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

Comments

[flemmings]

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 (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.