Red Cliff

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Red Cliff (original title: 赤壁) is a film directed by John Woo and inspired by a famous battle in Romance of the Three Kingdoms, based on the Three Kingdoms period of ancient China. The first part was released in 2008 and its second part in 2009; in some countries, only a condensed version was released. It stars Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Hu Jun, Lin Chiling and Zhao Wei.

Tropes used in Red Cliff include:
  • Action Girl: Sun Shangxiang; also technically a Lady of War, since she's a princess, if a rather tomboyish one.
  • Adaptational Badass: Xiao Qiao. No, really. From a side character most people with passing knowledge of Three Kingdoms have never heard of, to someone who walks right into enemy territory and calmly has tea with the Magnificent Bastard, it's safe to say John Woo has done for Xiao Qiao what Michael Bay did for Bumblebee. It's not hard to see how rumors that she would get a fight scene as well would come about.
  • Adaptation Distillation: The film combines some of the elements from Records of the Three Kingdoms and the historical fiction Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
  • Amazon Brigade: Sun Shangxiang's all-women cavalry archers.
  • An Aesop: Zhou Yu demonstrates one by snapping a single straw, then trying and failing with a whole handful to illustrate the point of the alliance. Also:

Children: "What use is reading if we're hardly able to eat?"
Guan Yu: "When you have mastered reading, you will have much to eat. You'll learn in time."

