"You don't know what you're missing." As cliché phrases go, this one is definitely overused without merit. After watching the combined "Western" version of Red Cliff I can definitely say that I don't know what I'm missing. Combining two films that total 280 minutes into one abbreviated film of about 148 minutes must have been a very difficult task. Still, unless I track down imported bootlegs or read the Wikipedia summary, I won't ever notice a thing. This is both good and bad, as the film manages to carry on seemingly without notice.Red Cliff tackles the famous Chinese subject matter dealing with the time near the end of the Han Dynasty. If you're a gamer you've no doubt heard of or played the Dynasty Warriors and Romance of the Three Kingdoms games that have been based during this era. The Battle of the Red Cliff is legendary, to the point that a good portion of the factual basis of the story has been lost over time, with the most accurate being the Records of Three Kingdoms. For me to go into how everything, historically, happens would be a waste of your time and mine, so let me just get into what it is like to watch the film.
Posts
