John Woo movie Red Cliff soars into local cinemas

10/13/2009

From John Woo, the acclaimed director of Mission: Impossible II and Face/Off, comes a dazzling visionary epic based on the legendary Battle of Red Cliff in which a force of 50,000 defeats an army of nearly one million.

In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minister Cao Cao convinces the fickle Emperor Han that the only way to unite all of China is to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus begins a military campaign of unprecedented scale, led by the Prime Minister himself. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu form an unlikely alliance. Numerous battles of strength and wit ensue, both on land and on water, eventually culminating in the Battle of Red Cliff. During the battle, 2,000 ships were burned, and the course of Chinese history was changed forever.

Woo was attracted to this story for more than 20 years, but back then, neither the technology nor the market could support a film of this scale and magnitude. The opportunity came in the summer of 2004, when Woo’s producer Terence Chang went to Beijing for the first time and started putting the financing and production plan together.

With a budget of $80 million, Red Cliff has become the most expensive Chinese language film ever made. This action-packed epic film is also the highest grossing movie in Chinese box office history.

Red Cliff stars some of the biggest names in Asian cinema: Tony Leung (Hero, Infernal Affairs), Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers, The Warlords), Zhang Fengyi (Farewell, My Concubine) and Chang Chen (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon).

From Viva International Pictures, the story of the greatest battle in Chinese history unfolds as Red Cliff opens in local cinemas tomorrow, Oct. 14.

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