Red Cliff, Directed by John Woo

So along with all the other stuff that comes over the optical fiber, Verizon offers movies on demand. We have been avoiding this service as it costs every time you use it. But last night the boys wanted to go see Red Cliff, but the only theater showing it was Cinema 21, which is in a neighborhood which is famous for its' lack of parking, and it was raining, and, oh look! The movie is available from Verizon. We can sit at home and watch it on our ridiculously expensive big-screen TV. So we did. Cost $8.

John Woo is not my favorite director, he did Face Off, which I thought was absurd, and I thought he did Con-Air, which he didn't, but I still blame him for one scene with somebody running down a Lear Jet with a bulldozer or something equally ridiculous. But this was a family thing, so hey, I can watch it.

It was quite a story. It was in Chinese with subtitles, which probably explains why isn't getting wide distribution to real theaters. Lot's of battle scenes with swords and spears and any number of other midevil looking implements. There was a story, too, and a pretty good one at that. They even managed to weave a couple of women into the story and in a way that was at least plausible. The story was kind of wild, and being as my Chinese history is even weaker than my Western history, I have no idea how much truth there was to it. But given that truth is stranger than fiction, I would have to say that there is more than a grain. Wikipedia seems to agree.