The Battle of Red Cliff (movie)

I had always been a fan of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, after playing the computer game series by Koei. Thus, when a movie is being made about one of the greatest battle in the story, that of the Battle of Red Cliff, I was of course very interested in catching the movie.

The first part of this two part movie is still okay, though there were differences with the original story by Luo Guanzhong (which in turn was based on the Records of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou). I guess it has to do with trying to introduce the female actresses in the movie, which resulted in them appearing in the movie even though they hardly featured in the book.

The limit is stretched in the second part, though. Instead of following the book, the plot was stretched so much that it distorted the story. The rivalry between Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang was not played out, and while Pang Tong was supposed to have presented the tactic of chaining the ships together, the movie decided to not feature Pang Tong at all! The only saving grace was that the battle scenes were quite well done. You can read more about the discrepancies here.