Red Cliff II

2009 "Destiny Lies In The Wind."
7.5| 2h21m| R| en| More Info
Released: 07 January 2009 Released
Producted By: Summit Entertainment
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website: http://www.redclifffilm.com
Synopsis

The battle of Red Cliff continues and the alliance between Xu and East Wu is fracturing. With Cao Cao's massive forces on their doorstep, will the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu survive?

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Tweekums The enjoyment of this film really relies on watching 'Part One' first as it introduces all the characters and explains the set up so my comments here assume the reader has seen part one.This follows on immediately from Part One with the rival forces on opposite banks of the Yangtze. Prime Minister Cao Cao has the superior forces and it looks as though things are getting even worse for the 'Rebels'. After a typhoid outbreak in his camp Cao Cao he puts infected bodies on rafts and lets then drift to the rebel camp where the infection spreads and causes Liu Bei to take his much needed troops away. It isn't all bad for the rebels, Sun Shangxiang has disguised herself as one of Cao Coa's soldiers and infiltrated his camp. Here she sends messages back while also drawing a map of all his fortifications and military formations; she also befriends an enemy soldier. The rebels have small victories when Zhou Yu uses subterfuge to make Cao Cao think his two top admirals are traitors and Zhuge Liang uses a particularly devious method to gain 100,000 arrows off their enemy. Sun returns to the rebels with her map and everything is set for the epic battle all they need is for the weather conditions to change to their advantage.If you enjoyed the first half of the story watching this film is a no-brainer… especially if you bought the DVD which includes both parts! I'd advise not watching too much time between watching each part as very little time is wasted on getting the viewer up to speed on what happened before. The first half of the film effectively sets things up as the two side try to ensure their victory. Each has its ups and down as there are setbacks and minor victories. There is also some humour; much provided by Sun as she poses as an enemy soldier and nobody even suspects that this attractive woman is not a man! When the battle scenes start they are spectacular and barely let up till the end of the film. The action is impressively varied with explosions as fire sweeps through the fleet and more traditional fighting scenes. These scenes are tense and it is by no means certain who will survive. The cast does a great job bringing the characters to life with the help of John Woo's direction. Overall this was a gripping conclusion to the story.These comments are based on watching the film in Mandarin with English subtitle… be warned the subtitles are rather small if you are watching on a relatively small TV unless you are close to the screen!
oneguyrambling Apparently the Red Cliff movies are very skewed towards a more bias "truth" that changes events to the point where it is less an historical drama than it is a reimagining. Even though I did Chinese history in high school I did more modern stuff, and in any case I am reviewing a movie, not fact-checking it.Given this is Red Cliff 2 we start with an "In last week's episode" flashback, that thankfully condenses the first movie into a tight 3 minutes, and also multi-tasks the credits in there as well.A good thing when the movie is more than 2 hours long already.The opening scene doesn't bode well for the viewer, it is a tacky soccer game filled with dumb coincidences and forced bits, at the end of which we are expected to believe that a dumb soccer player and a woman in the crowd masquerading as a male soldier become instant fast friends. More than that no-one, including the dumb soccer guy, know she is a chick until the end of the film.My 20 second update for you at home: Cao-Cao: The bad guy, controls the other bad guys. Confident and arrogant.Zhou Yu & Zhu Ge: The good guys, both impossibly cool and nice regardless of the circumstances. From different armies though now close friends and allies. Zhou Yu runs the show while Zhu Ge is more a 2IC/confidante in the wings.The scenario: The two armies are separated by a river, Cao-Cao has a greater navy and army, the goodies are holed up in their fortress. Both sides are second guessing the strategy of the other.Back to the war. Cao-Cao's army is stricken with typhoid, suffering many casualties, and rather than allow all those good bodies to go to waste Cao-Cao simply floats them across to the goodies' side, where for some reason rather than saying "Ew gross! Dead Chinese guys!" They drag the rafts onshore and go about pickpocketing the corpses. OK I can sorta see it now.Another goodie Army leader Lui Bei decides "F this for a joke" and leaves, taking his previously loyal army with him. Rather than start an in-fight Zhou Yu thanks him for his time and lets Lui Bei go.Meanwhile Cao-Cao locks