Trailer Watch: John Woo's Period Epic Red Cliff

John Woo's bid to deliver his own epic period adventure on a Kurosawa-scale is the $75-million Red Cliff, his first Asia-shot film since 1992's Hardboiled. Set in the Three Kingdoms period of Chinese history, the epic was filmed over four months in mainland China.

This trailer took my breath away. My only regret: that Chow Yun-Fat, fresh from working on a Jerry Bruckheimer-scale Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, couldn't work things out with his former director. (Woo and producer Terence Chang weren't willing to meet his sky high perk demands.) Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro and Zhang Gengyi star in this pan-Asian production which has backers from Korea, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Woo filmed two two-hour films to be released separately in Asia in July and December 2008, with a two and a half hour cut going out in the rest of the world. (I wonder what will show in Cannes?) Summit is selling international rights at Berlin.

The Orphanage handled the VFX.

Check out Woo's trademark white dove.