William Samuel The first word that comes to mind is epic. There is simply no other way to describe the massive scale sweeping narrative of this production. Battle scenes contain hundreds, sometimes even thousands of extras. When the camera tracked over Cao Cao's fleet, I couldn't help but feel impressed. It's one thing to be told that someone has two thousand ships; it's another thing entirely to see every one of them, stretching for miles along a swollen river. Whether it's the number of extras, the exquisitely detailed set pieces, or the lavish costume design, you can tell that no expense was spared at any point.Of course there's more to a film than just production values, there's also the matter of plot and characterization. Fortunately, Red Cliffs delivers here as well. The plot, which follows warlord Cao Cao's invasion of southern China in ancient times, is easy to follow but not at all threadbare. The characters are also fairly well developed, considering the size of the cast.I admit that at first I wasn't sure what to think of the combat sequences. They were certainly quite impressive, but seeing a warrior dodge spear thrusts from half a dozen enemies and then dispatch all of them with a single attack made it hard for me to suspend my disbelief. Then I realized that this is a martial arts film as much as a war movie. When viewed on these terms, the fight scenes were highly enjoyable. I rarely got the feeling that any of the actors' moves owed more to special effects than to their physical abilities, and it was quite refreshing to see them dispense with the One at a Time Attack Rule. The larger battle sequences between armies are also well staged, with the Tortoise Shell Formation sequence being one of most impressive displays of strategy and precision choreography that I've seen in quite a while.This film is hardly perfect. Some parts of the movie, such as the birth of the foal, or the scene in which one of the generals tends to his pigeons didn't seem entirely necessary. I suppose that perhaps these scenes had some greater meaning that Chinese audiences would have grasped, but I can certainly understand how the distributors were able to cut the running time by half for the film's western release.Overall, however, it does a good job of holding the viewer's attention and telling a compelling story. It is a successful blend of historical epic and martial arts film, and should satisfy fans of both.

Ryn Har A great mass-scale warfare movie. This movie pits a smaller force against a vastly larger force, and of course tactical genius and gorilla warfare is the cement that builds this story. The battle-tactics used in this movie are really impressive and I've never before seen anything like it (and I've watched many warfare movies). The instructions that the commanders yell out really see the direction of the story change. I also like that they used a few female warriors in the movie, because it's too often that you see 'all male casts' and women only running for the hills. You do however see the traditional "godlike protagonists" where a single hero kills 50+ warriors, but that is understandable. In the non-dubbed version of the movie, the actors were very passionate and you could see truly heartfelt acting. This is a really good warfare movie, full of action, 7/10.

Andy Steel On the plus side it's beautifully shot with some great stunt work and epic battle scenes. There is also some excellent CGI work, although I did feel there was a little too much reliance on this. On the minus side, I did find it VERY long and more than a little confusing, but some of the confusion may come from my unfamiliarity with the culture. Over all though, a decent enough watch with some excellent fight scenes although it does fall a little flat in a few places and it is very… very long.My Score: 7.0/10IMDb Score: 7.3/10 (based on 18,315 votes at the time of going to press).MetaScore: 73/100: (Based on 22 critic reviews provided by Metacritic.com at the time of going to press).Rotten Tomatoes 'Tomatometer' Score: 89/100 (based on 110 reviews counted at the time of going to press).Rotten Tomatoes 'Audience' Score: 78/100 (based on 20,915 user ratings counted at the time of going to press).You can find an expanded version of this review on my blog: Thoughts of a SteelMonster.

Sean Lamberger John Woo helms an ambitious, crowded interpretation of the large-scale military actions that plagued China at the end of the Han Dynasty. While its epic, sweeping scale might be the film's greatest strength, I was often too preoccupied with following the encyclopedically long-winded subtitles to appreciate the visuals as much as I would have liked. Even at a long hundred-thirty minutes, the plot seems breathless and anxious as it hurries through back story, character moment and closed-door strategic debate at a breakneck pace. There's just so much story to tell here, with none of it deemed dispensable by Woo, that even two lengthy motion pictures don't seem like enough space to contain it all. While the planning and execution behind Red Cliff's sublime fight scenes (much of which boil down to a Dynasty Warriors-style plan of "just send one man to wipe out the infantry") is flashy and memorable, I found more value in the thoughtful musings and observations of the calm, collected diplomatic envoy Zhuge Liang. His carefully considered strategic suggestions are profound and moving, like a delicate flower growing amidst the ruins of a spent battlefield. Though one-sided in nature, with an enemy master as vaguely evil and simple as they come, it still leaves us with the perfect setup for what I can only presume will be the mother of all epic-scale scuffles. Deep and dedicated, it's often more verbose than it needs to be.