Red Cliff 2 is the second part of John Woo’s epic "Battle of Red Cliff" movie. The film continues from where it left and shows flashes of important occurrences from the first Red Cliff movie (shown in July 2008).
Sun Shangxiang (Zhao Wei) acts as a spy for the allied army as she has disguised herself as a soldier of Cao Cao’s army. Cao Cao quickly promotes a soldier named Sun Shucai into a commander as he has impressed Cao Cao in the game of Cuju (ancient Chinese football). Sun Shangxiang is sending report to Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro) via pigeon. When she bumps into Sun Shucai, he not only does not suspect her identity but they become close friends.
Meanwhile, some of Cao Cao’s soldiers have died from an epidemic which begins to spread among the troops. Cao Cao’s army physician advises him to burn the corpses instead of burying them to prevent to epidemic from spreading further. However, Cao Cao decides to send the corpses on rafts to the allied camp with an ill-fated intention of contaminating the allied army as well. Some of the allied army and civilians have brought the corpses ashore without knowing about the epidemic. Nevertheless, Zhuge Liang tests one of the corpses with a needle and finds it to be a contagious disease and immediately quarantines those who were in contact with the corpses.
Out of the blue, Liu Bei (You Yong) decides to leave the alliance with his followers of 20,000 soldiers, which greatly disappoints Sun Quan and Zhou Yu as they are in the midst of a great battle. Zhuge Liang, however, stays behind to assist the allied forces. When Cao Cao hears about the news, he becomes delighted and even throws a party to celebrate the good news.
With Liu Bei and his army leaving the alliance, Zhou Yu now has a new dilemma of finding at least 100,000 arrows. Zhuge Liang undertakes the task and confidently says he can get them within 3 days. Zhou Yu, meanwhile, vows he will eliminate Cao Cao’s naval commanders, Cai Mao and Zhang Yun. They agree that whoever fails to complete the task would be beheaded. As Zhuge Liang has predicted the weather to be foggy, he and Lu Su sails towards the enemy with 20 small boats all covered with hay and straw and scarecrows. Cao Cao’s navy, led by Cai Mao and Zhang Yun are tricked into firing a hundred thousand arrows into the enemy’s boat.
Meanwhile, Cao Cao has sent Jiang Gan, Zhou Yu’s former classmate to persuade Zhou Yu to surrender. Zhou Yu greets Jiang Gan warmly and even holds a banquet in his honor. During a swordplay, a piece of paper falls from the scabbard, but Zhou Yu manages to grab hold of it before Jiang Gan steals it. Later on, Zhou Yu excuses himself for an important news. Jiang Gan eavesdrops on the conversation and finds out that Cai Mao and Zhang Yun are planning a plot to kill Cao Cao. When Zhou Yu is asleep, Jiang Gan steals the letter from Zhou Yu and learns that Cai and Zhang are indeed planning to assassinate Cao Cao and brings Cao’s head to Zhou Yu.
Cao Cao receives the news and letter from Jiang Gan but dismisses it as one of Zhou Yu’s strategies to trick him into killing his own men. However, when he learns that Cai Mao and Zhang Yun have wasted one hundred thousand arrows to the enemy, Zhuge Liang is smart enough to send back one of his small boats covered with hay and straw and scarecrows and tonnes of arrows back to Cao Cao’s camp. Cao Cao is furious when he sees the boat. Then, he compares the letter written by Cai with another letter written by Cai and immediately executes both Cai and Zhang only to realize he has been tricked. In order to content his anger, Cao Cao poisons Jiang Gan to death.
Sun Shangxiang returns from Cao Cao’s camp with detailed conditions of Cao Cao’s camp and formation. Cao Cao’s plan to attack is somehow delayed by Xiao Qiao, Zhou Yu’s wife who has secretly left and travel to Cao Cao’s camp. Since Cao Cao has greatest admiration to possess Xiao Qiao, she manages to slow him down by offering him a cup of tea even though she didn’t manage to persuade Cao Cao to end the war.
Lin Chi-ling as Zhou Yu’s wife, Xiao Qiao
In the remaining scenes, the Allied forces manage to prevail with intelligent strategies at both sea and land. Liu Bei’s forces also returns and attack Cao Cao’s main camp. In the end, Cao Cao loses the battle but his life is spared by the generous Zhou Yu.
Overall, the epic movie has quite many substantial differences compared to the chronicles. In fact, which movies that are adapted are 100% the same? John Woo manages to create a great war epic film that manages to glue the audience to their seats with his brilliant war strategies and action-packed movie.
Red Cliff, which also known as The Battle of Red Cliff, is a John Woo’s film based on the Three Kingdoms starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Zhao Wei and Lin Chi-Ling.
The movie begins with a scene in the Imperial Court of the Han Dynasty in AD 208 where the Prime Minister Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) requests Emperor Xian’s permission to start a war against the warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan in southern China, whom he perceived to be rebels against the Han Dynasty. He manages to get the Emperor to issue a decree for permission to launch an attack against Liu Bei who has fled southwards and Sun Quan.
