Red Cliff; The Three Kingdoms

[rachelmanija]

I watched part I of Red Cliff, John Woo's adaptation of a teeeeeny bit of the story of the Three Kingdoms, a famous epic about how China was split into three warring kingdoms. It is so excellent!

It has Takeshi Kaneshiro as Zhuge Liang (the brilliant guy with the feather fan) and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as Zhou Yu, a guy whom Oyce tells me is usually not the main character, but is totally awesome in this and has one of the best character intros I've seen, involving a whole bunch of soldiers, a little boy, and a flute. Chang Chen, the hot desert guy from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, is also in it but I think I didn't recognize him.

There are epic, epic battles with actual strategy! There is a bad-ass fighting princess and her corps of trained soldier-maids! A tortoise provides a key tactic! A man fights with a spear in one hand and a baby he's protecting in the other! There are tons of swordfights shot so that you can actually see what's going on, not in the obnoxious yet strangely fashionable choppy method where all you can see are fragmentary snippets. There is a great deal of scheming and politicking. And, this being John Woo, there are white doves.

There is also Tony Leung partially naked, but sadly he is paired with an excruciatingly boring actress who had me snoozing during the sex scenes, which is quite a feat since this is Tony Leung we're talking about. Perhaps to make up for that, there is a great deal of slashy meaningful glances and even a (kind of long) duet between Leung and Kaneshiro.

It's definitely one movie in two parts. I eagerly await my video store's receipt of II.

In the meantime, please rec any of the following:

1. A good translation of The Three Kingdoms.

2. Movies, comic books, or other Three Kingdoms media. Hot actors and non-boring actresses a huge plus.

I have a Three Kingdoms comic book, but am having trouble following it due to the extreme condensation of a very long story with a cast of thousands. Red Cliff was much easier, since it has hot actors and only focuses on a single episode involving a limited number of people.

Comments

[spectralbovine.livejournal.com]

A man fights with a spear in one hand and a baby he's protecting in the other!
Doesn't that happen in Shoot 'Em Up?

[lnhammer.livejournal.com]

I have been eyeing the Foreign Language Press box set edition of the unabridged Three Kingdoms for a month, since I had excellent lock with their Journey to the West. The only reason I've held off is suspecting I don't have a brain for a cast of (literally) a thousand named characters just now.

---L.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I have that one. I'm assured it's better than the other one and it does have helpful notes, but... 3K is indeed a cast of thousands with, in English, no hanzi to help you keep Who's Who straight, supposing you know hanzi in the first place. Not to mention, battles, politics, battles, politics, shifting alliances, strategies, blah-blah-blah Boys 'n Their Toys stuff does not make for page-turning must reads.

Truly, I can't recommend reading Three Kingdoms. I do recommend watching Three Kingdoms-based films or series, that give you all the Best Bits that everyone remembers; or at the very least reading up on the Dynasty Warriors game, if not actually playing it. This will give a face to all those names. For which manhwa, however many-volumed, is probably a better bet than a standard translation.

There's also an online version of the Brewitt-Taylor translation here (http://threekingdoms.com//index.aspx) (scroll past the pictures of Obama- I have no idea what they're doing there.) Also has fun marginal notes from various contributors with what would be spoilers galore if one could remember who anyone is.

[lnhammer.livejournal.com]

For "lock" read "luck". Oy -- proofreading, man -- PROOFREADING.

---L.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

You had me at Tony Leung partially naked

Must find this film.

[lady-ganesh.livejournal.com]

You took the words out of my mouth. Or fingers, as it is.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I believe there are only two published translations of the entire Romance of the Three Kingdoms. One of them, which I read, is by C. H. Brewitt-Taylor. I recommend the other one.

It occurs to me to ask - you do mean Romance, right? Because there is also Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms, which is more of an actual history as opposed to a historically-based story.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I see! ;)

Yes, I meant Romance.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

Brewitt-Taylor is not awful but he(?) has a fairly stiff style which gets tiring to read after a while. Also, he sometimes has a tin ear, as when he has Cao Cao use the phrase "gang aft a-gley" (it may not bother you when a 3rd-century Chinese warlord says that, but it does me).

The other translation is apparently by Moss Roberts, and general opinion seems to be that it is preferable. As notes above, the Brewitt-Taylor is online so you can easily see what it is like. Amazon has Look Inside for the Roberts, although it is hard to make a fair comparison because they only have the first few pages, which are difficult to translate well - they are a tightly-packed series of confusing events.

Of course, one could argue that the whole book is a series of confusing events. The Three Kingdoms period was messy and the author naturally enough does not do much to cast it in traditional Western narrative terms.

The ideal thing would be to read a heavily-abridged "good bits" version, i.e. one with all of Cao Cao's scenes, Zhu-Ge Liang's scenes, and a smattering of others. I have no idea if such a thing exists.

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

Oh dear, I was going to rec Ravages of Time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ravages_of_Time) because it is full of cool military things even though it takes some liberties with its sources, but then I saw your last paragraph. I am not sure an ongoing manhua series with 33+ volumes, only a third of which are translated, would be any easier to follow.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

OMG I soooo want to see this!

[rilina.livejournal.com]

I'm reading the abridged Moss Roberts translation. The best stuff is in the middle; it's a bit of a slog getting to it. My comprehension is also aided by the fact that I placed the Koei Nintendo game way back when. I don't know how well it reads to people who haven't read it. thistleingrey has posted on part of the unabridged Roberts translation here.

I've never found a manga/manhua/manhwa adaptation that I like. But I keep hoping.

Also, you probably now understand why I love that Minekura picture of Tenpou as Zhuge Liang so much.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Thanks for linking! I continue liking the unabridged Moss Roberts, despite having paused about a third of the way into volume two (of two); I was distracted by stuff unrelated to 3K itself. And having read his introduction since that post and begun reading his notes, I have to say I respect his scholarship, too....

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Really, really want to see it, but oddly, it doesn't seem to be available on Netflix.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

God, I love Kaneshiro Takeshi. I haven't seen the movie, but I did like Alan's theme song for it.

Moss Roberts is okay.

[laleia.livejournal.com]

I would probably recommend watching one of the (various) Chinese television shows if you can find any of them subtitled. I know there's one edition people generally consider the best, but I don't know which one it is ...

[elanid.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear, this is going to be incredibly bad for my work ethic this week - at least it's in Chinese, so it's nearly virtuous, but still! Good thing it's Friday. :D