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[[File:Red_Cliff_3.jpg|framethumb|350px]]
 
'''''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]].
 
In 208 CE, the centuries-old Han Dynasty is crumbling. To the South, warlords Sun Quan and Liu Bei have set up the independent kingdoms of Wu and Shu, respectively, while the scheming Prime Minister Cao Cao obtains from the young, naive Emperor leadership of a huge army to be sent to crush Sun and Liu's "rebellions". Cao Cao's Wei forces swiftly advance into the Kingdom of Shu and face Liu Bei's army at the Battle of Changban, where Liu's sworn brothers Zhang Fei and Guan Yu (who will later be deified as the Chinese God of War) successfully hold back the attackers, giving civilians enough time to evacuate. However, despite Zhao Yun's bravery, Liu's wife is killed by Wei soldiers, and only his infant son can be saved.
 
After the battle, Liu's master strategist Zhuge Liang is sent to the Kingdom of Wu to talk Sun Quan into an alliance against the Wei threat. Zhuge, who finds in Sun's general Zhou Yu a kindred spirit, convinces Sun to fight rather than surrender. The decision is taken to face Cao's army at the strategic stronghold of [[Title Drop|Red Cliff]]. During a first skirmish, Sun Quan's sister Sun Shangxiang's [[Amazon Brigade|all-women cavalry force]] lures Cao's vanguard into a trap, and with the clever use of the Eight Trigrams Formation, Wu and Shu's forces defeats the enemy.
 
Cao's forces set up camp on the opposite riverbank to Red Cliff, and begins to plan for a large-scale naval attack. However, Shangxiang infiltrates the camp and provides Sun and Liu with valuable reconnaisance. An outbreak of typhoid fever weakens Wei forces, but Cao cunningly sends contaminated corpses to Red Cliff, resulting in Wu and Shu soldiers strickened with the deadly infection. Disheartened by the epidemic, Liu Bei pulls out of the alliance, although Zhuge stays behind out of personal loyalty to Zhou Yu. In order to remedy Wu's lack of arrows, Zhuge sends straw boats within range of Wei forces, and [[The Thirty-Six Stratagems|the latter unleash thousands of arrows into the boats]].
 
Shangxiang returns from Cao's camp with a map of his army's formation. In order to buy time for a southeastern wind to be used as a fire attack in Wu's preemptive, Zhou's wife Xiao Qiao personally goes to Cao, knowing he has long since been infatuated with her, with the intent to distract him while Wu attacks. As the wind turns in the middle of the night, Wu send fireships to destroy Cao's navy, while Liu Bei, who had only faked defection, strikes Cao's camp from land. With the Battle of Red Cliff finished, Cao finds himself defeated and retreats to the North.
 
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=== Contains examples of: ===
 
