Chi bi (2008)

Director:

John Woo

Writers:

John Woo (screenplay) &
Khan Chan (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

20 November 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Drama | History | War

Tagline:

The future will be decided.

Plot:

Based on the events during the Three Kingdoms period in Ancient China in which specifically told in the title, The Battle of Red Cliffs.

Plot Keywords:

China | Chinese | Chinese History | Ancient China | Alliance

Awards:

11 wins & 6 nominations

Cast

Tony Leung Chiu Wai	...	Zhou Yu
Takeshi Kaneshiro	...	Zhuge Liang
Fengyi Zhang	...	Cao Cao
Chen Chang	...	Sun Quan
Wei Zhao	...	Sun Shangxiang
Jun Hu	...	Zhao Yun
Chiling Lin	...	Xiao Qiao
Shido Nakamura	...	Gan Xing
Yong You	...	Liu Bei
Ba Sen Zha Bu	...	Guan Yu
Yong Hou	...	Lu Su
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Philip Hersh	...	Emperor Han (voice)
Tong Jiang	...	Li Tong
Jia Song	...	Li Ji
Chun Sun
Dawei Tong	...	Sun Shucai
Qingxiang Wang	...	Kong Rong
Jinsheng Zang	...	Zhang Fei

Also Known As:

Red Cliff (International: English title) (UK) (USA)
Chek bik (Hong Kong: Cantonese title)
The Battle of Red Cliff (International: English title) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for sequences of epic warfare.

Runtime:

Singapore:150 min (PG version) | China:146 min | South Korea:134 min | UK:148 min

Country:

China

Language:

Mandarin

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

South Korea:15 | Singapore:NC-16 | Hong Kong:IIB | Singapore:PG (edited version) | Malaysia:U | Switzerland:14 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:14 (canton of Vaud) | Belgium:KT | UK:15 (cut) | Norway:15 | Ireland:15A | Portugal:M/12 | Finland:K-15 | Netherlands:12 | USA:R (certificate #45613) | USA:R | Philippines:R-13 (MTRCB) | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

Beijing, China

Company:

Beijing Film Studio

Trivia:

John Woo's first Chinese film since 1992.

Quotes:

Liu Bei: Truth and illusion are often disguised as each other, Cao Cao likes to play this game, both with friends and foes.

Movie Connections:

Version of "San guo yan yi" (1995)

Looking forward to Part Two!

Thanks to my previous knowledge on "Sangokushi" or Three Kingdom Saga in Ancient China, I enjoyed the outstanding performance and the dynamic war scenes. The movie also succeeded to dramatizing Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". It was exhilarating to see outnumbered allies made full use of the strategy and fought against their common enemies and ran a dead heat.

Usually I do not expect story or drama stuff being described in the action movies but "Red Cliff" betrayed my expectation in a good sense. There were several scenes that touched my heart. For example, two genius war generals who belong to different lords met for the first time and they instantly understood that they were hard-to-get friends by playing musical instruments together, without using any tricks or politics.

In a newspaper article a veteran charismatic movie buyer from Avex had foretold "Red Cliff" would take academy awards right after he finished reading the script. Though his hitting ration was high, I was not sure if he would raise his ratio and salary in the future. But I was sure that Tony Leon had a dominating presence through the scenes and it was highly possible that he would be nominated in his acting.

Actually I saw a lady stood up to go to the rest room during the highlight, and some left before the end roll skipping the trailer of part two, and after the trailer I heard a girl behind me complain against her excited boyfriend about dozens of characters who had lost her. I thought some previous knowledge would be important to fully enjoy this historic war movie.

Basically the movie was created for everyone because John Woo focused on the battle of red cliffs which was one of the best highlights in the saga, cleverly avoiding another digest version. Also there was a brief explanation about history and people at the beginning being accompanied by easy-to-understand Japanese subtitles crafted by Natsuko Toda. Personally I wanted to give my big hug to John Woo, actors and actresses, all the staffs, and their accomplishment "Red Cliff" (Part One).