Just perfect...

Don't listen to the negative reviews

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Red Cliff is a superficial entertaining martial arts movie that had the potential to be much better but failed to come close to Kurosawa's Ran or Kagemusha in storyline or depth of character. Even the Korean Film - The Admiral - Roaring Currents (2014) was much superior in storyline - acting and special effects. If you enjoy watching folks doing unbelievable aerobatics and slicing and dicing twenty armed opponents this film is for you. If not - watch this once and then donate to your local library.

It's 208 A.D. China. The ruthless Prime Minster Cao Cao has vanquished every warlord in the north. He bullies the weak Han emperor to invade the two remaining southern kingdoms led by the wise Liu Bei and the inexperienced Sun Quan. Liu Bei suffers devastating losses while protecting refugees. His strategist Kongming convinces Sun Quan to join the fight.John Woo delivers a giant CGI-filled action-packed historical epic. The action is fun. Woo brings his hyper-reality style. I would have liked more reality than hyper-reality. One can't deny the epic nature of the mass fighting scenes. The shortened American version does leave the characters stilted and lacking in depth. They are only highlight reels delivering needed expositions for the battles.

A great mass-scale warfare movie. This movie pits a smaller force against a vastly larger force, and of course tactical genius and gorilla warfare is the cement that builds this story. The battle-tactics used in this movie are really impressive and I've never before seen anything like it (and I've watched many warfare movies). The instructions that the commanders yell out really see the direction of the story change. I also like that they used a few female warriors in the movie, because it's too often that you see 'all male casts' and women only running for the hills. You do however see the traditional "godlike protagonists" where a single hero kills 50+ warriors, but that is understandable. In the non-dubbed version of the movie, the actors were very passionate and you could see truly heartfelt acting. This is a really good warfare movie, full of action, 7/10.

Firstly I'll say I've had the pleasure of seeing both versions of this film and would highly recommend watching the original version (4 ish hours) and perhaps staggering it out over 2 days as the edited version misses out several key plot points and side characters which I won't talk about for spoiler reasons. Now for the review:I love this era of Chinese history, I've studied the real history and read parts of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and have played Dynasty Warriors although it is not necessary to know much beyond a basic background knowledge before watching this. Cao Cao is basically governing through the Emperor as is puppet and is pursuing Liu Bei with his huge army as Liu Bei attempts to evacuate his followers and seek refuge with the Sun family. We get to see the forging of an alliance to stop Cao Cao and rise against him. The film details the preparation for the final battle against Cao Cao through the eyes of strategists Zhuge Liang and Zhou You. The characters are portrayed exceptionally well and I could see the quiet genius of Zhuge Liang whilst Cao Cao was portrayed as arrogant and power hungry but also ruthless and cunning. He was definitely the star of the show for me as he was exactly how I pictured he would be.The directing is brilliant from John Woo who seems much more comfortable with Chinese films, and this certainly is a Chinese film in terms of style. I found this very interesting to watch but some may be put off a bit. Obviously this film is in Chinese with English subs. This did not bother me as a quickly became engaged and forgot about it but it's worth mentioning for those who can't enjoy that.Now which part is better? I would definitely say part 2 as it is only then that the tension really begins to rise and we get to see our clever strategists at work to even the odds. The first introduces the characters really well but lacks the edge of your seat suspense of the second. But watch them both anyway as both are necessary to understand the story and both parts are honestly very good.So this film has the making of a 9/10, and it would be if it were not for one major flaw - The action! The drama and acting were all excellent in this truly epic film but the fighting scenes just broke the immersion for me. Firstly, they drag on far too long and could easily have been cut down to allow for more character development. But also they just remind me too much of Dynasty Warriors with thousands of soldiers being cut down effortlessly by just a few officers. I know the film needs main characters but it was done to the extent that it didn't feel much like an epic battlefield but instead like a scene from The Matrix or a level in Dynasty Warriors. Because of this, the tension was lessened as we know the main characters are in no real danger as they are pretty much invincible to ordinary soldiers.I can overlook this flaw and the film is very good overall and I would highly recommend it. to any fan of epic films. But I understand people disliking it for the reason I gave as if this film had been less interesting, the action would actually have ruined my experience. Luckily the rest of the film was so great is was just about able to overlook its flaws.