Japanese Trailer for John Woo’s Red Cliff

John Woo’s return to his Hong Kong roots with the Chinese martial arts epic “Red Cliff” seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle of a host of other Chinese martial arts epics that will be flooding theaters in 2008 alone. Seriously, what are they drinking over there that they’ve all decided to go the big-budget epic route at pretty much the same time? They’re going to kill the genre, for sure. But hey, while they’re at it, here’s the Japanese trailer for John Woo’s stab at epic moviemaking — “Red Cliff”, formerly called “The Battle of Red Cliff”.

In 208 A.D., in the final days of the Han Dynasty, shrewd Prime Minster Cao Cao convinced the fickle Emperor Han the only way to unite all of China was to declare war on the kingdoms of Xu in the west and East Wu in the south. Thus began a military campaign of unprecedented scale, led by the Prime Minister, himself. Left with no other hope for survival, the kingdoms of Xu and East Wu formed an unlikely alliance. Numerous battles of strength and wit ensued, both on land and on water, eventually culminating in the battle of Red Cliff. During the battle, two thousand ships were burned, and the course of Chinese history was changed forever.

I liked the Chinese trailer released a while back better.