Battle of the Red Cliff - John Woo's Newest Movie

There has been much interest on the new John Woo movie - Battle of Red Cliff (赤壁之战) not only because its a John Woo movie but also because it is a big budget historical epic movie that is so rare these days in Chinese moviedom.

Based on the famous 'Battle of Chi Bi' or 'Battle of Red Cliff' as depicted in the Chinese historical novel 'Romance of the Three Kingdoms', the story is set during the turbulent years of the Three Kingdoms (AD 190 - AD 280) in Chinese history. The main protagonists are Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Zhou Yu, Sun Quan and the very intelligent Zhuge Liang. Of course what is a great historical epic without great beauties to spice things up :-P and in the 'Battle of Red Cliff' it comes in the form of Da Qiao and Xiao Qiao.

The unconfirmed cast is a who's who of top names in the Chinese entertainment industry: Chow Yun Fatt as Zhou Yu, Tony Leung Chiu Wai as master strategist Zhuge Liang, Zhang Zhen as Sun Quan and Taiwan's Number 1 beauty Lin Chi Ling (picture above) as Xiao Qiao. The rest of the cast have not been named as yet although Ken Watanabe was rumored to play Cao Cao and Andy Lau was rumored to play Zhou Yu previously.

However none of the cast have been confirmed as yet, although the movie is set to begin filming in March 2007.

Lets keep our eyes peeled on this much hyped John Woo movie ;-) Hopefully it will set off a trend of filming more historical movies cos there really is too many fantastic stories from Chinese histories and legends that have yet to be immortalised on film.

Btw, if you are interested in watching older John Woo movies to have a feel of his filmmaking style, click here :-)

[Picture from http://yummycelebrities.com/2005/09/18/lin-zhi-ling/]

Chinese Movie
Historical Movie