Film review: Red Cliff

RED CLIFF (12A) ***

DIRECTED BY: JOHN WOO

STARRING: TONY LEUNG, TAKESHI KANISHIRO, CHEN CHANG, FENGYI ZHANG

AFTER more than a decade of dwindling success and relevance as a Hollywood hack-for-hire, one-time action genius John Woo makes a comeback of sorts with Red Cliff – his first Asian film since 1992's astonishing Hard Boiled. Rather than plugging himself back into the Hong Kong action scene where he made his name, however, he's opted to make the kind of ravishing battle epic favoured by Zhang Yimou, the man behind international hits House of Flying Daggers and Curse of the Golden Flower. Like those films Red Cliff is extravagant and expensive, but at least all the money has gone on screen. Set during China's Han Dynasty, circa 208AD, its story of two southern kingdoms reluctantly joining forces to ward off an attack from the north offers up plenty of spectacle courtesy of some marvellously orchestrated set-pieces. Woo always manages to just stave off the tedium that threatens to engulf proceedings every time impenetrably intricate chat about battle strategies and family betrayals starts to rear its head.