Also known in Mandarin as
Chi Bi (no, not
chibi aka "shortie", but 赤壁, literally "scarlet cliffs").
This will be the latest in a recent series of war epics based on Chinese history, set to
open on 11 Jul 08. More interestingly, this is being directed by
John Woo, who has not worked in Hong Kong cinema for some time. The
synopsis of the movie is as follows:
Quote:
The story of RED CLIFF takes place in 208AD in China during the Later Han Dynasty (25AD to 220AD). Despite the presence of an emperor, Han Xiandi, China was then divided into many warring states.
The ambitious Prime Minister Cao Cao, by using the Emperor as his puppet, waged war on a kingdom in the west, Xu, ruled by the emperor’s uncle, Liu Bei. Cao Cao’s ultimate goal was to wipe out all the kingdoms and install himself as Emperor to a unified China. Liu Bei sent his military advisor Zhuge Liang as an envoy to the Wu Kingdom in the south, trying to persuade its ruler Sun Quan into joining forces. There he met Wu’s Viceroy Zhou Yu, and the two became friends amidst this uneasy alliance.
Enraged to learn that the two kingdoms have become allies, Cao Cao sent an army of eight hundred thousand soldiers and two thousand ships down south, hoping to kill two birds with one stone. Cao Cao’s army set up camp at Crow Forest, across the Yangtze River from Red Cliff, where the allies were stationed.
With the food supply running short, and the army vastly outnumbered by Cao Cao’s, the allies seemed doomed. Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang had to rely on their combined wisdom to turn the tide of battle. Numerous battles of wits and forces, on land and on water, eventually culminated into the most famous battle in Chinese history, where two thousand ships were burned, and the course of China’s history was changed forever. That was the Battle of Red Cliff.
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Needless to say, as a long-time fan of Koei's
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (video game) franchise, and a closet Chinese chauvinist, I'm all pumped up for this historical epic, which stars
Tony Leung (
Hero,
Infernal Affairs,
In The Mood For Love) as
Zhou Yu, and
Takeshi Kaneshiro (
House Of Flying Daggers,
Onimusha[video game]) as
Zhuge Liang.
(Frankly, I think both the actors have been mis-cast. In my opinion, Tony Leung makes a more likely Zhuge Liang, while Takeshi Kaneshiro is a more likely Zhou Yu, who was known for his beauty and vanity.)
For those who are unfamiliar with Chinese history or literature, the Battle of Red Cliff is one of the most dramatic battles chronicled in the
Romance of the Three Kingdoms (the novel, not the video game). It represented a critical turning point in a generation of strife and warfare. At the time of the battle, Cao Cao had become the de facto leader of wealthy Northern China, and was set to crush all remaining opposition against his martial might. The alliance victory against his army at Red Cliff made it possible for Zhuge Liang's vision of a three-way balance of power to emerge over the following years -- between Cao Cao's Wei in the north, Liu Bei's Shu-Han in the south-west (roughly where Sichuan is today) and Sun Quan's Wu in the south-east.
More dramatically, the battle was also known for the intense rivalry between Shu-Han's Zhuge Liang and Wu's Zhou Yu. Both men were reputedly the most brilliant military strategists of their time, and Zhou Yu was famously jealous of Zhuge Liang's apparently greater intellect. The Battle of Red Cliff was as much a battle of egos between these two men, as it was a battle for survival between two smaller fiefdoms against an oppresive enemy.