take in Mr. Woo's elaborately choreographed gunfights and battle sequences: the beleaguered protagonists, always heavily outnumbered, will often stand back to back, firing with both hands to repel the hordes of bad guys descending upon them; they'll toss guns to one another, with unerring accuracy, at critical moments; they'll dive and roll and leap in the air to save their buddies' skins; they'll trade quick glances to tip off a particularly daring move, and these looks, however apparently imperceptible, are always instantly understood.

Mr. Woo is so profoundly immersed in his heroic visions that he seems, winningly, kind of oblivious to the possibility of derision: the brazen nuttiness of scenes like the climactic hospital shootout in ''Hard-Boiled'' -- which goes on forever, piling improbabilities as high as corpses -- is evidence of something more than the desire to show off cinematic technique. (Though there's plenty of that on display.) It speaks of pure obsession.

Without that slightly demented singleness of purpose Mr. Woo would be just another action-movie virtuoso, blowing the audience through the back wall of the theater simply to prove that he can. (He would be, that is, Michael Bay.) And in the six Hollywood movies he directed between 1993 and 2003 -- ''Hard Target'' (1993), ''Broken Arrow'' (1996), ''Face/Off'' (1997), ''Mission: Impossible 2'' (2000), ''Windtalkers'' (2002) and ''Paycheck'' (2005) -- he never seemed fully himself, enjoyable though those pictures frequently were.

With the exception of the World War II combat extravaganza ''Windtalkers,'' Mr. Woo was compelled to jettison the romanticized male-friendship motifs that energized his Hong Kong films and to supply his action-figure heroes with female sidekicks in the effort, no doubt, to mute the homoerotic implications of his usual narrative style. The interactions of men and women in Mr. Woo's American movies are stubbornly perfunctory, and in the absence of close compadres the true heat in these pictures is generated by the symbiotic relationship between the (male) hero and the (male) villain: a twisted bond, but something, at least, for him to hold on to.

It's not about sex, really -- though when Chow-Yun Fat and Leslie Cheung gaze into each other's eyes in ''A Better Tomorrow,'' or when Tony Leung and Jacky Cheung act out a tearful death scene in ''Bullet in the Head'' (1990), you might be tempted to think so. The key to Mr. Woo's work, in a way, is in the opening scenes of ''Bullet in the Head,'' in which three Hong Kong teenagers race their bikes, fight boys from other gangs, play practical jokes on one another and dream of a more prosperous future. (It's 1967, and all Southeast Asia, not just Vietnam, feels like a combat zone.)

In the course of this melodramatic, passionate, insanely eventful movie, the childhood pals drift, together, into some pretty harrowing situations: fleeing murder charges in Hong Kong, they land in the nasty underworld of wartime Saigon then light out for the even more perilous countryside and wind up, in the film's most disturbing scenes, in a Vietcong prisoner-of-war camp.

And as they endure these serial ordeals, Mr. Woo periodically flashes back to images of their boyhood on the Hong Kong streets, as if those were the events that had most decisively affected their lives, the scenes they've been playing out over and over again as grownups, with increasingly tragic results.

Mr. Woo's sense of tragedy may be cartoonish at times, but its intensity and its sincerity are unmistakable, whether in goofy, borderline self-parodic films like ''Hard-Boiled,'' in florid action operas like ''Bullet in the Head'' and its American cousin ''Windtalkers,'' or in the somewhat more dignified costume-epic setting of ''Red Cliff.'' It's the vision of life of an imaginative, movie-mad boy, dreaming of John Wayne while he plays soldiers or cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians in the streets, shouting, ''Bang! Bang!'' as he rolls on the ground and comes up firing.

This is the secret, I think, of the strange sweetness that pervades his movies, even when the blood is spurting, the body count is mounting, and the bullets (or arrows) are pelting down like typhoon rain. Maybe you have to have been a boy yourself to appreciate fully the weird thrill of imagining yourself a legendary hero, ridding the world of evil in the simplest, most direct way possible: shooting it to ribbons.

And it's that visionary boyishness -- sustained, improbably, over the 62 years of Mr. Woo's life -- that makes his action-movie style so distinctive. There's no sadism in his cinematic bloodbaths and, often, not a great deal of clarity either: the violence comes at the viewer in a sensuous blur, headlong and immersive, exciting in some bizarrely pre-sexual way.

