Sightlines · reception
How Red Cliff was received
2008 · John Woo · Red Cliff on Sightlines
The arc
Asia got a two-part, four-and-a-half-hour blockbuster event that Woo fans hailed as his homecoming after a rough Hollywood decade; the West got a single cut with roughly half the runtime and a politer, cooler reception. Now the verdict has settled: this is late-period Woo's triumph — as long as you watch the full version.
What’s debated
The eternal Letterboxd refrain: which cut did you actually watch — because the truncated international version and the full two-parter are practically different films, and rating Red Cliff off the short one is treated as a cardinal sin.
Its footprint
For the Dynasty Warriors generation this is THE big-screen Three Kingdoms text, and Woo's trademark dove — here soaring in one long shot across the war camps — is the most affectionately memed moment, the director winking at his entire filmography.
Where it stands
Canon-climber and Hong Kong cinema fans' 'proof Woo never lost it' — the film people hand you after Hard Boiled to show the maestro's second act.
Did you know? Chow Yun-fat was set to star as Zhou Yu but walked off the production right as shooting began in April 2007; within about two days Tony Leung — who had himself earlier turned down the Zhuge Liang role — stepped in to play Zhou Yu instead, reuniting Woo with his Hard Boiled star.
Named by the director
- Akira Kurosawa — Woo has long cited Kurosawa as a master he studied, and invoked his epic battle staging when discussing Red Cliff.
- David Lean — Woo pointed to Lean's grand-scale epics as the model for the sweep he wanted Red Cliff to have.