The Unkindest Cut

The last time the Chinese historical epic Red Cliff was at the Starz FilmCenter, it was the mangled, cut-to-the-bone version aimed at soothing the sensibilities of attention span-challenged Americans. Not this time. "What has been missing is about two and a half hours of film, so there's got to be...
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The last time the Chinese historical epic Red Cliff was at the Starz FilmCenter, it was the mangled, cut-to-the-bone version aimed at soothing the sensibilities of attention span-challenged Americans. Not this time.

“What has been missing is about two and a half hours of film, so there’s got to be something there,” explains Keith Garcia, programming manager for the Denver Film Society. “There’s a lot of backstory and emotional drama that plays into the fight scenes a bit more. I always try to give people a chance to see everything the way it’s meant to be seen. I wish I had known about the availability of this version when we showed it before.”

Now the full, unabridged saga has come for a three-day engagement, and it’s a whole lot of Red Cliff — five hours of glorious war epic detailing the fall of the Han dynasty in director John Woo’s inimitable style. “He’s bringing in both emotion and action in a riveting way,” Garcia promises. “And there are still plenty of slow-motion birds.”

See it tonight at 7 p.m., at 1 or 7 p.m. tomorrow or 1 p.m. Sunday at Starz FilmCenter, in the Tivoli building on the Auraria campus. Tickets for this special presentation are $15 general admission and $12 for DFS members; for more details, go to www.denverfilm.org or call 303-595-3456.

March 19-21, 2010

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