his naval boats together in a seemingly impenetrable line near his armies' shoreline, to ward off attack.There are spies on both sides at all times, though they seem privy to more info than your normal spy might get.The goodies desperately need arrows, and they also want to cause disruption and unrest in Cao-Cao's forces to divide the army. In a little over 10 minutes of screen time Zhou Yu and Zhu Ge manage to do both, opening up the potential for an attack.Cao-Cao is p*ssed with proceedings, and orders an attack himself in two day's time. Also, the typhoid outbreak is only getting worse, so Cao-Cao needs to get things done while the health of his army allows.It turns out that it isn't whose army is bigger or stronger, or whose tactics are superior, but who is a master of the weather condition that will decide this contest.After a quick dumpling or two the goodies launch an all out frontal assault and you'll never guess who wins...And I guess in a film like this that isn't really important, especially when John Woo is the guy behind the camera. We have a lot of BIG EXPLOSIONS, much wire work and some slow mo scenes that seem more dramatic than they should be.And doves. Must remember the doves.Final Rating - 7 / 10. In a two film series where both films clock in at over two hours the worst thing that can happen is that you get bored. I wasn't bored with this. But at the same time I can't say I long to sit through either film again.If you liked this review (or even if you didn't) check out oneguyrambling.com
KineticSeoul The first half of this film was at least amusing but it starts to fall apart from there. This film is more cartoonish than the first movie and not realistic at all, a lot of parts in the movie never really happened in Chinese history. From what I heard the final battle scene of this movie wasn't even fought by the people who are portrayed in the movie, I assume John Woo went this direction cause he only spent time developing only a handful of characters and to top it off the movie ends with a wimper. The first movie at least had some good battle scenes, but part 2 really lacks the battle scenes compared to part 1 and I thought part 1 lacked action as well. John Woo just added a lot of drama without actually adding anything to the brutality of war. The final stand off in the movie was absurd and not believable and it's not just cause it didn't happen in Chinese history that way even though I don't know the Chinese historical context I know a lot of the parts portrayed in the movie to be false. Even when John Woo tries to add character development to some of the other characters like Sun Shangxiang he was doing more damage than good, cause it wasn't captivating what so ever. I don't even want to get into the bad dialogue cause it well pretty bad. I will give this movie a 7 cause at least the first half of the movie was more captivating than part 1 although the battle cause it was ridiculous and not very engaging the ending was a let down as well.7/10
lyx-1 I was so disgusted with Part 1, I didn't even bother going to the cinema to catch Part 2, and I have just watched Part 2 on DVD. I wish I'd done the reverse instead! although Part 2 is still marred with some of the irritatingly dumb dialogue, completely gratuitous, made up stories and "cute" characters and unnecessary "art" touches (John Woo calling Oscars...), it contains less fillers and the lavish production is amply showcased.Perhaps the fact that I sat through Part 1 inoculated me from the effects in Part 2, or maybe Woo heeded the audience's complaints and cut out more of the cr*p.Two outstanding elements that made the film worth watching - the actor who plays Cao Cao and the set with all the grand battle scenes. It got too pyrotechnical for me, but it screams money.There are plot lines that are quite unbelievable - as I'm not that familiar with the true historical context, I cannot ascertain if they actually took place, but a brilliant tactician like Cao Cao surely would not be as gullible as the film portrayed?In the end, there were far more interesting secondary characters with their subplots in the original history, not to mention the novel itself, without John Woo having to fabricate and invent paper thin ones with their equally shallow "stories". It also leads to an uneven script - alternating between brilliant prose from the novel and other classics and "dumbed down" meaningless drivel and "jokes" thought up by less refined modern minds. These "touches" irritate any audience who has a good knowledge of the original - they would feel insulted. I saw partial episodes of those made for TV series produced in China, very much less glamorous and low budget, but ultimately intelligent and engaging.For an audience with no inkling of the original, Red Cliff 2 - with less of those "Meng Meng" moments and more scenes from the tactical battles - is probably entertaining and satisfying enough. This I gathered from the feedback of others. Thus, I'm giving it 7 stars in my attempt to stay objective to the best of my ability.