Excellent, a Must See

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I have watched many historical dramas over the years and this is truly one of the BEST movies I have ever seen! There are two parts (the first 2-hour movie and then the sequel, actually a continuation. (It does take a few minutes to get the story set up in the beginning.) Please watch for yourself--I have no doubt that you will captivated. The actors,cinematography, action scenes, story line--all are more than excellent! (for mature audiences)

It's 208 A.D. China. The ruthless Prime Minster Cao Cao has vanquished every warlord in the north. He bullies the weak Han emperor to invade the two remaining southern kingdoms led by the wise Liu Bei and the inexperienced Sun Quan. Liu Bei suffers devastating losses while protecting refugees. His strategist Kongming convinces Sun Quan to join the fight.John Woo delivers a giant CGI-filled action-packed historical epic. The action is fun. Woo brings his hyper-reality style. I would have liked more reality than hyper-reality. One can't deny the epic nature of the mass fighting scenes. The shortened American version does leave the characters stilted and lacking in depth. They are only highlight reels delivering needed expositions for the battles.

What's missing from this movie are the character development of all the villains and heroes.Red Cliff is the climax of the first half of "The Romance of Three Kingdoms", and if you read the story, there are lots of character development that went in to flesh out the personalities of each of the characters leading up to this point. Without it, the viewers will have no idea about who the characters are, because the explanations are completely missing from this movie.It's assumed that you have great familiarity with this story already going into the movie theater.For this reason, for westerners who are not familiar with this story, it will be difficult to understand what the premise of the story is, and the importance of each of the characters.So, while the movie is exciting, it might turn into just another action movie.The real story of Red Cliff is in part 2 of this movie. Part 1 is like the prequel to the war that leads up to the great battle of Red Cliff.That being said, the movie is a great masterpiece in that characters are so well presented, and formulated. People who are familiar with the story will not be disappointed, watching the movie.John Woo's did a masterful job of translating the story and bringing the characters into the big screen. If the story of Red Cliff was to be made into a movie, this is the way it should be done.

John Woo helms an ambitious, crowded interpretation of the large-scale military actions that plagued China at the end of the Han Dynasty. While its epic, sweeping scale might be the film's greatest strength, I was often too preoccupied with following the encyclopedically long-winded subtitles to appreciate the visuals as much as I would have liked. Even at a long hundred-thirty minutes, the plot seems breathless and anxious as it hurries through back story, character moment and closed-door strategic debate at a breakneck pace. There's just so much story to tell here, with none of it deemed dispensable by Woo, that even two lengthy motion pictures don't seem like enough space to contain it all. While the planning and execution behind Red Cliff's sublime fight scenes (much of which boil down to a Dynasty Warriors-style plan of "just send one man to wipe out the infantry") is flashy and memorable, I found more value in the thoughtful musings and observations of the calm, collected diplomatic envoy Zhuge Liang. His carefully considered strategic suggestions are profound and moving, like a delicate flower growing amidst the ruins of a spent battlefield. Though one-sided in nature, with an enemy master as vaguely evil and simple as they come, it still leaves us with the perfect setup for what I can only presume will be the mother of all epic-scale scuffles. Deep and dedicated, it's often more verbose than it needs to be.