  • Angry Eyebrows: Gan Xing's give him a perpetual scowl similar to Japanese woodblock prints of ancient samurai (appropriate since his actor is Japanese).
  • Annoying Arrows: Most of the characters shrug off up to half a dozen arrows
    • However, averted with infantrymen. And Gan Xing, who's Genre Savvy enough to know he's pretty much dead, thus goes for the Suicide Attack.
  • Arrow Cam
  • Arrows on Fire: Used during the climatic battle to set off explosives, or just take down unfortunate mooks.
  • Audible Gleam: The golden shields reflecting sunlight to blind the soldiers and confuse their horses.
  • Audible Sharpness: Zhou Yu's sword.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking
  • Automatic Crossbows: Historically Zhuge Liang invented them. China used them in battle up until the mid 1800's.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: Zhou Yu and Zhao Yun.
  • Badass: Pretty much the entire cast. One of them is so badass, he'll actually be worshiped as a god in the following centuries.
  • Berserk Button: Do NOT interrupt Zhang Fei's calligraphy practice! It's supposed to cultivate DISCIPLINE!!
  • Big Badass Battle Sequence: Three in total:
    • The opening where Liu Bei's army is on the retreat.
    • The climax of Part One, where the allies ambush Cao Cao's cavalry using the tortoise formation.
    • The climax of Part Two, perhaps one of the purest examples of this trope ever, running over half an hour of unbroken screen time in which the allies launch their full-blown assault on Cao Cao's camp, complete with catapults, hails of arrows, exploding fire ships, bombs, cavalry charges, and many, many, many individual Crowning Moments Of Awesome.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Cao Cao is defeated, but at great cost to both sides. It's worse for those who know what happened next between the Shu and Wu alliance.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Zhang Fei.
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Xiao Qiao can't bring herself to tell Zhou Yu that she's pregnant until she pretends to defect to Cao Cao, however she all but spells it out for him before that.
    • Actually, she spells it out much earlier, when he asks her why she keeps writing the same Chinese characters for "peace" over and over again, and she puts his head to her stomach, asking if he can hear anything. Zhou Yu was apparently holding the Idiot Ball at the time.
  • Captain Ersatz: Gan Xing, based on the historical Gan Ning, right down to being a former pirate. Nobody knows why it was changed, since everyone else was real.
    • Probably because Gan Xing dies during the movie, while Gan Ning historically survives the battle. On the other hand, there's also Xiahou Jun, presumably a stand-in for Xiahou Yuan or Xiahou Dun.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: During the straw boat scheme, along with a cup of tea. Turns out they merely collect the arrows and don't provide much defense against them...
  • Close-Call Haircut: Achieved by an arrow through the topknot.
  • Cool Old Guy: Huang Gai and Guan Yu.
  • Cultured Badass: Guan Yu combines this with Friend to All Children as he spends his off-time as a schoolteacher. Whereas Zhang Fei has yet to master calligraphy.
    • Zhou Yu, too. The northerners know him more for being a great musician, and their southern allies have to warn him that he has been their deadliest foe for years.
  • Deadly Dodging: In the second part, Zhao Yun does this against Wei pikemen coming at him from all sides, with predictable results.
  • Demoted to Extra: To a certain extent, Huang Gai. Historically, one of the reasons the Wu fleet was able to pull off the fire attack was because Cao Cao was expecting Huang Gai's ships from a false surrender ruse. This was expanded in the novel with an elaborate plan known as the "Bitter Meat Scheme" involving a beating and some Feed the Mole. Handwaved in the film when Huang suggests the plan to Zhou Yu, but Zhou dismisses it, saying it's unnecessary. He still appears in many scenes, often as Those Two Guys with Lu Su, and still leads the initial fire attack.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: Most of the male characters become visibly flustered when Shangxiang takes her enemy uniform off in front of them, before Xiao Qiao makes them turn away.
  • Due to the Dead: Zhou Yu decides to give the bodies of soldiers Cao Cao sent across the river a proper funeral, despite them being enemies.
  • Dying Like Animals: By the time Zhuge Liang figures out that plague-ridden corpses have been sent across the river, peasants are already looting them...
  • Ephebophile: Cao Cao admits that he was first taken to Xiao Qiao when he visited her father and caught sight of her quite a while back. "So very young, yet already a lady." YMMV on whether this fits the Moral Event Horizon better than the actual example below.
  • Epic Flail: In the first part, a huge chain of spiked rods is used to break a seemingly-impassable shield barrier. In the second part, Zhao Yun rips the ropes off a burning barricade with his spear and uses it (still burning too) like this.
  • Epic Movie: This is big for China, a big place we're talking about, and one of the most famous Chinese historical dramas.
  • Everything's Better with Rainbows: A rainbow appears over the mountains as Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu part.
