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beccaelizabethI watched Red Cliff as part of my project to watch more of the world than just all movies full of white people.
It is spectacular.
Takeshi Kaneshiro is a very good looking man, and I like his character in this. He's the brains. He does negotiating by playing music together and he shows his extreme clever by doing accurate weather predictions. Also he does battle strategies. These an excellent fun bit where he says he's going to go get a hundred thousand arrows. And lots of really good stuff with tortoises.
There's also two female characters, with names, who stand next to each other at least once. I don't think they have a conversation. But they do get to save the day a lot, so that part is good.
I like how there's lots of different approaches represented in the main characters, lots of different paths to victory. Not everyone fights, but they all have their part to play.
I also like how all the fighters have their own style, their own speciality. Also their own distinctive facial hair, which helps in a big battle scene. There was no getting them muddled up, no more than you'd muddle Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. It was same like superhero teams but in a different idiom. Everyone has their skills and the teamwork brings it all together.
There were lots of really tense bits where I didn't know how it would end, because its' always possible to have an everyone dies tragedy. It's based on a real battle though so those with the knowing of that would have an idea which side wins without relying on narrative causality. Sometimes I wonder how much Really Obvious I'm missing in these films.
I looked on Wiki and apparently I only have the edited down for western audiences version, and there's hours more in two parts in other versions. Now I want the whole thing. Also, do not want the opening voiceover. Granted I wouldnt know where in history it was without that, but it was so jarring and intrusive, and there's plenty of good imagery to tell you which side are the bullies and which lot are good protectors, so why add voices? Just wait a minute and figure it out. ... the voiceover would only be logical if you don't trust your audience not to get bored and not bother to figure it out. :eyeroll:
I like all the clothes. I'm frustrated about clothes because I've been trying to learn enough to timeline clothes and start figuring out which bits carry the most meaning and what they're saying, and I can't find hardly anything at all. I'll have to try proper library stuff. But there were lots of clothes, lots of different things, lots of work put in and details in it. Even if I can't read them yet.
The scale of the battle scenes was awesome. And there was fire and blood and lots and lots and lots of dead bodies. So you see the good tricks and the big wins, and then you see the carnage left behind. Proper war film.
I keep coming back to scale and spectacle about this film. It told a really big story and kept it really big. So many people! Lots of soldiers in the battle, and quite a lot of named characters to string the story between like cats cradles. Motives went from personal (Get The Girl) right up to huge political, so whichever sort of motive was your sort of thing it was there threaded through the story.
It was not a perfect story. I like Bechdel passing stories with half the characters being women. But The Girl was not just the damsel in distress, even if she did need rescuing, she had her own choices and actions that were just as key as every other character.
It's making me think thoughts about the kind of scale you can get in a story, if you keep a tight simple core to it.
Now I want to watch the really really long version.
Also, I want to figure out a bunch of movies to watch on purpose because they're good, rather than because they're in the supermarket on the cheap. That might be helpful.
ETA: I poked Wiki for more information and it's one of the big famous bits out of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. See? I know nothing! ... it's fun not knowing the endings of things, but still, I need more knowings.
It is spectacular.
Takeshi Kaneshiro is a very good looking man, and I like his character in this. He's the brains. He does negotiating by playing music together and he shows his extreme clever by doing accurate weather predictions. Also he does battle strategies. These an excellent fun bit where he says he's going to go get a hundred thousand arrows. And lots of really good stuff with tortoises.
There's also two female characters, with names, who stand next to each other at least once. I don't think they have a conversation. But they do get to save the day a lot, so that part is good.
I like how there's lots of different approaches represented in the main characters, lots of different paths to victory. Not everyone fights, but they all have their part to play.
I also like how all the fighters have their own style, their own speciality. Also their own distinctive facial hair, which helps in a big battle scene. There was no getting them muddled up, no more than you'd muddle Blue Beetle and Booster Gold. It was same like superhero teams but in a different idiom. Everyone has their skills and the teamwork brings it all together.
There were lots of really tense bits where I didn't know how it would end, because its' always possible to have an everyone dies tragedy. It's based on a real battle though so those with the knowing of that would have an idea which side wins without relying on narrative causality. Sometimes I wonder how much Really Obvious I'm missing in these films.
I looked on Wiki and apparently I only have the edited down for western audiences version, and there's hours more in two parts in other versions. Now I want the whole thing. Also, do not want the opening voiceover. Granted I wouldnt know where in history it was without that, but it was so jarring and intrusive, and there's plenty of good imagery to tell you which side are the bullies and which lot are good protectors, so why add voices? Just wait a minute and figure it out. ... the voiceover would only be logical if you don't trust your audience not to get bored and not bother to figure it out. :eyeroll:
I like all the clothes. I'm frustrated about clothes because I've been trying to learn enough to timeline clothes and start figuring out which bits carry the most meaning and what they're saying, and I can't find hardly anything at all. I'll have to try proper library stuff. But there were lots of clothes, lots of different things, lots of work put in and details in it. Even if I can't read them yet.
The scale of the battle scenes was awesome. And there was fire and blood and lots and lots and lots of dead bodies. So you see the good tricks and the big wins, and then you see the carnage left behind. Proper war film.
I keep coming back to scale and spectacle about this film. It told a really big story and kept it really big. So many people! Lots of soldiers in the battle, and quite a lot of named characters to string the story between like cats cradles. Motives went from personal (Get The Girl) right up to huge political, so whichever sort of motive was your sort of thing it was there threaded through the story.
It was not a perfect story. I like Bechdel passing stories with half the characters being women. But The Girl was not just the damsel in distress, even if she did need rescuing, she had her own choices and actions that were just as key as every other character.
It's making me think thoughts about the kind of scale you can get in a story, if you keep a tight simple core to it.
Now I want to watch the really really long version.
Also, I want to figure out a bunch of movies to watch on purpose because they're good, rather than because they're in the supermarket on the cheap. That might be helpful.
ETA: I poked Wiki for more information and it's one of the big famous bits out of one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. See? I know nothing! ... it's fun not knowing the endings of things, but still, I need more knowings.