Red Cliff (Pt 1 & 2) 赤壁

Rating (out of 4) : ***

I am thankful that John Woo has made Red Cliff (Pt 1 & 2) without overly focusing on the grand battle scene. The original material which the films were based upon, 'The Romance of the Three Kingdom', is a work with considerable depth, and John Woo's films lend justice to that.

Yes, 'Red Cliff' has loads of grand battles, some a bit overlong. But the films are also as much about the mechanics of warfare too; the planning, the strategy, the war tactics, great minds outsmarting each other, the organizational structure within a war faction. These, are in fact, elements that I find more interesting.

The mechanics in which the war factions organize themselves was elaborately presented by John Woo, so much so that it can be seen as a parable to the way humanity organize themselves. At the very top, you have warlords like Liu Bei and Sun Quan. In the business world, they will be the business owners, the ones with the vision. They assembled a team of able and trusted lieutenants to work with him in achieving his vision. At the foreground, the warlord (business owner) may not be doing much. The actual running of the army is left to a commander-in-chief like Zhou Yu, much like the CEO is the one who run the business. Nevertheless, the warlord is the ultimate leader, who first came out with the vision and build an organization from scratch to achieve it. They, the successful ones, often live by a certain principle and thus command respect and loyalty from his top lieutenants. In the film, Liu Bei stood firm by his principle to protect his citizen, even if that means he will have to concede defeat to his enemy due to that.

The commander-in-chief (CEO) run the business, they get the job done for the warlord (business owner), but they are often professionals who may switch sides by working for another warlord (business owner). Still, as the film shows, a successful war campaign (business) needs a loyal partnership between the warlord and his commander-in-chief, that's where the warlord (business owner) needs to be trusworthy and charismatic to make his top lieutenants believe in his vision.

Under the commander-in-chief, there are the other top generals like Zhao Zilong, Guan Yunzhang, Zhang Fei and Zhu Geliang, not unlike the COO, CFO, CTO, Regional Chiefs who formed the top management team of a business organization. The chain of command goes right down to a bomb maker who make bombs out of fish oil. He is like a project manager, no?

Hell, even top generals had to deal with tight deadlines, and the punishment for not meeting the deadlines? Death by beheading. I would have been dead many times have I lived in those time.

Of course, you also have variation in roles like Chao Cao, who's more like an owner/CEO. Zhu Geliang is not quite a CEO but a chief strategist, a master mind.

Cool huh?

Red Cliff is the kind of movie that sort of making the war looks pretty cool. In fact, the one attempt by John Woo to balance things up (to make it look ugly) by having an unnecessary romantic subplot involving Sun Shangxiang and a young rival army turn out to be rather, unnecessary.

If only John Woo has gone even deeper by exploring the personal conflict, the inner struggle of some of the major characters like Liu Bei, Sun Quan, Zhou Yu and Zhu Geliang, the moral dilemma of these people in fighting the war, Red Cliff would have been quite a package. Yes, yes, I know I am being fussy here. Still, Red Cliff deserves praise as a work that lend justice to its original materials. The production is impressive, the war game intriguing and the ensemble cast gave an imposing collective performance.

* Note: I choose to review 'Red Cliff (Pt 1 & 2)' as a single unit of work as I don't see any artistic reason of breaking it into 2 films. This is unlike Quentin Tarantino's 'Kill Bill Vol 1' and 'Kill Bill Vol 2', which posses qualities that justify them to be seen as 2 individual films. The decision to break 'Red Cliff' into 2 films must have been purely a commercial one.
Also, part of the reason is I happened to watch both the 'Red Cliff' films in a single day 4-hour-plus movie marathon, thanks to GSC who re-run part 1 which I have missed last year.