  • Evil Chancellor: Cao Cao's transparent ambition is to usurp the imperial throne once he's done with the southern rebellions.
  • Evil Is Hammy: Cao Cao.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: At the end of the big battle, an arrow undoes Cao Cao's topknot, and his hair comes undone. It symbolizes his defeat (while paradoxically making him look more badass).
    • Long, unfastened hair on men would only be considered badass to Western audiences. To the Chinese, only the mad, the homeless, and/or the poorest of the poor would wear their hair that way—emphasizing Cao Cao's defeat.
  • Fastball Special: Zhang Fei throws an enemy into a group of others.
  • A Father to His Men: Liu Bei makes straw footwear for his soldiers by hand. Gan Xing too, till his final moments.
  • Finger-Poke of Doom: Shangxiang brings down Lu Su's horse with just her thumb.
    • And then she does the same thing to Liu Bei. The Oh Crap looks on Zhuge Liang and Lu Su's faces when they realize what she's up to are priceless.
  • First Love : Sun Shangxiang, the princess of Wu, forcibly rejects any proposal ideas her brother makes including knocking out Liu Bei with a punch, and falls in love with a soldier from Wei who also happens to be the star athlete. The first time she saw him, he single-handidly dominated a soccer-esque game.
  • Foe-Tossing Charge: A few, but a particularly epic one courtesy of Zhang Fei
  • Foreshadowing: In the second part, Zhou Yu reminisces about his school days with his old friend Jiang Gan, bringing up how he faked his handwriting and got him in trouble. This is exactly how he manages to con Cao Cao and screw over Jiang Gan in what turns out to be the very last time...
    • Xiao Qiao asks Zhou Yu whether the bloodshed could have been avoided if they simply sat down with Cao Cao and discussed it over tea. Towards the end of the movie, that's pretty much what she does.
    • Not a foreshadowing of anything in the film, but the exchange between Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang about the possibility of them ending up on opposite sides of a battle in the future is precisely what happens a little while later.
  • Genghis Gambit: The alliance between the Shu and Wu is very much the result of them facing a common threat
  • Good People Have Good Sex: Zhou Yu and Xiao Qiao get it on like it's their last time, even though it really isn't; Cao Cao has a Xiao Qiao stand-in and frequent headaches.
  • Heroic BSOD: Sun Shangxiang when her friend in the Wei Army is killed before her eyes. She doesn't move until after the battle is over.
  • Historical Beauty Update: The biggest examples are probably heart-throbs Takeshi Kaneshiro and Chang Chen as Zhuge Liang and Sun Quan, respectively. Tony Leung as Zhou Yu may be an exception, as Zhou Yu was actually considered very handsome by his contemporaries.
  • Honor Before Reason: Why Guan Yu didn't kill Cao Cao when he had the chance.
  • Idiosyncratic Wipes: The second part begins with a Clip Show of the first, punctuated by sword slashes. They're maintained for the rest of the movie
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Guan Yu does this to Wei pikemen with their own pikes. Also see Deadly Dodging above.
  • Incendiary Exponent: The fire-ship attack.
  • Kill It with Fire: The famous strategy Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu use to wipe out a navy eight times the size of their own.
  • Love Ruins the Realm: Cao Cao allows himself to be caught flat-footed by the alliance attack because he was engrossed by Xiao Qiao making tea.
  • Merchandise-Driven: Inverted: Namco Bandai's BB Senshi Sangokuden SD Gundam model kits, also featuring characters from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, were released with no connection to the film intended, until the rising popularity of the movie in Japan led them to re-release its own versions of Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu (Koumei Re-GZ and Shuuyu Hyakushiki) in a recolored boxset, including dioramas with screenshots from the movie
    • The popularity of Red Cliff is probably one reason why BB Senshi Sangokuden got an Animated Adaptation. Regardless, Sangokuden is awesome in its own right
    • Many tropers (including this one) are probably a little more familiar with Koei's Dynasty Warriors series, where Red Cliff is The Battle of Chi-Bi, although the series share little in common with this movie, aside from characters and small tidbits of reference to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
  • Misfit Mobilization Moment: And how!
  • More Dakka: An amusing scene where the Gan Xing keeps asking to make the firebombs larger and larger.
  • Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Chang Chen as Sun Quan; his Taiwanese accent is so thick you could cut it with a knife.
    • Shidō Nakamura as Gan Xing also has some noticeably Japanese touches to his Mandarin.
  • Oh Crap: Cao Cao's tricked into believing his two surrendered fleet admirals are traitors, and realizes he's being duped at the last possible second. "My Lord, if you kill them, who will lead the navy?" "...HALT!" *slice* He stands there paralyzed with anger.
    • Also when he looks on with shocked disbelief as the wind changes direction and Huang Gai commences the fire attack.
  • Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Zhuge Liang, on top of being a brilliant strategist, is also something of an expert in music, medicine, meteorology, midwifery and rearing pigeons. The movie itself hangs a lampshade on this.
  • One Buwwet Weft: Invoked when Zhou Yu deliberately leaves Sun Quan with just one arrow on a hunting trip.
  • Pet the Dog: Cao Cao's speech to his sick troops, which galvanizes his entire army behind him.
    • Alternative Character Interpretation: Cao Cao is just showing how charismatic he is to manipulate his soldiers into fighting for him. It's actually more likely an accurate interpretation considering it's Cao Cao.
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: When Shangxiang strips to her undergarments to unroll the map of Cao Cao's camp she had smuggled out under her clothes, Xiao Qiao repeatedly tries to get her to put her robe back on.
  • Rain of Arrows: Played with by the Genre Savvy Zhuge Liang, who uses the famous straw boat ruse to steal Wei's arrows.
  • Rasputinian Death: It takes a lot to kill those guys, especially if they're generals.
  • Reformed Criminal: Gan Xing and his men are former pirates.
  • Rousseau Was Right, Humans Are the Real Monsters: Every faction simply wants to unite China under their respective rule and bring about an era of peace. The fact every faction is willing to kill lots of people to do so...
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Both Liu Bei and Sun Quan lead their respective forces to battle. Then there's Shangxiang.
  • Scenery Porn: The Southlands are described as "paradise on Earth", and the movie makes sure you know it. The scene during the Theme Tune Cameo is particularly prevalent.
    • Geographically, the South was full of fertile, lush river valleys, while the flatlands of the North were too cold and dry to sustain agriculture.
  • Seven Minute Lull: In the spectator stands at a ball game, which leads to everyone hearing the carrier pigeon hidden on Sun Shangxiang's person.
  • Shoot the Messenger: Cao Cao orders the execution of a Wu emissary who brings him news that Sun Quan won't surrender.
  • Shout-Out: Zhao Yun fighting while carrying a baby may be a reference to Hard Boiled.
    • Could be an inversion actually, since Zhao Yun historically did it first.
  • Signature Style: If there's one director in the whole world who could somehow insert a Mexican Standoff in a period movie, it's John Woo. You've got Cao Cao and Zhou Yu with swords at each others' throats, Cao Hong with a sword to Zhou's back, then Sun Quan with a bow and arrow aimed at Cao, and just to add flavor, Xiahou Jun holds Xiao Qiao hostage.
    • John Woo's favourite avians make an appearance yet again, and this time, they're even plot-important!
  • Something Only They Would Say: Invoked. Zhou Yu's fake letters even mimic the Wei generals' writing errors.
  • Stalker with a Crush: Cao Cao for Xiao Qiao, to an eerie degree.
  • Stealth Hi Bye: Zhou Yu.
  • The Strategist: Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang.
  • Suicide Attack: Gan Xing, already wounded by a dozen or so arrows, brings down Cao Cao's main gate by charging at it and throwing explosive charges at suicidally close range. He gets killed in the resulting blast.
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Shangxiang disguises herself as a soldier in order to infiltrate Cao Cao's camp.
  • Tap on the Head: Shangxiang has a talent for these. First, she uses it on Lu Su's horse in response to his Stay in the Kitchen attitude. Then gets spun into a Brick Joke when she uses it on Liu Bei, and Lu Su is the first to see it coming...
  • Theme Song Power Up: Pay attention during Zhang Fei's Foe-Tossing Charge.
  • Theme Tune Cameo: When Wu army drills led by Zhou Yu are interrupted by a peasant boy with a flute.
  • Understatement: When Zhou Yu asks Zhuge Liang whether he knows strategy, the latter replies "A little."
  • Unkempt Beauty: Xiao Qiao in her first scene.
  • Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Zhuge Liang's straw boat plan. And done on an even bigger scale with Liu Bei pulling out his forces.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment: Shangxiang hides the map of Cao Cao's camp wrapped around her torso, and casually undresses to remove it.
  • War Is Hell: Yes, the fight sequences are awesome, but they're also horrifyingly brutal and several scenes in the film are used to illustrate the tragedy caused. While the B plot with Shangxiang overly reeks of Romantic Plot Tumor, seeing the man who befriended her die before her eyes pretty much destroys her initial wide-eyed belief that being in battle is cool.
    • Lampshaded earlier in Part 1:

Zhuge Liang: "Princess, have you ever fought in a war?"
Sun Shangxiang: "There's always a first time!"
Zhou Yu: "The first time I fought, I wished there was never a second."

Zhou Yu: "You talk about peace but you quote from The Art of War?"
Xiao Qiao: "I've read your strategy books in secret; the better to understand you."

  • You Have Failed Me...: Cao Cao executes his admirals for falling for Zhuge Liang's aforementioned ruse. To be fair, it's also because he'd been given false information about their being on the other side's payroll.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Red_Cliff?oldid=1967613"