Epic homecoming
Allan Koay
The Star
Publication Date : 15-07-2008



John Woo’s Red Cliff, at US$80 million, is the most expensive Chinese language movie ever made. It is based on the famous Chinese literary work, Romance of the Three Kingdoms.


John Woo laughs out loud. I’ve just told him that I see the similarity between the scene with Zhao Zhilong (Hu Jun) rescuing the infant heir to the Xu kingdom in Red Cliff, and Chow Yun-fat and the baby in Hardboiled. The Hong Kong director smiles and nods in agreement when I also tell him that I suspect he was influenced by Zhilong’s story when he made Hardboiled.
If he seems a little sheepish, maybe it’s because his secret is out.

“Yes!” he says, still nodding. He is in Kuala Lumpur with actors Lin Chiling, Chang Chen and Zhang Fengyi to promote Red Cliff. “When I was a kid, I really admired Zhao Zhilong. He was my hero. So when I made Hardboiled, or even A Better Tomorrow, I used Zhao Zhilong’s image for Chow Yun-fat.”
It wouldn’t be too wrong to say that everyone is glad that Asia’s preeminent action movie director is back on homeground, after spending years in Hollywood making such hits as Face/Off and Mission Impossible II.
Though in his last few years there, his films started to become a little monotonous (Windtalkers, Paycheck), Woo was, however, still able to keep up the action with his trademark slow-motion sequences and Mexican stand-offs.
During a press conference for Paycheck in Taipei in 2003, Woo mentioned that he wanted to make an epic movie in Asia to showcase more of Asian culture and heritage. He had lamented rather humorously that some people in the United States mistook him for Taiwanese director Ang Lee. So he wanted to show that no, we don’t all look the same.
Fast-forward to the present, and Woo has finally gone and done it. Red Cliff, Woo’s dream project of more than 18 years, has finally come to the big screen. It’s an ambitious, sprawling historical epic, partly based on the famous Chinese literary work, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and partly based on the historical facts of the Warring States period, particularly the great standoff between the Han empire and the alliance of the Xu and East Wu kingdoms.

At US$80 million, with a cast and crew of thousands, it’s the most expensive Chinese-language film ever made, and it took three years of planning and another year of pre-production. It was rife with problems from the start, with actors leaving and returning, and recently with an accident on a second-unit shoot that killed a stuntman and injured three others.
But the first part of Red Cliff has arrived, and it has proved to be an exciting, gorgeously shot and often humorous film. The anticipation for it has shown in the numbers generated by its successful opening in several Asian countries last week. It had the biggest opening in Taiwan, grossing NT$16 million (US$526,073).
Woo says he greatly appreciates the opportunity to work in Hollywood, and relished the chance to work with actors such as John Travolta, Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise, and especially the friends he has made. But he admits that he gets less space for creativity there, and that he has to work strictly according to the script, budget and time.
“When we got on the set, we just executed it,” he explains. “I didn’t get any creative excitement. Usually I like to work with the set. Whenever I get some new ideas, I just change things right away, like how I used to do it in Hong Kong. That’s why I wanted to come back to China to make a movie which I have been dreaming of making for a long time.”
But he says the knowledge he has gained from Hollywood has helped greatly with Red Cliff, especially with the amount of special effects sequences, such as the stunning finale (in the second part) with 2,000 burning ships.
And among the crew of Red Cliff were young Chinese film students and those new to the industry, who were eager to learn. Woo felt he could help them greatly by getting them to work on a challenging project like Red Cliff.
“I think it’s very good to let them get involved while bringing in some great people from Hollywood,” he says. “Then they can learn from each other. That’s very good for the young people. It was one of my intentions when I made Red Cliff.”
The film employed no fewer than two cinematographers and three editors. While the change in cinematographers was due to contractual obligations, using three editors was a kind of experiment for Woo. Famous Hong Kong editor Angie Lam, Chinese editor Yang Hongyu and American Robert Ferretti all have very individual styles.
“It’s very interesting to see how they look at a movie and how to tell a story,” says Woo.
“I tried to combine their good points and bring them all together. I think they will make all kinds of audiences find the movie interesting.”
But there are already complaints about how Red Cliff deviates from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. For instance, it is hinted that the real reason why Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi) of the Han empire goes to war is because he is secretly in love with Xiao Qiao (Lin Chiling), the beautiful wife of East Wu viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung). It is somewhat like a Helen of Troy angle. But Woo maintains that he wanted to make the characters more human and less mythical than in the books, and included more historical facts. He knows he can’t expect to please everyone.
“As a director, I feel I’m like a painter,” says Woo. “After I finish a painting, I leave it for the audience and let them feel what they feel.
The painting doesn’t belong to me anymore, but to anyone who sees it.”
And if anyone thinks Red Cliff, seen by most as Woo’s Asian comeback, means he is staying put in Asia from now on, they’d have to think again.
“Even though I spent three-and-a-half years working on this project, it doesn’t mean I’ve given up Hollywood,” Woo assures. “I still really appreciate working there, so I still have another two projects. One is a western, a collaboration with Johnny Depp’s company.
It’s called Caliber, and it’s based on a comic book. Another is called The Divide, a story about the Chinese building a railroad in America. We’re still working on those.”
But for now, it’s Red Cliff until early next year, when the second part is slated for release in Asia. (The rest of the world gets a single, two-and-a-half-hour version.)
I voice another of my suspicions, that the wipes in the film are really Woo’s tribute to Akira Kurosawa. He laughs again. Indeed, he says he had wanted to remake Yojimbo but someone else has beaten him to it.
“I love Kurosawa’s movies, and I got so much inspiration from him,” Woo says with a smile. “He is one of my idols and one of the great masters. (With Yojimbo), I wanted to make my kind of a martial arts film, in memory of Akira Kurosawa, Chang Cheh and King Hu.”