As Oliver Stone infamously discovered firsthand with the many failed cuts of Alexander, releasing multiple versions of a blockbuster historical epic isn’t a guarantee that any of them will be better than the others. That being said, John Woo laughed in the very face of that notion when he poured his heart and soul into the spectacular Red Cliff.
After his detour to Hollywood ended up petering out instead of ending on a high, the legendary action director returned to his native shores to mount his most ambitious project yet; a star-studded and massively expensive retelling of the titular battle that saw the emperor of the Han Dynasty declare war against the rebellious southern provinces in an attempt to unite the country.
Red Cliff was so epic, in fact, that there are technically four different editions of the movie. In some territories it was released as Part 1 and Part 2 to deliver 288 minutes of wall-to-wall cinematic splendor, while a lot of international markets were given a solitary 148-minute film, with the whole shebang scoring a limited theatrical rollout before becoming a minor sensation on DVD.
In addition to riding a wave of critical acclaim that still finds it Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a 91 percent score, Red Cliff also did the unthinkable by defeating James Cameron’s Titanic at the box office to become the highest-grossing title mainland China had ever seen. 15 years on, and the awe-inspiring epic is battling to the front lines of streaming victory.
Per FlixPatrol, Red Cliff has mounted a charge towards the top end of the Netflix charts, and if you’ve got a soft spot for tales of ancient warfare, then it’s nothing short of unmissable.