John Woo’s Red Cliff has 2 versions. The international version is 2h25min while the asian one is almost 4h40min. Let’s see the main differences, with spoilers:
First of all, the international cut is more action-oriented. Less blabla, more battles.
Characters are all introduced in 15 minutes. It takes almost 1h30 in the asian version. You won’t see the horse birth (“Meng Meng”), the old peasant whose buffalo was stolen by soldiers, the tiger hunting scene…
Therefore several characters lose all interest and it breaks some major relationships:
- Tony Leung & Kaneshiro are now good friends. The ambiguity is gone. No words about the fact they could be enemies next time.
- Zhao Wei & his football friend, it’s not developed. Strangely at the end, you see the dead body of Wei’s friend, but you don’t know who he is.
And many scenes have been shorten: the famous turtle fight, the typhoid epidemic…
The film looks simpler, more serious. BUT, emotions and humanity are diminished.
If you’ve noticed any other differences, say it!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Quick question, when you say the asian version of “Red Cliff”, is that version just the combination of “Red Cliff Part 1″ & “Red Cliff Part 2″ (which should work out to about 4h40m)
I just want to be sure there’s isn’t some extra long version of “Red Cliff Part 1″ out there I missed.
asian version of “Red Cliff”, is that version just the combination of “Red Cliff Part 1″ & “Red Cliff Part 2″
That’s right, the asian version is Red Cliff Part 1 + Part 2.
Although it seems both parts were released with different runtimes in Asia, according to IMDb:
Red Cliff Part 1 = Singapore:150 min (PG version) | China:146 min | South Korea:134 min
Asked about the international cut, John Woo said:
“We’ve been told it’d be better for westerners, subtitles can get them tired… because it’s chinese and there’s a lot of characters that westerners won’t recognize well…” —Published in Positif
(quoted from memory, I don’t have it at hand)