<img src="http://www.gamingw.net/pubaccess/25591/6307.jpg" width="425" height="200" align="right" style="border: 1px solid #D1D1E1; padding: 2px 3px 2px 3px; background-color: #E2E8F2;">Red Cliff is the motion picture epic currently being filmed by John Woo, who brought us such films as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104684/" target="_blank">Hard Boiled</a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097202/" target="_blank">The Killer</a>.

In the early third century' date=' the land of Wu is invaded by the warlord Cao Cao and his million soldiers. The ruler of Wu, Sun Quan, calls on the rival warlord Liu Bei for help, but their two armies are still badly outnumbered. However, the Wu strategist Zhou Yu sees that Cao Cao's army is unused to battling on the sea, which may just give them a chance if they can exploit this weakness properly.[/quote']

So, this has been pretty big for a while now on the other side of the ocean, John Woo finally returning to his home soil to make his big comeback to Chinese cinema, the twists and turns when Chow Yun-Fat pulled out of the film, before returning to the film and then after yet another twist, he's not actually going to return at all.

Instead, taking his part is the excellent Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, probably best known for his appearances in Infernal Affairs, Hero, Hard Boiled and many of Wong Kar-Wai's films. Other cast members worth mentioning are Takeshi Kaneshiro (House of Flying Daggers/Returner), Chang Chen (Crouching Tiger) and Koyuki (Last Samurai).

Recent News
China’s CCTV just broadcast live from the set for a solid two and a half hours while Woo shot a major battle scene.  Yeah, you read that right:  two and half hours of live television broadcasting the creation of a major action sequence from the film.  To the best of my knowledge this sort of thing has never been done before and, frankly, I’m shocked Woo allowed it to happen.  Because, you know, shooting large large scale action sequences isn’t already stressful enough without having a camera crew loitering around recording your every move. 

CCTV Clips:
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(via MonkeyPeaches & Twitch)

Pictures

Set Production (Click to reveal)

Filming (Click to reveal)

So from the videos and the current production pictures, this is looking really promising. John Woo has been on an all-time low since he broke America, his films have been from terrible (Windwalkers/Blackjack) to the seemingly average (Broken Arrow/Face-Off). If he pulls this off, it'll not only be his big comeback to his homeland, but his comeback to making great films.

Alot is riding on this, but the videos/set/costumes are making it look very promising.

IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425637/

Trailer: Here
Japanese Teaser: Here

Been waiting for this forever, except I don't think Tony fits in so well.

Plus Chow.....

Randomly updating this because I can:

A scene of John Woo’s historical war drama Red Cliff has been leaked out and stirred angry online reactions in China. Red Cliff tells a real battle (in 208 AD, Han Dynasty of China) fought between the invading warlord Cao Cao and the alliances of two southern Chinese warlords Sun Quan and Liu Bei. In addition to retelling the history, John Woo apparently added some of his own original idea into the story.

 

According to the scene, the younger Qiao sister (Lin Chi-Ling), married to Zhou Yu (Leung Chiu-Wai), the chief military commander of Sun Quan, crossed the Long River (Yangtze River), which was heavily guided on both sides and made a secret visit to the camp of Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) to beg for peace, just right before the final big battle. It turns out Qiao and Cao knew each and Cao actually had a crash on her. He imprisoned the pregnant Qiao as a hostage. During the final battle, Zhou Yu, assisted with his master Sun Quan (Chang Chen) and Zhao Yun (Hu Jun), a general of Liu Bei, fought his way into Cao’s commanding center to rescue his wife.

 

The newly added plot never happened in the real history nor found in classic novel Romance of the Three Kingdom, which provides the basis for the movie. Woo has promised he would make the movie closer to the history but the plot may has proves otherwise. The younger Qiao sister played absolutely no part in the battle and only briefly mentioned in the novel. One critic said the forced love-triangle made it sound like a romantic soap and three guys fighting their way into Cao’s camp to save a girl was not doubt a wuxia story. Another critic claimed Woo was making a Chinese version of Troy. The fans have also felt let down by some dialogues, which sound “hilarious.” One example is after Qiao jumped of a burning tower and landed on Zhou Yu’s back, she said, “It’s so fortunate your back is so strong.”

