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Don’t believe what the trailer says about “the fight of a few.” Red Cliff features some of the largest, most spectacular battles you’ve seen in the cinema for a while. John Woo has indeed created a stunning war epic.

Red Cliff tells the story of one of the most famous battles in ancient Chinese history, fought in 208 A.D. between warlords Liu Bei (You Yong) and Sun Quan (Chang Chen) against the ruthlessly ambitious imperial prime minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi). The plot focuses on the chief strategists to Liu and Sun, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung, who worked previously with John Woo in his celebrated 1992 action flick Hard Boiled.

This film is so epic that the director had to split it into two parts, released six months apart in Asia. There is also a one-part version aimed at Western audiences which is greatly inferior to the film in its entirety, especially the horrible American voiceover in the pre-title sequence. The two-part version develops the characters much more thoroughly; many developments in the single film feel rushed and inadequately explained. The main instance is the love triangle between Tony Leung’s character Zhou Yu, his wife (played gracefully by newcomer Lin Chi-ling) and Cao Cao, which provides the rationale for Cao’s war of conquest.

But you were never going to see Red Cliff for its character arcs. The battle sequences demonstrate why this is the most expensive Asian film to date. The R rating is well deserved, as Woo doesn’t shy away from making the action as brutal as possible. Martial arts fans are well catered for by the thrilling (albeit at times ludicrously improbable) individual combats of the rebel generals. Although the CGI is occasionally obvious and the rebel warlords’ clever tactics prevent a straightforward battle against Cao Cao’s humungous navy, revealed in one of the film’s coolest tracking shots, the finale is Helm’s Deep all over again. It more than justifies the four hour wait.

3.5 stars
Directed by: John Woo
Starring: Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi
Rated R, 148 min. (one part)