For this movie , there will be two main groups of audience. First, there'll be those who know little about the background, be it historical fact or the romanticized historical fiction "The three kingdoms". At the other end of the spectrum, there'll be those who are familiar with the Battle of Red Cliff (be it historical fact or popular novel) just as some people are familiar with Camelot or Alamo. I'm not quite sure which group I am thinking of when I write these comments; probably a bit of both. One more preliminary people who have watched Red Cliff 1 would realize that "2" is not a sequel, but the second half of ONE movie that has been artificially severed into two. Not that this sort of thing has not been done before, but I hope that movie makers will refrain from doing it again. It's not fair to the audience. Italy's "The best of youth", is not an iota too long at its 6 hours of running time because it's such a good movie. Red Cliff should be trimmed to a single movie of three-and-a-half to four hours.
Right at the start of "2", we see some of the clever things John Woo has done bringing the audience closer, with connection to the modern world. It actually starts with a soccer game-a-la-Han-Dynasty, played by the soldiers for relaxation before the big battle. This is not far-fetched, as the game may well have been played in the same manner back then as it is today. Then there is even biological warfare when Cao Cao sends bodies of his infected dead soldiers on rafts drifting into his enemy's camp. But there are also things that ARE far-fetched, such as Princess Sun (ZHAO Wei) playing spy, disguising as a soldier living in the enemy's camp.
A really smart thing though is taking two well-known anecdotes and running them parallel as reciprocal challenges between the two top-notch strategists Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), each putting his life down for failing to fulfill his end of the bargain. Their assignments, respectively, are to trick Cao Cao into killing his two best generals and to secure a huge supply of arrows from heaven knows where. This is one of the best parts of the movie, filled with dramatic tension as well as relieving humour. Depicting the rivalry-cum-comradeship between two heroes who have great respect for each other is of course vintage John Woo.
The heart and soul of the movie, the battle itself, is a joy to watch. I wouldn't dwell on the technical side other than complimenting on the high standard it has achieved, under the hands of no less than three technical directors. At the helm, John Woo has again done something very clever removing the supernatural element of the original novel which has Zhuge Liang "calling" the wind to change direction to sweep the fire into the enemy warships. Instead, he attribute the critical event to the strategist's ability, be it an art or a science, to predict weather patterns. On the debit side of the balance sheet, however, there is another very far-fetched arrangement, for Zhao Yu's wife Xiao Qiao (Lin Chi-ling), whom Cao covets, to go into the enemy camp by herself and delay Cao's decision making by just enough to completely tip the scale of the battle another instance in movies when the audience are asked to stretch their gullibility to the limit.
One cannot help but notice that the two flaws in the movie involve the two female leads. I think there is a logical reason. "The three kingdoms" is a macho story. In enriching the movie for general consumption, John Woo has to create material for his two female leads almost out of a vacuum. He has in fact been quite successful, from the angle of dramatic appeal, albeit at the cost of some sacrifice of common sense and logic.
This is a high quality, entertaining movie which John Woo has succeeded in creating by a very clever decision to concentrate on a simple agenda - The Battle of Red Cliff despite the lure of numerous potential sub-plot. The entire cast performs well (although some better than others), at least maintaining the level they have achieved in "1", and some with developments and growths that the audience will be delighted to see (most noticeably Lin Chi-ling). Obviously, it cannot conclude without John Woo's signature scene of a face off this time, it is swords rather than guns. From John Woo fans, this will extract smiles of recognition or chuckles of merriment. But never mind. It's just a movie. The pigeons in this movie, at least, serve a real purpose.
Right at the start of "2", we see some of the clever things John Woo has done bringing the audience closer, with connection to the modern world. It actually starts with a soccer game-a-la-Han-Dynasty, played by the soldiers for relaxation before the big battle. This is not far-fetched, as the game may well have been played in the same manner back then as it is today. Then there is even biological warfare when Cao Cao sends bodies of his infected dead soldiers on rafts drifting into his enemy's camp. But there are also things that ARE far-fetched, such as Princess Sun (ZHAO Wei) playing spy, disguising as a soldier living in the enemy's camp.
A really smart thing though is taking two well-known anecdotes and running them parallel as reciprocal challenges between the two top-notch strategists Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), each putting his life down for failing to fulfill his end of the bargain. Their assignments, respectively, are to trick Cao Cao into killing his two best generals and to secure a huge supply of arrows from heaven knows where. This is one of the best parts of the movie, filled with dramatic tension as well as relieving humour. Depicting the rivalry-cum-comradeship between two heroes who have great respect for each other is of course vintage John Woo.
The heart and soul of the movie, the battle itself, is a joy to watch. I wouldn't dwell on the technical side other than complimenting on the high standard it has achieved, under the hands of no less than three technical directors. At the helm, John Woo has again done something very clever removing the supernatural element of the original novel which has Zhuge Liang "calling" the wind to change direction to sweep the fire into the enemy warships. Instead, he attribute the critical event to the strategist's ability, be it an art or a science, to predict weather patterns. On the debit side of the balance sheet, however, there is another very far-fetched arrangement, for Zhao Yu's wife Xiao Qiao (Lin Chi-ling), whom Cao covets, to go into the enemy camp by herself and delay Cao's decision making by just enough to completely tip the scale of the battle another instance in movies when the audience are asked to stretch their gullibility to the limit.
One cannot help but notice that the two flaws in the movie involve the two female leads. I think there is a logical reason. "The three kingdoms" is a macho story. In enriching the movie for general consumption, John Woo has to create material for his two female leads almost out of a vacuum. He has in fact been quite successful, from the angle of dramatic appeal, albeit at the cost of some sacrifice of common sense and logic.
This is a high quality, entertaining movie which John Woo has succeeded in creating by a very clever decision to concentrate on a simple agenda - The Battle of Red Cliff despite the lure of numerous potential sub-plot. The entire cast performs well (although some better than others), at least maintaining the level they have achieved in "1", and some with developments and growths that the audience will be delighted to see (most noticeably Lin Chi-ling). Obviously, it cannot conclude without John Woo's signature scene of a face off this time, it is swords rather than guns. From John Woo fans, this will extract smiles of recognition or chuckles of merriment. But never mind. It's just a movie. The pigeons in this movie, at least, serve a real purpose.