2008, China
Region-free DVD available from Sensasian.com and YesAsia.com among others
I'm not holding out any hope that the complete, two-part, and four-hour Chinese cut of John Woo's Red Cliff will hit the US in anything other than a DVD or Bluray release. As a result, I've gone ahead and imported it. I can't help but think of the parallels to the impending release of Che. IFC isn't paring Che down into one 2.5-hour condensation, but the only way we expect to see the whole experience of either movie is in one's living room.
For those unfamiliar with the film and its still-hazy US release plans, the plot of the film concerns the Battle of Red Cliff, a landmark event in Chinese history that further unified regional rulers as China grew together to become the People's Republic that it is today. Woo has attempted a more historically-accurate take on the material than has been seen in more...loose adaptations that use Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a historical novel, as their blueprint rather than Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, the historical record of events from which Romance is adapted.
Part One was released in China in early July 2008 and has waged a path of destruction across Asian box offices since then, recouping over 80% of its budget so far. The movie came out just in advance of the Beijing Olympics, and I wish someone gave me a vote as to whether the US got The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor or Red Cliff: Part One this past August.
I'm used to waiting months (Mongol) or years (Hero) for Asian films to hit the US, but this one is getting chopped to pieces before it gets here. The nearly 2.5-hour Part One will be combined with the undetermined-length Part Two and shaved down to...2.5 hours? I know nothing's official yet, even a US distributor, but the reason no one seems to have any clue what's happening with the movie is inextricably tied to the fact it's non-English language period drama clocking at around five hours in two chunks.
Even more so after seeing Part One, I can't fathom how you effectively shave almost 5 hours down to 150 minutes with this material. The cast is Lord of the Rings large in terms of focal characters, so you'd have to chop a few people completely out of the movie to really drill the running time down that much. What am I saying? I'm giving people ideas now. Terrible ideas.