I've been anticipating The Battle of Red Cliff for years now. Originally the cast was supposed to be Chow Yun-Fat, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Ken Watanabe and the prospect of those in a potential return to form of John Woo seemed a mouthwatering one. What ended up happening though was Watanabe was dropped after objections to a Japanese actor playing the part, then Leung pulled out after exhausting himself with Lust, Caution. Leung had a very fine replacement in Takeshi Kaneshiro and Chang Chen was added to the cast but then on the day production began Chow quit and coming full circle Leung was drafted in to replace Chow. I've watched this online because it is a 300 minute 2-part film in South East Asia, but the western audience will only have one 2 and a half hour cut, so I took the only opportunity I'll get to see the first half in its intended form (the second half comes out in Asia around the time the cut version will hit European screens).
The story basically is that the Prime Minister Cao Cao (originally supposed to be Watanabe, substituted ably by Zhang Fengyi from Farewell My Concubine and The Emporer and the Assassin) has manipulated the Han ruler into allowing him to wage war on two southern warlords, Liu Bai and Sun Quan (Chang). The bulk of the story is how Liu Bai's chief strategician Zhuge Liang (Kaneshiro) formulates an alliance between the two by getting Sun Quan's viceroy Zhou Yu (Leung) to agree to join forces. Such an alliance will only legitimise Cao Cao's war but is necessary to stave him off.
Woo as always has some very nice visuals and kinetic editing. The sets and costumes are first rate, but the sets in particular lack the scale and grandeur of other films in the genre (think the excellent Hero or even the awful The Banquet). Also lacking is the special effects - the CGI blood looks very fake, as do the arrows later on and some of the wirework in the opening fight scenes is as dodgy as it was in The Banquet as you can see people being thrown around whilst clearly not touching the weapons that move them. This also goes for the up close fight scenes as people are diving around and it's clear they've not been hit. The sloppiness in the opening half hour is alarmingly surprising. The opening third then feels quite rushed and low rent, even the score seems cheaply done.
After the 40 minute mark we meet Tony Leung and the second act is Kaneshiro getting him to play ball. The tone of the film here starts going very strange as comedy is introduced - it works better the longer they do it (especially with Zhao Wei playing the role of Sun Quan/Chang Chen's tomboyish sister) but it's jolting when they first introduce it with Leung. It's this period which should get chopped out in the western cut, there's rather cheesy things going down left and right (even a ridiculous "jam" on musical instruments Leung and Kaneshiro have) and a lot is superfluous relationship building. I use that phrase very specifically because it's not really character, you know people's skills but not what drives them as people - the film is not deep in that respect so the opening act is setting up the political situation and then the second act the bringing together of the parties. The third act though is where it picks up.
There is an absolutely fantastic battle sequence lasting a full 20 minutes (with an additional 5 minute expertly cross-cut preview of the tactical thinking of both sides before we launch into it) - this is the reason to see the film. It's not insanely artistic, it's not a War and Peace 1812 type of battle sequence, neither is it a hyper stylised Zhang Yimou or meticulously choreographed Ang Lee type, rather it has its roots in the long battle scenes Kurosawa Akira used to treat us to. It's extremely entertaining, lightning fast and has the perfect balance between tactical intelligence and visual flair. The final 15 minutes of the film though are merely there set up the next one, so it does end on rather a flat note.
So overall this is a very mixed bag of a film. It's got a budget of supposedly $80m, but it's not all on the screen, their ambition is so much that what they are trying to do means even with that lavish a budget they're still cutting corners here and there and the film suffers for it, especially in the first half. While Woo definitely has an eye for an image (especally the waving flags throughout), there are some mis-steps such as a cheesy multiple zoom-ins. As poor as the opening fight scenes are, the final battle is just magnificent entertainment. The acting is in the main very solid, but this isn't an actors' film, it's a director's film and Woo hits as often as he misses. That said though when it hits non-Asian screens some of these criticisms may not be as resonant with half of the entire finished product being chopped away, but there is more than enough in there to anticipate the second half or the new cut as being worth checking out. This version on its own merits is no Hero or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but equally it's better than the Warriors of Heaven and Earth and The Banquets of this world, so a decent example of the genre.