But Woo’s latest movie, Red Cliff, wasn’t about good cop vs bad cop. Nope. It was a historical piece set during the Han dynasty in the year 200. This nearly 5 hour movie was split up into two parts. In the first part we meet prime minister Cao Cao trying to convince the emperor to invade the southern lands. These lands belong to Liu Bei and Sun Quan. The two Southern forces are forced to work together if they wanna stand a chance to Cao Cao’s massive army.

And that’s the intro to a massive 30 minute epic battle scene.

It’s obvious why this movie ran over schedule and over budget, coming in at a reported “most expensive production ever in Asia” $80 million dollars. Woo goes a great length to explain every little detail. Thousands of extra’s in battle gear and awesome intricately choreographed strategic battles. There are three major battles, easily account for more than an hour of the film’s running time.

Fans of the ROTK period wil recognize the main characters and lead generals the moment they appear on screen. Woo gives us plenty of scenes where generals like Zhang Fei and Guan Yu just slaughter the enemy single handedly. And fans of kung-fu cinema will eat it all up.
Allthough the fight scenes are not shot in trademark Woo style. Sure there are some slow motion scenes here and there, but overal Woo really shows us the gritty side of ancient large-scale warfare.

Though the two movies have a runtime of more then 2 hours each you never get bored. Sure, there are some scenes that feel dragged out a bit but these scenes are the “oh so Chinese” moments.
The movie overflows with an all star asian cast. Led by Takeshi Kaneshiro as the great strategist Zhuge Liang and Tony Leung as Zhou Yu, the cast never dissapoints. Vicky Zhao does a great job, especially in the second part to bring some comic relief in the world of men and the war they wage.

As his return to Chinese cinema, Woo couldn’t have picked a better project. Red Cliff allows the Hong Kong director of gunfu to dabble in all of his trademark themes (brotherhood, loyalty, a resounding belief in fair play), while exploring new territory (the Chinese martial arts epic). With “Red Cliff”, John Woo has managed to re-invent himself as a director.