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Review: Red Cliff

John Woo returns east
By BRETT MICHEL  |  November 25, 2009
3.0 3.0 Stars

 

Hong Kong auteur John Woo hit commercial and artistic pay dirt in the US with Face/Off, his loopy Nicolas Cage/John Travolta neo-noir, but once he’d directed Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible II, was there anywhere left to go? Consider that his last Hollywood picture was called Paycheck and you’ll understand why the 63-year-old returned East to mount the two-film, five-hour Chinese-language epic he’s been dreaming of since he was a young boy, one that would re-enact the famous Battle of Red Cliff from Luo Guanzhong’s 14th-century literary masterpiece, Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Recut into a single movie for non-Asian markets, Red Cliff bears the scars of its compression: front-loaded expository narration in English and far too many title cards introducing the major players replace quiet, character-building moments, putting the focus squarely on the action. But what action!

Reuniting with his Hard Boiled star, Tony Leung, Woo works on a scale never before attempted, with militaristic precision.

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ARTICLES BY BRETT MICHEL
Share this entry with Delicious
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    Let’s hope Chan’s fans back East never get a whiff of this one.
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    Ah, yes: the most wonderful time of the year, tinged with muddy snow and the creeping darkness of our most recent Depression.
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    Have you walked near a college campus lately? You might notice that the ’80s are creeping into fashion, the way the ’70s did a few years back, and with the same lack of irony. It’s happening in cinemas, too — something that’s not entirely unwelcome when it comes to the horror genre.

 See all articles by: BRETT MICHEL

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