red cliff

Usually when I do these reviews I'm pretty sure what I think about whatever it is I'm reviewing.

I mean, at the very least I'll know if I liked it or not. And I'll have a fair idea of the specifics - what about it I liked or didn't like. Often of course it's mixed - I liked it overall, but x, y or z annoyed me.

As you can probably guess, I'm not entirely sure whether I liked Red Cliff or not.

The Red Cliff in question is a place in China that was the site of a big battle some 2,000 years ago. If you've ever heard of the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history (which is the setting for the famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms stories) then the Red Cliff is, I believe, the history immediately prior to it.

Now that makes things a little difficult for me - I know next to nothing about Chinese history and this film does little to really clue you in. It's a bit like if you're doing a TV show about Churchill and you make the assumption everyone knows about Churchill. Fine, except for all the people who don't know about Churchill.

And what's more, there were a lot characters in this and they all have very Chinese names that are difficult for me (not least of all because it's all subtitled and they way the names were written was sometimes not anything like how they were said) so I have to confess I got a bit mixed up.

However, the different characters did have very recognisable personalities, and they all looked very different, so it wasn't that I couldn't tell them apart, it was just that when bloke a was going on about girl b who was off-screen I wasn't always sure who that was.

What also didn't help here is that there was very little real characterisation or depth. I understand that what I watched was a chopped down (it was still 2h20m) and stuck-together version of 2 films, so perhaps there's more of this sort of stuff in the original. Certainly, there was very little in the way of background to the film - again, I got that feel of "let's just get stuck into it everyone know the history already". But I didn't know it.

However, that approach also meant that something like 80% of the film was action stuff. There were at least 4 separate big battles, plus a lot more fighting besides. And given that it was directed by John Woo, these action sequences were really well done.

Which I think is where my real dilemma comes in - should I really be thinking of this as a Hong-Kong style action film?

If so, then actually it's a really good example of one - there was loads of really entertaining combat that was imaginatively shot but still really easy to follow and enjoy. In other words, if you look at it from that point of view, then the story is actually quite good in the sense that it doesn't' get in the way too much.

I guess the conclusion is that I did enjoy the film, but I would have wanted more depth and back-story for it to be elevated to a really great film.