赤壁 (Red Cliff)

♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

I try to avoid Chinese movies because they usually just fly and kill each other. In this movie they fly less and kill more. And Gong Li is nowhere in sight. This movie is based on that video game called Dynasty Warriors (Battle of Chi Bi, in particular), which is based on that novel called Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is supposedly based on real events from China's feudal past. Sword fight, sword fight. I burn your navy, bitch. Arrow to the head, arrow to the head! I use VCO for my hair, look how it sways. Blood on the forehead, blood on the forehead! Shameful as it may seem I admit I fell asleep.

I think it is based on the video game because even the physical appearance of the characters are almost the same! Well except maybe for Zhuge Liang (Kong Ming) because they asked Takeshi Kaneshiro to play the role. Come on. Zhou Yu is the narcissistic Pantene model. And we've always thought that Zhuge Liang is gay (who goes into battle with a fan? He is a strategist. Hmmm... okay...). And where are all the Wei generals? Only Cao Cao is here, boring. Zhang Fei and Guan Yu here really resemble their PlayStation counterparts.

Okay I am sorry for not being so appreciative of the movie. I just do not get Chinese movies and I gave this one a chance because I used to play the video game. In fairness to the movie it is rather consistent with the video game in terms of characterization. Zhuge Liang is painted as the gifted strategist as he is. Sun Shang Xiang is still the young sister eager to go to battle (I miss the chakrams, though) and Cao Cao is still ambitious as always. Chinese history is too much for me to handle, so I couldn't base anything on that. But if the video game and this movie agree on some points, I guess there is reason to believe that some of the characters here are portrayed accurately, or at least close to what they were believed to be like during that time.

Nonetheless I kind of envy the Chinese, or the East Asians in general, because they have such a rich past and they are really proud of it. Well it is pretty obvious from the movies that we usually see them produce. There is some sort of nostalgia that is well preserved in their culture, even now. And I guess they use that as a rallying point for nation building.

Oh crap, did I just mention nation-building? What the face. I think I need to snooze now. Such big words for an incoherent movie review. I burn your navy. I burn your navy!