In ''Red Cliff,'' which was released in Asia as two movies, each two and a half hours long, Mr. Woo is back on home ground; it's his first Cantonese-language film in 17 years, and despite the unaccustomed historical setting and the whisper-silent weaponry, his work here seems surer, happier than it did during his Hollywood sojourn, as if he were remembering something lost. (In the United States ''Red Cliff'' is being shown as a single, speedy two-and-a-half-hour film, cut by Mr. Woo himself.) He gives in to his most poetic side, listening to the wind, as Zhuge Liang does, and letting it take him where it will.

The beauty of John Woo's best filmmaking is not in its sense of tragedy but in its sense of play, which is startlingly, and sometimes comically, unadulterated by the demands of physical reality. Bullets, arrows, spears and people all seem to fly, without obvious encumbrance, across the screen, as if in a boy's dream. Your comrades in arms are your friends forever; and your enemies, as a Song Dynasty poet wrote in a meditation on Zhou Yu, turn to ashes -- ''gone like smoke.''

It's mostly fake smoke in Mr. Woo's movies, but it's always in plentiful supply, and if you see it, as he does, with a child's eye, it looks better than the real thing. Mr. Woo, at one time the coolest director in the world, has usually been thought of as a guilty pleasure, but that now seems wrong. If you put a gun to my head, I'd say that he's a very, very innocent one.

CAPTION(S):

PHOTOS: Above, a scene from ''Red Cliff,'' which takes place during the third century in the waning days of China's Han Dynasty. Left, John Woo on the set of the film.(PHOTOGRAPHS FROM MAGNOLIA PICTURES)(AR36); Chow-Yun Fat in a scene from ''A Better Tomorrow'' (1986), directed by John Woo.(PHOTOGRAPH BY REPUBLIC ENTERTAINMENT)(AR56)

By TERRENCE RAFFERTY
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
Rafferty, Terrence. "Beyond the Blood, It's All About the Bonding." New York Times 13 Sept. 2009: 36(L). Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.


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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Title: Sound of smashing China; film reviews; John Woo has returned to his bloody roots, to the delight of Wendy Ide

Source: The Times (London, England). (June 11, 2009): News: p14.

Document Type: Article

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 NI Syndication Limited. The Times
http://www.thetimes.co.uk

Full Text:

Byline: Wendy Ide

Red Cliff **** 15, 148mins

After 15 years expertly playing the Hollywood game, the Hong Kong director John Woo returns to his roots, and to form. And what a relief it clearly is for the world's slickest action director to spill copious amounts of blood and explosives back on native soil.

Red Cliff is set in Han Dynasty China, in the year AD208. It's a world in which power-crazed despots recite their poetry to an appreciative audience of generals and warlords, then casually decapitate unfortunate messengers; a world where powerful warriors can be unmanned by a beautiful woman who makes a mean cup of tea. Brilliant military strategists from rival kingdoms cement their alliance, not through diplomacy, but through an impassioned duet on Chinese classical musical instruments. It sounds a little like somebody sawing a harp into small pieces but it's a deliciously over-the-top moment.

The film is loosely and colourfully based on a genuine historical period, a period that culminated in the most famous battle in Chinese history. But Woo's approach embraces the mythic and the fantastic - his is not exactly a kid-gloves attitude to factual accuracy. This is a thigh-slapping, rip-roaring yarn, in which brotherhood and honour are pitted against rapacious greed and lust.

Representing the latter camp is the ambitious and bloodthirsty Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi). Having conquered the north and reduced the emperor to little more than an impotent puppet, Cao Cao has set his sights on the Xu kingdom to the west. After a crushing defeat, the Xu ruler Liu Bei realises that his only hope is to form an alliance with the Wu kingdom to the south. To this end, he dispatches his brilliant military adviser Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) to meet the Wu Viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung). An alliance is forged, but more importantly, a friendship and mutual respect develops between the two men.

All this, however, is merely scene-setting for the real point of the movie - the ballet of impeccably choreographed combat that fills every frame. Woo's camera takes wing and swoops like one of his ubiquitous white doves, the better to appreciate the scale and ambition of this, the most expensive Chinese-language film yet made. He combines martial philosophy with gore-splattered hand-to-hand combat; ingenious military strategising with huge explosions and sizzling oceans full of burning boats. This vast spectacle is rooted in a battle of wits between three brilliant men. Even Woo's cornier tendencies - the aforementioned doves, a risible CGI rainbow - work better here than in his Hollywood films.

