Trailer!: Red Cliff

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Trailer!: Red Cliff

POSTED: Wednesday, October 7, 2009, 2:00 PM

Filed Under: Movies | Film Fest trailer!

White doves!

John Woo returns to China after essentially teaching Quentin Tarantino how to direct an action sequence before coming stateside, making his directorial debut with world's-greatest-actor Jean Claude Van Damme, helming one of the most poetic action movies ever (Face/Off) and then taking point on some of the worst (Windtalkers? Hostage? Sigh). Red Cliff look positively epic, telling the story of the 208 A.D. titular battle in which two vastly outnumbered armies align with each other in order to defeat the Han Dynasty who are unused to fighting by sea (hence the whole cliff thing). Not only is this Woo's homecoming, but it also marks a reunion with Tony Leung, who previously worked with Woo on the incredible Hard Boiled.

But out of all of these return-to-forms, I'm most pumped about the revival of the battle epic. I give Zack Snyder props for making 300 on a shoestring with a cast of no A-listers, but half the reason 300 is entertaining is the homoerotic campiness of it all, not necessarily the direction, as Watchman proved. Because of movies like 300, studios think they can forgo bigger, traditional epics like 300 for a lower price tag, especially in this economy. But I love a good epic. Sure, for every terrible epic (Alexander, Australia), there are mind blowing ones (The Godfather I & II, Once Upon a Time in the West), and while they have a tendency to feel bloated, I think Woo is an economical enough filmmaker to pull this off.

Although, this reportedly 148-minute movie is just the first half. Red Cliff II already received its Chinese domestic release this year. Now, that's fuckin' epic.

Red Cliff premieres locally at the Philadelphia International Film Fest. Interestingly enough, it's being released theatrically in the States by the second volume of Six Shooter Film Series ' that seemingly deals in that-looks-fuckin'-awesome foreign films, two of which are playing at the Fest: District B13: Ultimatum (the original is awesome, but apparently this one stands alone) and Bronson (you may remember it from the Trailer!).

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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