John Woo finds his Mojo with ‘Battle of Red Cliff’

With all due respect, John Woo has really ostracised many of his fans with what might be called an overly Hollywood string of films lately. From Broken Arrow (1996) to Face/Off (1997) to Mission: Impossible II (2000). For those of us who remember being introduced to John Woo at the height of his glory, with The Killer (1989) and Hard-Boiled (1992), we’ve wondered what happened to him. Paycheck (2003) was actually pretty neat, despite Ben Affleck, but he also had a Philip K. Dick story as his source material.

Battle of Red Cliff (2008) is Woo’s newest film. The movie is currently stated as being in post-production, but we may not see it in the states until 2009. No US release date has been set and the Japanese release date isn’t until the end of 2008. Red Cliff is a historical epic about the wars that took place during the Three Kingdoms era of ancient China. The scale of this movie looks incredible and when you do a little research about the events the movie will interpret, its tough not to get excited. There are a few photos out on the Internet to be seen, but we’ll likely need to wait awhile to truly experience what may be John Woo’s return to greatness.

By the way, here’s the Japanese  trailer: Battle of Red Cliff