The script is over 200 pages, with three major set pieces, and nearly 2,000 extras; and Woo's producing partner, Terance Chang, has been in and out of the hospital since last year, reportedly being treated for stress and exhaustion.

It's no wonder.

Chow Yun-Fat dropped out of the project one day into filming (what a dick) and Chang and Woo, beside themselves, with time running out, had to go to Tony "Purple Rose of Hong Kong" Leung (who had originally passed on the project due to exhaustion after working on Ang Lee's Lust, Caution) and beg him to take Chow Yun-Fat's place and save the picture, which Leung graciously agreed to do.

"At the time I felt a rather great sense of defeat. I felt at a loss," the director said at a press conference in Beijing. "Even though we couldn't work together under the circumstances, he's still one of the actors I admire the most, and my good friend."

Yeah, sounds like a real amigo.

A John Woo actioner without Chow Yun-Fat is like a Letterman show without Paul Shaffer, Giada without a trustfund, or Carrot top without a prop: in other words, 1997's Face/Off, and 2000's Mission: Impossible II.

Let's face it, John Woo's made some seriously bad films. The best part of Face/Off was when the trolls on the Mr. Cranky forums acted out the homosexual three-way they thought was going on between John Travolta, Nicholas Cage, and Woo himself in the director's trailer; those films weren't even forgivable in the "it's so bad it's good" sense. The idea of Woo penning a 200 page script about one of China's greatest historical conflicts with $80 million to burn is slightly nauseating. You hope he'll be reigned in by the fact that everyone in China is so familiar with the story, and guided to an extent by historical events which can not be altered (sort of like how Robert Rodregez couldn't fuck up Sin City with Frank Miller working on the script).

Red Cliff is based on a piece of historical fiction written in the 14th and 15th Century called Romance of the Three Kingdoms. The book chronicles the end of the Han Dynasty, and the campaign for supremacy which followed. Woo's film will focus on the Battle of Red Cliffs, which occured immediately prior to the fall of the Han empire and set the stage for the creation of a new state. It's the very definition of "epic", a genre of film which generally requires great vision and a delicate balancing of elements in order to create an "experience" and not a laborious march through "the scene that never ends", or a trip down "the bunny hole of plot twists".

Woo has been praised for his "balletic" action sequences; but has he really proven he can stage large scale battles in a convincing and engaging way? Because I think he failed that test with Windtalkers, which was, by all accounts, a boring pile of shit.

I am glad they were unable to secure either Chow Yun-Fat or Jet Lee for the role of Zhou Yu. How many times can they shove those two wind bags down our throats? They're a turn-off to any real HK fan. The only reason I bothered seeing Hero in the theater was because of Tony "too much" Leung and his "deep dish" roaming ass shots in 2046. The shameless Hollywood whoring of both Lee and Fat just reinforces what I find repulsive and repellant about movies being produced in this country; even Gap knows Americans no longer have skills (unless you want some kind of emo folk ballad, then you can go to any suburb in the country and find some teenagers to pen it for you).

The Chinese government, seeing the film as a showcase of Chinese history, has pressured the filmmakers to release Red Cliff immediately prior to the 2008 Olympic Games being held in Beijing. A move which will likely prove as ingenious as staging a viewing of Windtalkers prior to the reception of the announcement that Al Gore had won the Nobel Peace Prize. Which would be fitting, because, like Windtalkers and Al Gore, Red Cliff sounds like it's going to be slow plotting and boring.

Warlord Cao Cao's camp

John Woo with Tony Leung and Chiling Lin on set

Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro

Tony Leung as Zhou Yu

Gathering forces

Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang

Takeshi Kaneshiro

Tony Leung and Chang Chen

asian dude

Tony Leung on set