RED CLIFF (Warning: Spoilers)
The Good
- Tony Leung and Takeshi (Woo!)
- The Ba Gua Zhen fighting scene
- Whenever Tony Leung and Takeshi appears
- Humourous lines
The Not So Good
-Zhaoyun's heroic saving Liu Bei's child scene.
(Why is it not so good?
1. The Zhaoyun looks too old.
2. It has little to do with the Battle of Red Cliff - not to the point, making the film unnecessarily long.
3. The scene has been depicted much better in Three Kingdom - Resurrection of Dragon by Andy Lau.)
- Zhangfei fight enemy soldiers alone and weaponless in Ba Gua Zhen scene.
(Why is it not so good?
1. It is one thing to fight through the enemies alone when one is behind the enemy line, eg. Zhaoyun save A-Dou. But it is another thing for one to fight through the enemies alone when the enemies is behind one's line. And it was the pinnacle of stupidity for one to fight empty-handed in this kind of situation, no matter how 'invincible' the person is. What is the director trying to show???
I suspect John Woo played too much Dynasty Warrior...
2. Zhangfei was famous for wielding the Snake Spear. Why the hell did he want to fight empty handed?)
- The 10 mins Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang playing gu zhen scene.
(Why is it not so good?
1. I personally love most kinds of art form, including Chinese Music.
(In fact, the next time if I have a chance to write a script for a play, I planned to have a scene in which the actor will write a very meaningful poem about The Importance of Having Peace in Life in Chinese Calligraphy before live audience for a full 30 minutes.)
However, it just happens that I am not prepared to appreciate chinese music for that long in an action war film, after work.
2. The Zhou Yu here seems too nice to Zhuge Liang compared to what is depicted in the novel. There is nothing wrong... I am just not too used to it. Haha!)
- Lord of the Rings' never-ending army scene
(Why is it not so good?
1. Erm... it is not bad la... but it is not good either... Ever since Lord of the Rings, every single films and even TV shows with an army in it will use the same computer graphics to achieve the never-ending effect. It shows serious lack of creativity... and makes it looks like Chinese version of Lord of the Rings.
I understand that John Woo is trying hard to make it an epic la... But he tried too hard.)
- After an agonising 2.5 hours, only 2,000 out of Cao Cao's 800,000 men was defeated - that was less than 0.3% of Cao Cao's army!
(Why is it not so good?
1. It is a little unproportional for a 2-episode movie. One may wonder maybe they should just watch the 2nd episode. Afterall it is where 99.7% of the action is.
2. I felt cheated. Haha!)
Conclusion
We can obviously seen from the movie that the director originally meant Red Cliff to be a Block Buster Lord-of-the-Ring-like Epic movie with lots of big casts. However, perhaps due to budget constraint, or perhaps due to alot of big stars fly aeroplane, in the end only Tony Leung and Takeshi were left.
And the story is scripted in such a way that a lot of the plot were focus on secondary actors - Zhaoyun, Guanyu, Zhangfei, Liu Bei (who are those actors anw???), Xiaoqiao and Sun Shang Xiang (WTH has Sun Shang Xiang gotta do with Red Cliff?????). As a result, Tony Leung and Takeshi cannot really shine in the movie.
As a Block Buster Epic film, Red Cliff, having so many Not-So-Good points, has failed completely. Instead it became a 'B' grade movie that is a tad too longwinded. Even though it is still an average 'B' grade movie, I am very disappointed that it isn't the 'A' grade Epic that it should have been.
...Perhaps those big stars quit after reading the script?
Hancock (no spoilers)
In stark contrast compared to Red Cliff, Hancock is only 1.5 hours long. I went to watch with ZERO knowledge of it and its plot except that it was acted by Will Smith, one of my favourite actors. What I got was one surprise after another. Halfway through, the plot twisted in such a way that leave me absolutely flabbagasted. Though the ending is a Ten-Years-Series cliche ending, I left the cinema satisfied and happy.
Hmmm for those who don't know anything about Hancock's story (like me last time), if you want to know, I shall give a one sentence sypnosis that will reveal the first surprise (at least for me) below. Read on if you want to know:
Hancock (Will Smith) is a powerful superhero that had saved lifes and done a lot of good deeds. However, THE PUBLIC HATES HIM. Why? What will he becomes? Where did he come from?
