Red Cliff News

As drama Red Cliff is overwrought. As spectacle, though, John Woos latest is the real thing, an old-fashioned cast-of-thousands collision of armies.Released last year in Asia as a four-hour, two-part special event, Red Cliff has been whittled down to 2 1/2 hours for its American release.

Here's a theory as to why director John Woo's classic mid-'80s Hong Kong action movies worked so well: everything was small.

Full details haven't yet been formally announced, but look for this disc to arrive with a 1080p transfer, a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound mix, a set of featurettes and a sneak peek of Toy Story 3 . SRP is TBD.

R ed Cliff , a new Chinese film about the nearly 2,000-year-old battle that ended a dynasty, lacks the narrative grandeur that might have been lent by a filmmaker like Zhang Yimou ; it's absent the gritty, in-the-trenches character studies of the best war films, like The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far.

I'm a bit mystified by the rationale some folks are using to try and not endorse The Princess and the Frog .

Originally released as two features totaling five hours but edited down to one two-and-a-half-hour movie for non-Asian release, the Chinese historical war epic Red Cliff is director John Woo's wildly successful return to his native country and language after an up-and-down decade in Hollywood .

After a decade navigating Hollywood, John Woo returned to China to make his latest film, but scale back he did not.

They say you can't go home again. Someone should have told John Woo. The 63-year-old film director first made a splash in the late '80s with high-powered urban Hong Kong crime dramas"Hard Boiled" and "A Better Tomorrow" . http://www.kansascity.com Coming to America in the '90s, he found a career directing action-drenched thrillers like "Face/Off," ...

Suddenly our Heritage Minutes don't look quite so impressive. Film Review: Red Cliff If you're a film director, you've got to love a country with a long and storied history.

When word got out that John Woo was making a historical war film, few knew what to expect.

Movie Review: Red Cliff John Woo knows there's nothing like visual aids to help you wrap your head around a classic like Sun Tzu's Art of War.

Mulan predates Disney and Ma Chou-sin but the Hong Kong director's latest movie about the warrior who famously replaced her father during a battle between the Southern and Northern dynasties is perhaps more of a fitting tribute.

After 17 years of high-stakes Hollywood action flicks such as "Mission: Impossible II" and "Face/Off," director John Woo returns to his native China and his "Hard Boiled" star, Tony Leung, to create an epic Asian adventure that can hardly be contained in its 2 1/2 . Woo's latest film, "Red Cliff," keeps the blood and humor flowing, winking at the ...

Carved from a two-part movie of nearly five hours, John Woo's humongous Chinese hit Red Cliff seems to be either too short or too long.

Zhang Fengyi as Prime Minster Cao Cao in "Red Cliff" Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing Red Cliff opens Friday in select theaters For the first half hour or so, I resisted John Woo's Red Cliff , his epic account of a series of battles that took place in China in the year 208.

Cao Cao surveys the kingdom he wants to rule in John Woo's sprawling "Red Cliff." At first glance, "Red Cliff" looks like an attempt to produce a hit in the same vein as "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." Both projects were helmed by Asian directors who have achieved success in the U.S., and both feature spectacular action.

Stars Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro. Rated R. Opens Wed., Nov. 25. At Landmark Midtown Arts Cinema.

Magnet Releasing has provided us with a brand new clip from John Woo's action epic Red Cliff , which has not yet been seen on the web.

Set in A.D. 208 and based on the 14th-century tale "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," the film depicts the struggle between Emperor Han and his power-mad general Cao Cao and the "traitors" warlord Liu Bei , his strategist Zhuge Liang , leader Sun Quan and his warrior-viceroy Zhou Yu .

Action director John Woo delivers an epic film of one of ancient China's most famous battles with "Red Cliff," a story so vast and complicated that he released it in two parts when it played to packed theaters all over Asia.