We’ll debate the merits of John Woo’s English-language output at another time.  Right now, let’s thank the movie gods for this return to China, and an end to studio interference!

This international trailer for Red Cliff promises everything I could possibly want from a Woo-directed epic:  obscenely huge battles (peopled with real, bruisable extras), the slo-mo brandishing of weaponry (swords aren’t better or worse than guns, just different) and operable trebuchets!  Oh, and the greatest director card since The Killer Elite!

That I’m raving over two-and-a-half minutes of footage bereft of English subtitles… well, that shouldn’t be too surprising.  Though I don’t mean to diminish the importance of dialogue in The Killer, Hard Boiled and (my personal favorite) Bullet in the Head, you could sell those movies without a single spoken word.  It’s been a while since you could say that about a John Woo movie (even the underrated Windtalkers would suffer without a little exposition).  

I can’t wait to see this fucker in a better, cleaner format.  The thought of John Woo returning to form sixteen years after Hard Boiled is too glorious to comprehend.  Now who’s going to step up and distribute this in the U.S.?  And when are we going to start erecting statues to honor Tony Leung (and Andre Dellamorte’s schlong doesn’t count)?