Red Cliff: John Woo has a lot of characters and historical information to juggle, but the film is able to do so with relative clarity. Likewise, the climatic battle sequence unfurls very clearly, which is a great deed, considering its complexity. The big number of characters results in that few of them are given much time to be developed properly; the cast is solid, and the three central characters are well-defended by Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Fengyi Zhang. The film is visually (and aurally) slick; Tim Yip’s set and costume design are the highlight here.