Hacker Cinema
Red Cliff
赤壁
2008 · Film · 145 min
Directed by John Woo
In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minster Cao convinced the fickle Emperor Han the only way to unite all of China was to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus began a military campaign of unprecedented scale. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu formed an unlikely alliance.
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3 comments on Hacker News
Red Cliff is an awesome movie! I loved it because it focused on the strategy and politics of war, rather than the warriors or fighting.
I started reading The Romance Of Three Kingdoms - the Chinese equivalent to the Iliad. It's one of the handful classics of old Chinese literature, and an amazing window into that culture.
It's not an easy read, because the style is so peculiar, there's a ton of characters, and... well... it's not a culture I'm very familiar with. But it's still fascinating.
There's a movie that was made after this book, it's called Red Cliff. It captures the battle of Red Cliff, a peak moment in the book, and the events leading up to it. It's hugely, hugely EPIC. I'm a sucker for this genre, so I loved it. Also, it convinced me that John Woo can make great movies - when he's at home, operating within the realm of his native culture. When in Hollywood, he seems merely okay. If you watch this movie, make sure it's the original two-disk version, not the abridged single-disk one. The events depicted in it have a factual basis, with the required dramatic embellishments on top.
> This conceit that many in the US and West have that the quality of our science and research is innate and unimpeachable is both ignorant and complacent.
Back when Hua Tuo in China was using anesthesia to perform surgery (the period described in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and pictured in a movie called Red Cliff by John Woo - awesome epic BTW), the West was living in huts.
The wheel can turn, more than once.