 

The casting of Lin Chi-Ling, the top supermodel from Taiwan, has been a controversy in China since the beginning. Fans complain she is too tall and too old, she has no acting experience except showing up in several TV commercials, and her voice also sounds like baby talk.

 

Neither John Woo nor the production studios have commented on these criticisms.

The battle of Chibi!! Yes, Live-action Dynasty Warriors!!! 

I'm also a real fan of John Woo's (early Hong Kong-stuff), so great new all the way.

Seriously, Dynasty Warriors is shit. It's classical Chinese raped for the pleasure of twitch happy anime addicted douchebags.

Bearing that in mind, I've got a similar feeling for this movie. I realize I'm doing a megabump here, but I only recently heard of this movie. First, the fact John Woo is doing this makes me a little wary. I can see any historical context going out the window in lieu of FLYING SWORDFIGHTS and MAGIC SPELLS being flung around. Especially the last stuff the esh posted with. Romance of the Three Kingdoms is already over the top and the drama found in the chapters about Chibi are MORE than enough for a great movie. Why add in this bullshit about Zhao Yun and Sun Quan and ZHOU YU of all people dashing into Cao Cao`s camp on a rescue mission

Also, interestingly enough, there`s a second movie based on RTK coming out in 2008, this one seeming a little more promising.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0882978/

If you want to tell a new tale based on an old story, make your main characters up, don`t rewrite the damn story to add in stupid shit.

I've been wanting to see an Asian war movie that doesn't suck.  A lot of times, the story just drags and drags, like Hero and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  They need to cut out all the bullshit fancy fighting and just do an all-out war movie like this.

TRAILER

Seriously, the actual production expenses must be through the roof.

this summer

Ok. I just watched the trailer, and, I'm not too into it at the moment.

So far all I'm seeing is GENERIC CHINESE EPIC with the largest budget ever, soliders running around, and the same generic Chinese war film music. Yeah, it DOES look pretty good but at the same time it looks THE SAME. I'm not saying it sucks, just that so far it doesn't stand out at all. I'm really digging the cast, though I think Tony Leung has been in way too many movies and he's pretty much nearly TYPECAST in my opinion. Takeshi Kaneshiro looks great, it took me two glances to notice it was him.

The part where the troops were screaming "HOE HOE HOE" was awesome.

John Woo is a hero among Asian-Americans such as myself, so I'm eagerly awaiting this. For some reason it kinda reminds me of his work on WINDTALKERS. Plus the end has a DOVE just randomly fly into frame.

I don't know what you guys were expecting, but you seem to be bashing it for becoming ..an epic battle movie.

PS: Not entirely sure how you can call Tony Leung typecast considering he just played some form of rapist.

OK, so I didn't see a single battle taking place on tree tops or anything ridiculous, I'm feeling a little better about this!

I gotta agree that I don't know what you guys are expecting from the trailer too. A war movie trailer is going to show the big budget stuff, you know? You don't make a trailer about the BATTLE OF PEARL HARBOUR or something and show 2 minutes of character or plot development. You show 2 minutes of japanese bombing ships and Americans running around wagging their huge dicks at them. Now if you go to the movie itself and it's just three hours of that then yeah, it's a pretty generic and/or mediocre film.

Just to clarify, I called it insane for the cinematography/lack of heavy CG work. The set design, costumes and huge amount of extras is incredible.

Just to clarify, I called it insane for the cinematography/lack of heavy CG work. The set design, costumes and huge amount of extras is incredible.

Yesssss this is what they should have done with the Lord of the Rings films, it's great that people are doing this. I'm tired of CG-fests.

New Japanese Teaser

Looking more and more interesting.

Holy shit, way better than that other bullshit trailer. I love how the beginning is just fucking Mission Impossible 2 explosion. And how the Japanese keep mensioning "MI:2". The soundtrack is awesome. There are so many nice landscaping shots.

John Woo is gr8.

Probably because they're splitting the film into two parts. The sea battle could possibly be in the second, either that or they want to keep it a secret.