"Red Cliff" Sucks

What is behind the record RMB 300 million box office of the movie Red Cliff is, in effect, a misguided pop culture—dishing out any piece with some A-list actors under a celebrated director, it would be a guaranteed big hit. After a good two hours of giddy spectacle of classic martial arts and upgraded special effects, much to my chagrin, I found myself leaving the theatre with an intellectual and emotional void. Ask me and I would conceivably tell you: “the movie sucks.”

Any major motion picture piece on San-Guo ought to be of significance to the generation of my age. Growing up in an epoch comprised such limited home entertainment options that the radio broadcasted episodes of San-Guo-Yan-Yi, Yang-Jia-Jiang, Yue-Fei-Zhuan, and whatnot were the national pastime extant - A television set, even a black-and-white one, was a luxury back then. In turn, those radio classics are the emblems of the so-called pop culture. Thirty minutes per day after schoolwork and before dinner, the epic of ZhuGe-Liang, et al, carried on a high-pitched voice thru the radio waves, ingrained the precious childhood memories of many. Years later the cadences of the story-lines may have diminished, but the inspiring scars of “Moral Suasion” are yet discernible.

A movie tells a story, and good stories invariably have souls. I don’t mind the Red Cliff clique’s tuning up the role of the leading actress, or throwing in a she-male character, to cater to the female audience, but that Cao-Cao preconceived an expedition solely for someone else’s wife named Little Bridge is definitely off the chart. Buried under so sleazy a taste, heroes like Guan-Yu, Zhang-Fei, Zhao-Yun become common warlord, with a glitz of mere skilled killers. Sun-Quan is practically a coward, whose courage could but be awakened in an animal hunting. And the glamor of ZhuGe-Liang, the weather-savvy demigod and protagonist of the entire season, is simply not there. (I am not picking on the choice of actor, who should simply bring the designated character alive a la Tom Hanks.)

If there are to be blamed, the screenwriter would evidently top the list. It is the easiest job after all – with such a time-tested best selling novel in hand, he could well copy ‘n past (and spell check, if insisted) and simply do away with the creative chops. the guy’s ability to metamorphose the grandeur of a cultural treasure into a craptacular is unprecedented. Who else could have churned out a third-grade entree with the best recipe and ingredient available? it won’t be an irony to dub him the SanGuo-Taliban.

I believe that out of the RMB 300 million he must have got his cut, an unfair one disproportionately bigger than his minuscule brain. I sincerely wish that he spends the not-so-richly deserved boodle on a camping trip into the woods, immersing himself into the rustic tranquility and wistfully nurturing some inspirations necessary to pen the imminent second half. Hopefully, a bear cruising around would challenge him into a due—a till-death kind of close combat that would only end with the fall of one of them, preferably that of our unexpectedly upstaged writer. if he does fortunately comes back to the set of Red Cliff, I am resolved to call 119 ere anyone would set fire on the Red Cliff again.