Very highly recommended. An 'A' grade action movie.
Well, for "Red Cliff", Jiamin and I were discussing that some of the roles assigned to the actors are just wrong, like Liu Bei is too old, Zhou Yu should be younger and not so \'dai\' looking, etc. Haha.. but overall, it\'s considered good for a history movie.
ReplyDeleteHmmmm did a little google search... Liu Bei at that time was 47 years old, Zhouyu was 33, Zhuge Liang was 27. Tony Leung now is 46. Maybe he should have acted as Liu Bei?? HAHAHA!
ReplyDeleteBut who cares about Liu Bei anw?? Historically Liu Bei only played a small part in the Battle of Red Cliff... dun understand why they want to include plot abt him and Sun Shang Xiang... totally no link. And \'Zhao Wei hit the horse\' scene is damn cock and redundant. I am willing to bet it didn\'t happen historically, so technically it is not a history movie. Haha!
Haha bro, we seldom see eye to eye in this kind of thing ya? Anw thanks for the humorous and long comment. I am glad u enjoyed the movie.
ReplyDeleteBtw I am not saying it is a bad movie. All I am saying is that it can be better. When you yawned during the movie, and you noticed that the person next to you also yawned during the movie, it already tells you that the movie is not GRIPPING enuf for you to pay 100% attention watching it. Remember the \'Watching Play/Movie Is Just Like Driving Theory\' I told you? Just my personal opinion.
Anw rebutting ur
"And your point on being unproportional, hmmm, never tot I would hear something as noobish as that coming from you. A lot of things really need time to introduce them, just like in LOTR."
John Woo spent 1.25 hrs introducing Zhao Yun, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Zhou Yu, Gan Ning, Sun Shang Xiang, Xiao Qiao, Sun Quan in roughly equal proportion. So many characters, where is the depth?
(Also, even YOU can see that John Woo is introducing character!!! That means he is introducing for the sake of introducting! Think the Dark Knight. Where does the director stop introducing Batman, Joker, Harvey Dent and where does the \'main battle\' begins?)
In the next 1.25 hrs during the major battle scene, how many characters had he used?
Do you think he need to introduce, say, Zhao Yun, to such great detail? Unproportion.
2000 out of 800000. A seemingly major, important and brilliant victory turns out only to be a minute win. A big anticlimax. Unproportion.
Of course I am picking bones out of the egg. But such a major production shouldn\'t have bones in it. That is all I am saying. =)
lol, indeed we seldom see eye to eye in these things. Maybe I got poor taste, but I like to think I am more willing to accept other ppl\'s point of view. I havent watch Dark Knight yet, so I really have no idea what you mean by that reference. Perhaps I will have a clearer picture when I watch it (I hope) this weekend. Yeah, I would agree that the characters are introduced, but not really developed. So there is a bit of half f-ed introduction and development feeling to it if we really think about it. I would say its not really possible to introduce those ppl within 1.25 hours, but then I still do appreciate that they are introduced at all, and not the movie jumping to Red Cliff straightaway. Actually, I would say John Woo is favouring the Shu ppl. In the first 1.25 hours, we saw Zhao Yun\'s courage, Guan Yu\'s towering honor, Zhang Fei\'s prowess, Liu Bei\'s compassion, Zhuge Liang\'s resourcefulness, SSX\'s tomboyishness, Xiao Qiao\'s really extraness, Gan Ning is not developed, Zhou Yu oso not really developed, except we can see he can really connect with ZhugeL.But still, if he doesn\'t intro at all, I would still feel something is wrong. Actually I wouldn\'t say that win was major or significant. It was a probe, and both sides knew it. It happened on a nameless plain which no one wants, so both sides dun really really care. The only think it showed was Cao Cao\'s towering military numbers over Wu and Shu. Cos CaoCao lost, but it din hurt him. ZGL and ZY won, but they din get anything. CaoCao only sent 2 clowns which I cant even catch the names of, but ZGL and ZY sent pretty much everyone they had so far. That scene, more than anything, was probably to demonstrate how much shyt ZGL and ZY is in. Its not the climax, and its not meant to be.
ReplyDeleteDamned. Did I watch a movie with no climax??? Hahaha!
ReplyDelete