Red Cliff II

Red Cliff II continues the story begun in John Woo's Red Cliff, set during the third century as the Han dynasty's prime minister Cao Cao presses his campaign southward against the kingdoms of Xu and Wu. Their leaders, Sun Quan and Liu Bei, had joined forces against a far larger army, but disease and losses shake that alliance, and Liu Bei withdraws his generals, leaving the strategist Zhuge Liang behind to stand with Wu. With Cao Cao's fleet preparing to move, Wu's commander Zhou Yu must find a way for a much smaller force to hold off a vastly superior one.

The film is based on the classic Chinese novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Tony Leung Chiu-wai plays Zhou Yu, Takeshi Kaneshiro plays Zhuge Liang, Zhang Fengyi plays Cao Cao, Chang Chen plays Sun Quan, Zhao Wei plays Sun Shang Xiang and Hu Jun plays Zhao Yun, among a credited cast of 45. John Woo directed and wrote the screenplay with Chan Hon and Sheng Heyu, and produced with Terence Chang. Released in January 2009, it is the eighteenth of the 22 films he has directed, arriving between Red Cliff and Reign of Assassins.

Costing around 80 million US dollars, the film took about 121 million US dollars worldwide, a return that outweighed its outlay. On TMDB it holds a rating of 7.3 out of 10 from more than 500 votes.