What's slightly disappointing is that Woo has been persuaded to tailor this version of the film for a Western audience. Chinese audiences will get to see the film in two parts, with a total running time of four hours, which admittedly might have proved heavy going for British viewers. That said, we probably didn't need the clumsy American narration that bogs down the opening of the film with a potted guide to 1st-century Chinese history.

CAPTION(S):

Zhang Fengyi as the ambitious, bloodthirsty Prime Minister Cao Cao in John Woo's Red Cliff

Wendy Ide
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
"Sound of smashing China; film reviews; John Woo has returned to his bloody roots, to the delight of Wendy Ide." Times [London, England] 11 June 2009: 14. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
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PostPosted: Wed Feb 27, 2013 10:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Title: Woo doesn't disappoint war-epic fan club

Source: The Toronto Star (Toronto, Ontario). (Dec. 4, 2009): Arts and Entertainment: pE06.



Document Type: Article

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2009 Torstar Syndication Services, a division of Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd.

http://www.thestar.com/

Full Text:

Byline: Jason Anderson

Red Cliff will need more marketing muscle than it's received so far in the West if it is to repeat the success it has already achieved in Asia.

Originally released in July 2008, the first part of director John Woo's lavish war epic beat out Titanic to become the highest-grossing film ever in mainland China. (It trounced The Dark Knight in South Korea, too.)

Based on a famous battle that took place at the end of the Han Dynasty in third-century China, the movie has also arrived in North America in truncated form. Whereas audiences in the East got 280 minutes' worth of battlefield derring-do in two parts, here we get a 148-minute version largely shorn of subplots.

What remains is still plenty rousing, especially to moviegoers eager to see Woo regain his footing after an increasingly dismal series of outings in Hollywood.

With Red Cliff, he once again fuses Eastern and Western cinematic sensibilities to thrilling effect. While it deserves a place alongside action-filled wuxia dramas such as Hero and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Red Cliff also brandishes the same bluster and swagger found in the great westerns of Anthony Mann and Sergio Leone.

The fact that it takes the ever-popular form of an underdog story adds to Red Cliff's appeal.

Though China was less a country than a series of feuding kingdoms during the time this tale takes place, much of the region had fallen under the control of the imperial army thanks to the ruthlessness of Cao Cao (Fengyi Zhang). Only the lands of the south resist the prime minister's rule. Outmanned, the combined forces of the southern warlords Sun Quan (Chen Chang) and Liu Bei (Yong You) must somehow stave off Cao Cao's legions.

Amid this vast array, two characters emerge as focal points Sun Quan's elegant, thoughtful viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Liu Bei's chief strategist Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro). That Cao Cao has long lusted after Zhou Yu's wife, Xiao Qiao (Chiling Lin), adds some romantic intrigue.

Of course, matters of the heart take a back seat to the actions of men. The war sequences are as grand as you would expect, given that Red Cliff was the most expensive Asian-financed production ever mounted. That said, its $80 million (U.S.) would barely cover the catering on a James Cameron set.

And whereas so many movies reduce the greatest moments in military history to hectic montages full of extras flailing around as the ground explodes, the two key set-pieces here are rendered with uncommon clarity and vigour.

Woo may be working on a much greater scale than he did with his classic Hong Kong action flicks of the '80s and early '90s, but the best moments of Red Cliff have the same finesse and precision that made The Killer and Hard Boiled such cult favourites in their day.

Elsewhere, it becomes clear that Woo's latest has lost some heft and texture during the crash diet required to reach its current running time. The characters also fit too neatly into the moulds of good guys and bad guys.

As a result, some may prefer Red Cliff in its supersized incarnation, yet the storytelling remains convincing and compelling throughout. A bold, thunderous martial drama with a defiantly old-school sensibility, Red Cliff is the rare movie epic that achieves its ambitions.Red Cliff

(out of 4)

Starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Chang Chen. Directed by John Woo. 148 minutes. At major theatres. 14A

CAPTION(S):

Chinese director John Woo is back to form, after a sojourn through Hollywood, fusing Eastern and Western traditions into a rousing action spectacle.

Jason Anderson
Source Citation (MLA 7th Edition)
"Woo doesn't disappoint war-epic fan club." Toronto Star [Toronto, Ontario] 4 Dec. 2009: E06. Infotrac Newsstand. Web. 28 Feb. 2013.
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