Cao Cao’s strong forces of army easily conquers the southern lands while Liu Bei has abandoned the city of Xinye and is leading his army and the civilians. Unfortunately, Cao Cao’s calvary manages to catch up with Liu Bei (You Yong) and the great battle of Changban ensues. Zhang Fei, sworn brother of Liu Bei, has personally led a small group of soldiers armed with reflective shields to hold off the enemy in order to buy time for the civilians to escape. As the enemy soldiers approached, Zhang’s troops used their shields to reflect sunlight into the eyes of the enemy’s horses, creating chaos and seizing the opportunity to strike back.
Meanwhile, Zhao Yun (Hu Jun) desperately searches for Liu Bei’s wives and son, whom were separated amidst the chaos. Zhao Yun found Lady Mi, who was desperately trying to protect the infant Liu Shan from being captured by enemy soldiers. She was severely wounded and committed suicide by jumping into a well after entrusting Liu Shan to Zhao Yun. Zhao Yun manages to bring Liu Shan back to Liu Bei after fighting off many soldiers.
At the same time, Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), Liu Bei’s chief advisor, managed to bring Guan Yu, sworn brother of Liu Bei, to assist Zhang Fei. Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu bravely held off the enemy until the last group of civilians has evacuated. Guan Yu stayed on alone to hold off the enemy and was surrounded by several enemy soldiers. In his last attempt, he throws his halberd towards Cao Cao, barely missing the latter by an inch. Later, Cao Cao decides to let Guan Yu off, saying that Guan Yu could have killed him earlier but decided to spare him.
After the battle at Changban, Zhuge Liang set forth for Wu on a diplomatic mission to negotiate for an alliance between Liu Bei and Sun Quan (Chang Chen). Sun Quan was in the midst of a dilemma, unsure whether to oppose Cao Cao or surrender. While, his advisers have been desperately trying to persuade him to surrender, his military officers, on the other hand are advocating war. Zhuge Liang urges Sun Quan to form the alliance with Liu Bei against Cao Cao, but Sun Quan replies that he needed more time to think about it. Lu Su then brings Zhuge Liang to meet Wu’s great viceroy and chief commander of Wu’s army Zhou Yu (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai).
Although the discussion with Zhou Yu about war is brief, both of them manage to express their thoughts through music. Zhou Yu’s music shows that he wants to start a war while Zhuge Liang’s music indicates that he needs a friend.
Meanwhile in Cao Cao’s camp, he has recruited two new generals named Cai Mao and Zhang Yun, both of whom were surrendered generals and well-versed in naval warfare. Cao Cao finally expresses his desire to possess the beautiful Xiao Qiao (Lin Chi-Ling), the wife of Viceroy Zhou Yu. After having much thoughts, Sun Quan has finally made up his mind to form an alliance with Liu Bei and declare war against Cao Cao.
The alliance of Sun Quan and Liu Bei has managed to defeat Cao Cao’s army in the first battle after Sun Shangxiang (Zhao Wei) manages to lure Cao Cao’s army into Zhuge Liang’s "Ba Gua" (the Eight Stratagems Formation). While Cao Cao has learnt of the defeat, he shows no disappointment at all. At the same time, the allied forces are celebrating their victory.
Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang has another discussion on the new plan to combat Cao Cao’s forces. Zhou Yu stated that Cao Cao’s next move was still unclear although they have scored a victory against Cao Cao’s vanguard army. Zhou Yu then says to Zhuge Liang that he has hoped they would not become enemies in the future, and if that is so, they would each serve their respective lords. Zhuge Liang then send a pigeon to scout Cao Cao’s army and discover the enemy’s formation. The film ends with Zhou Yu lighting his minatured-sized ships on a map based on the battle formation with a torch.
The film continues in the second episode which is slated to release in January 2009, which will make the entire sage at least four hours long. The movie will be shortened to a total of 2 and a half hour for showing outside Asia.
Overall, John Woo manages to weave his magic again on this epic Chinese movie. With brilliant war strategies to the great fighting scenes, Red Cliff is an extraordinary film that really depicts the epic battle of Red Cliff.
John Woo poses with Chang Chen, Lin Chi-Ling and Zhang Fengyi at GSC Pavilion KL (Credit: AP Photo/Lai Seng Sin)
John Woo was at GSC, Pavilion Kuala Lumpur for the premiere of Red Cliff last Friday, July 11, 2008, together with actors Chang Chen, Lin Chi-Ling and Zhang Fengyi.
“We were devastated by the incident, but at the same time we were also very touched by the help offered by the doctors, nurses, the army and the public who saved thousands of lives,” said Woo at a press conference here.
Red Cliff, which is based on the famous Romance of the Three Kingdoms, will come in two parts — the first part will open in cinemas on July 17 and the second part in early 2009. However, countries outside Asia will get a single, two-and-a-half-hour version.
Check out the Red Cliff trailer below, if you haven’t seen it.
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