Made on a budget of US$80 million (double that of The Warlords and four times that of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Red Cliff, named after the site of a famous Chinese historical battle, is Asia’s most expensive movie to date. Seeing as the close to two-and-a half-hour long epic is but part one of a two-part saga and has a cast of reputedly a million soldiers as well as stars from Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan, the pressure really is on for John Woo’s first Chinese language film in 16 years to deliver the goods.

But what does this mean really? In terms of making a box office killing, it’s way too early to tell. Is this dramatization of how, in the year 208 AD, two kingdoms – Xu, ruled by the modest Liu Bei (You Yong) and his brilliant military advisor Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro), and Wu, ruled by the younger Sun Quan (Chang Chen) capably assisted by Viceroy Zhou Yu (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) – resisted the 800,000-strong might of the villainous Cao Cao (Zhang Fengyi), an instant classic? My already determined answer, alas, has to be a pretty emphatic ‘No’.

This is not to say that Red Cliff does not have its moments. As might be expected of a film from an auteur famed for his action movies, some of the battle scenes are breathtakingly awesome – and not just because they involve so many individuals either. Less expectedly and thoroughly admirable is how interesting and memorable many of the movie’s supporting and main players turn out to be. Particularly Xu warriors Zhao Yun (aka Zhao Zilong, who was less well essayed earlier this year by Andy Lau in Daniel Lee’s Three Kingdoms: Resurrection of the Dragon than by Hu Jun in this work), Guan Yu (Basen Zabu) and Zhang Fei (Zang Jinsheng). For what it’s worth, I’ll come straight out and say that I’m definitely looking forward to Part II later this year.

Nonetheless, the fact remains that this behemoth of a work is way too uneven in quality and tone: clunky in parts even while masterful in others, with editing that feels too abrupt in some sections but with pacing that is too slow elsewhere. And some scenes just seem plain unnecessary. Reports have it that Red Cliff will be pared down into a single movie for audiences outside of Asia, and one can quite easily finger the superfluous scenes and characters when that time comes.

Given director John Woo’s reputation for not doing well by women, it figures that scenes involving females – including those meant to prove one protagonist is a loving husband and others that reveal the villain’s obsession – are among the weakest in the movie. (On a related note, Vicki Zhao Wei’s Sun Shangxiang is surprisingly spunky and fun to watch but strains the realm of credibility). Red Cliff also suffers from an excess of music in a soundtrack that, at best, sounds derivative and, at worse, is irritatingly obtrusive. But perhaps the worst indictment to be made of this big budget work is that certain visuals are too obviously computer-generated and fake.

On the other side of the coin, however, John Woo certainly does know how to pick his actors. Tony Leung Chiu Wai is mesmerizingly commanding as Viceroy Zhou You, Takeshi Kaneshiro is luminous as Zhuge Liang and Zhang Fengyi gives a formidable portrayal of Cao Cao. And while there appears to be too little of the charismatic Chang Chen’s Sun Quan in Part I, one hopes to see far more of him when Part II of Red Cliff rolls along in late 2008.

Yvonne Teh