The Battle of Red Cliff (2009)

John Woo is back, and it's with a helluva movie! The Battle of Red Cliff is actually an edited version of two feature length movies that was released in 2008 and 2009. But I have either time or inspiration to watch through four hours of stuff, so this version, around two and half hour felt (and was) a great choice for me. It's basically a retelling of what happen at this famous battle. There's intrigues, action, chines mumbo-jumbo and more action - and god damn, I wonder if this isn't Woo's best movie since Hard Target? The heart is there, the blood is there and it's a great piece of historical action. 

It starts of with almost thirty minutes of pure action, mass-scenes and buckets of blood! Then there's some drama, some good drama to, and another great battle scene... and then some planning for the finale... and then the finale, almost one hour of battles! First at night with boats and fire, and then on land in the morning light. All Woo's trademarks is there: slow-mo, doves, lot's of blood and manly men staring at each other. Yes, of course there's (very) underlaying homoeroticism, something an action director of Woo's rang can't afford to skip. 

Wei Zhao, from Shaolin Soccer is there, Tony Leung is handsome and cool, and Takeshi Kaneshiro do an excellent work. The acting is good, and the actors carries the action with seriousness and respect. I guess it could be easy for an actor and be lazy when everything just explodes around you, but as usual the asians impress. Talking about explosions. There's some huge one's here, and the rest of the action is over-the-top. Woo dosen't want to bore us with normal action, and people are flying through the air after explosions and arrows, there's spurting blood all over the screen and lot's of stunt work. 

Woo shows us who's the master!