i've been a john woo fan for years.
but never did i imagine that the legendary mr. woo would do a wuxia film.
this is a movie about the intricate Romance of the 3 Kingdoms, one wrong move and you will be chastised for screwing with history. But John outdid himself on this one.
one look at this film and you can see that they didn't scrimp. the costumes and the sets were elaborate. in fact i read from wikipedia its THE most expensive Asian film ever made to the tune of U$ 80m. Taro Iwashiro of Samurai X did the soundtrack, giving the movie a more "Asian" feel instead of using traditional Chinese wuxia soundtracks. And you can tell this is a BIGASS John Woo films because I think he used the "flying dove" scene at least 4 times and at different camera angles. hahaha all these for the love of birds.
the movie starts with Tsao tsao, the prime minister of Imperial Han "armtwisting" the emperor to attack rebel forces in the South to unify China. Back then China was divided into small kingdoms governed by feudal lords. 2 prominent lords were heading the South- Liubei and Sun Quan. LiuBei was the royal uncle and Sun was the head of Wu kingdom. So Tsao tsao the biggest badass in Chinese history setforth his Napoleonic conquest with hopes of seizing the throne for himself after conquering all of China. First to fall was the kingdom of Liu Bei. They were outmanned and they had to protect the people who were caught in the crossfire. Liu Bei was a softie but he had brave men under his command. And moving bravado and camarederie made this film endearing almost in a brokeback way.
He also had China's greatest military strategist and advisor- Zhuge Liang. (This is my disppointment of the film, they casted Takeshi Kaneshiro for such a big role because this guy looks Zoolander dumb.) Zhuge suggested they join forces with Sun since they will be next.
So off he goes to Wu to convince Sun, who has some inferiority complex issues himself (I'm no good, my big brother always whooped my ass, but I'm glad he's dead.) Zhuge Liang also needs to convince Zhou Yu China's answer to Patton for his quest to be triumphant. So he goes to Zhou Yu first, since this dude commands the naval army.
Zhou Yu wasn't a regular dude. He's a rockstar ahead of his time. Not only does he rock with his chin (the chinese version of the guitar this was used in Kungfu Hustle with the 2 blind men)
he also has a rocking hot wife, Xiao Chiao (who didn't appear in the history books nor the novel)
She apparently was the object of lust of Tsao tsao, who jacks off to a very ancient centerspread scroll of her at his room; making her this story's Helen of Troy. Zhou Yu was the master of naval warfare and was the friend of Sun Quan.
Zhuge Liang earned his spot as a cool dude to Mr. Zhou when he delivered the breech birth of Zhou's horse. Then during night they jam together to dueling chins. After that, Zhu gets Zhou's nod through music, talk about a higher form of musical understanding beyond us. So fucking Freudian!
Anyway it was Zhou's turn to convince Sun and they go tiger hunting. This is a parallelism to Sun conquering his inner demons. Thank God, WWF and PETA still wasn't around back then to stop them, if not somebody's about to get their head chopped off. So Sun kills off tiger and uses the fur as his bathroom carpet, kidding! They declare war on Tsao tsao by not answering Tsao's letter of surrender. Well back then, it's the simplest way of flicking your middle finger.
This angers our Tsao-ey so he sails off to attack them but he sends off his land forces first to test his opponents. Zhuge and Zhao sets off the most amazing formation in military history -the BAGUA! The bagua is literally the turtle or the ridges at the back of the turtle, creating a labyrith for your opponents, when they enter, nobody comes out.
Tsao's forces falls into their trap. And we see the most AWESOME and violent fight in wuxia history to rival that of Lord of the Rings! My jaw dropped so low I had to tie it back on.
Next scene we see Tsao's massive naval fleet at the shore ready to launch their attack.
Zhuge and Zhou check each other out, adoring the other like male dogs sniffing each others butts. Hahaha They comtemplate that this will be their fight together and the next time they might be on different sides. The irony! Love it!
Can't wait for part 2.
Red Cliff 4 meatballs out of 5
There were too many establishing shots
and unnneccesary scenes
but the bigness was incredible
immerse yourself in romaticized and fictionalized Chinese history
watch it
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