Red Cliff (action)

[sanjeevifci]

John Woo returns to his Asian roots after a long gap of 17 years. And he returns with a huge reputation to live up to, having carved an enviable niche for himself in Hollywood with films like Mission Impossible, Broken Arrow and Face/Off. Ostensibly, he is the first Asian director to strike gold in mainstream Hollywood, much before Ang Lee mesmerised the West with Sense and Sensibility and Brokeback Mountain.

With Red Cliff, he takes on an ambitious project that ends up as one of the most expensive Chinese productions, mounted at a staggering cost of $80 million. But more than the money, it is the scale of the film that is majestic as it tries to analyse the art of warfare through a period film set in China's contentious past.

Woo sets his film in 208 AD when China was divided into three warring kingdoms. Each kingdom has its own hero, determined to defend territory at all cost. This time however, the Kingdoms of the south and the west come together in order to ward of the advancing armies of General Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) who seems to be the mightiest of them all, with an army of 800,000 soldiers. Only Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro, the brave generals from the other two camps, can act as spoilsport and prevent the power hungry Cao Cao from conquering the Red Cliff, a symbol of the sovereignty of the southern kingdom. But victory doesn't depend on the strength and might of the navy, army and cavalry alone in this copy book case of war; it depends on strategy too, which could empower even a lesser equipped band of warriors. As in the case of our defenders who use the direction of the wind to win an almost no-win battle.

Don't go looking for Zhang Yimou's period epics; nor expect the anti-gravity athleticism of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and you might just be mesmerised by John Woo's grandiose battles. But what you will sorely miss is the breathtaking cinematography and the feminine mystique that is so intrinsic to Chinese epical cinema. Of course there is the much touted cinematic debut of model Lin Chiling as Mrs Tony Leung and there is Vicky Zhao playing the feistyPrincess Sun Shan Xiang who infiltrates enemy territory. But, by and large, they remain by-standers in this all-male drama which mostly has one thing to boast about: the chemistry between Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro.