Red Cliff: A Chinese Mythic Tour-de-Force

John Woo's Red Cliff represents something of a coming-of-age for Chinese cinema. Both brutal and beautiful, this is a military epic that can contend for pride of place with the best American-made films in the genre. It is thematically similar to Kingdom of Heaven, in that it involves a small, embattled army using unconventional tactics to outwit a much larger attacking force. Here, however, the strategies draw on the insights of Taoism and Sun Tzu as well as the scientific invention that dominated Kingdom of Heaven. There are definitely Western influences at work here-- witness, for example, the feminist princess Sun Shangxiang who refuses an arranged marriage and fights alongside the men in battle-- but the film also reflects the beauty of China and of Chinese culture. Stunningly panoramic landscapes are complemented by beautiful Chinese poetry, profound philosophy, haunting traditional music, and artful dance and martial arts choreography.

Western viewers who disliked the unrealism of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon will be happy to know that there is no flying or magic here, though certainly some of the combat scenes have more in common with a Jackie Chan flick than with the gritty realism of some Western war movies. This serves to give the film a more mythic than historical flavor; indeed, the viceroy Zhao Yu and the strategist Zhuge Liang are more like mythic prototypes of a Confucian and a Taoist master than realistic characters. Fortunately they are portrayed tastefully enough that they don't come across as caricatures. All in all, a fine film that marks China's maturation as a fully modern power tempered by moral and religious sensibilities and possessed of exquisite aesthetic tastes. Well worth seeing in its original five-hour version rather than the much-reduced theatrical cut, which leaves out most of the character development and fixates on the battle sequences.