{{Needs More Info}}
{{tropelist}}
* [[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 knowlegeknowledge 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 [[Transformers Film Series|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.▼
* [[Actor Allusion]]: Sun Shangxiang dressing as a guy while watching a [[Shaolin Soccer|ball game... with martial arts...]]
** Zhao Wei would again dress as a man while playing the titular character [[Mulan|Hua Mulan]].
** There's a possible jab at Lin Chiling's career in modelling, when Zhou Yu drinks her tea and praises it to her face, like he was in a commercial.
▲* [[Adaptational Badass]]: Xiao Qiao. No, really. From a side character most people with passing knowlege 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 [[Transformers Film Series|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:
{{quote| '''Children''': "What use is reading if we're hardly able to eat?"<br />
'''Guan Yu''': "When you have mastered reading, you will have much to eat. You'll learn in time." }}
* [[A Father to His Men]]: Liu Bei makes straw footwear for his soldiers ''by hand''. Gan Xing too, {{spoiler|till his final moments}}▼
▲* [[Amazon Brigade]]: Sun Shangxiang's all-women cavalry archers.
* [[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 {{spoiler|Gan Xing}}, who's [[Genre Savvy]] enough to know he's pretty much dead, thus goes for the [[Suicide Attack]].
* [[Arrow Cam]]
* [[Arrows Onon 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 [[Ur Example|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 [[Memetic Badass|worshippedworshiped as a god in the following centuries]].
* [[Berserk Button]]: [[Crowning Moment of Funny|Do NOT interrupt Zhang Fei's calligraphy practice!]] [[Fridge Brilliance|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, {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|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 Moment of Awesome|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 {{spoiler|she's pregnant until she pretends to defect to Cao Cao}}, however she all but spells it out for him before that.
** Actually, {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|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 offtimeoff-time as a schoolteacher. [[Crowning Moment of Funny|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. {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|leads the initial fire attack}}.
* [[Distracted Byby 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 Thethe Dead]]: Zhou Yu decides to give the bodies of soldiers Cao Cao sent across the river a proper funeral, despite them being enemies. ▼
* [[Dueling Movies]]: With another Three Kingdoms movie, subtitled ''[[wikipedia:Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon|Resurrection of the Dragon]]'', set several chapters later and starring [[Andy Lau]] as Zhao Yun.
▲* [[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 ([[Incendiary Exponent|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 Withwith 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 -- emphasizingway—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, {{spoiler|till his final moments}}.
* [[Finger-Poke of Doom]]: Shangxiang brings down Lu Su's horse with just her thumb.
** And then {{spoiler|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 {{spoiler|including knocking out Liu Bei with a punch}}, and {{spoiler|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 [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4qbQCJ9QKs&t=6m50s a particularly epic one] courtesy of [[Implacable Man|Zhang Fei]]
Line 81 ⟶ 68:
* [[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 Withwith Extreme Prejudice]]: Guan Yu does this to Wei pikemen ''with their own pikes''. Also see [[Deadly Dodging]] above.
* [[Incendiary Exponent]]: The fireshipfire-ship attack.
* [[Kill It Withwith 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 ([https://web.archive.org/web/20130621051315/http://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10083925 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.
** [[Myth BustersMythBusters|"GAN XING WANT BIG BOOM!"]]
* [[Not Even Bothering Withwith 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 {{spoiler|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 [[Secret Test of Character|deliberately leaves Sun Quan with just one arrow on a hunting trip]].
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* [[Rain of Arrows]]: Played with by the [[Genre Savvy]] Zhuge Liang, who uses the famous straw boat ruse to steal Wei's arrows.
** Seeing how he's the one who [[Ur Example|invented the ruse]]...
* [[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 Bastardsthe 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 [[Rebellious Princess|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 [[Oh Crap|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. {{spoiler|You've got Cao Cao and Zhou Yu with swords at each otherothers's 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 [[Disturbed Doves|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 Withwith 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]]: {{spoiler|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 Onon the Head]]: Shangxiang has a talent for these. First, she uses it on Lu Su's horse in response to his [[Stay in Thethe Kitchen]] attitude. Then gets spun into a [[Brick Joke]] when she uses it on ''Liu Bei'', and [[Oh Crap|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]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWMYaiqmzVg 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 [[Fan Service|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]], {{spoiler|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:
{{quote| '''Zhuge Liang''': "Princess, have you ever fought in a war?"<br />
'''Sun Shangxiang''': "There's always a first time!"<br />
'''Zhou Yu''': "The first time I fought, I wished there was never a second." }}
* [[What a Senseless Waste of Human Life]]: A statement echoed when the alliance finally defeats the Wei forces.
* [[What Could Have Been]]: Ken Watanabe (of ''[[The Last Samurai]]'' fame) was originally selected to potray Cao Cao, but Chinese audiences were too vocal in protesting having a Japanese actor portray a known Chinese historical figure. [[John Woo]] wanted to avoid [[Unfortunate Implications]], so went with Zhang Fengyi. Also, Chow Yun-Fat would've been playing Zhou Yu, and was earlier considered to portray Liu Bei, but pulled out following a dispute with the producer for not having enough time to prepare for the script. In fact, Tony Leung was Woo's first choice to play Zhuge Liang, but he turned it down; Leung came back onto the set as Zhou Yu, due to the urgency in being unable to cast Chow.
** They complained about Ken Watanabe but let Takeshi Kaneshiro pass?
*** Kaneshiro is actually half-Taiwanese, and got his big break as a pop idol in Taiwan under the Mandarin translation for his name "Jincheng Wu".
* [[What Do You Mean It's Not Awesome?]]: In the second part. Watch as Zhou Yu practices with his sword while Xiao Qiao quotes ''[[The Art of War]]'' (see below) and brews the ''CRAP'' out of her tea.
* [[Wicked Cultured]]: Cao Cao.
* [[Women in Refrigerators]]: Liu Bei's wives in the beginning.
* [[Yamato Nadeshiko]]: Xiao Qiao. Lampshaded in the following dialogue:
{{quote| '''Zhou Yu''': "You talk about peace but you quote from ''[[The Art of War]]''?"<br />
'''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.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Epic Movie]]
[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]
[[Category:Red Cliff{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Military and Warfare Films]]
[[Category:Chinese Films]]
[[Category:Hong Kong Films]]
[[Category:Japanese Films]]
[[Category:Korean Movies]]
[[Category:Taiwanese Films]]
[[Category:Pages with working Wikipedia tabs]]
[[Category:Film]]
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