If you are like me and you've been waiting for the Hong Kong DVD release of John Woo's period war epic Red Cliff then it's time to stop waiting and start warming up your credit card: the film hits DVD and Blu-Ray in Hong Kong September 10th. And if you're like me and have been waiting for the Hong Kong release of Red Cliff then you are a clever monkey. The DVD release is a feature-laden two disc set that is both English-friendly and region code free, meaning it can be played anywhere by anyone. The Blu-Ray? That's region free, too. Whee!
This still has no US distributor, correct? Someone's gonna pick this up and release it two years after everyone who wanted to see it downloaded it or imported it, and then they're going to whine about poor sales...
They are going to cut it too, John Woo thinks we silly westerns are too dumb to get all those chinese characters with funny names, tee-hee.
I just viewed this epic film via Zoke Culture's 3-disc LE set which is limited to 5000 pcs.and includes a nice 32 page booklet. Overall I found this adaptation very noteworty both in the context of the story construction and the intricately detailed CGI battle scenes which have a fair balance of drama and action. The music score by Taro Iwashiro I particularly liked. Acting by the main leads, Kaneshiro, Leung and Chen held my interest along with the female "eye candy" of model Lin Chiling and Vick Zhao's role as Princess Sun Shang Xiang. Why Sony Pictures hasn't picked this up for US distribution is a mystery. Even IMDB doesn't mention a US release date. As usual, we're left with no other alternative than to see this only in the context of an Asian dvd presentation, whatever the format. (Note: The upcoming Hong Kong release coming Septeember 10th notes a DVD-9, DVD-5 format. Why wouldn't this 2-Disc set be one format or the other?)
THEDOUG: Sony Pictures wouldnt pick this up. From what I can see they only distributed what they produced (CROUCHING TIGER, KUNG FU HUSTLE). They wouldnt know what to do with it. Summit have sold it to the UK and i think one of the big indies are realising it (Lionsgate maybe, cant remember who, someone of that magnitude).