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Chow Yun-Fat Drops John Woo's Battle of Red Cliff

by Alex Billington
April 17, 2007
Source: Monkey Peaches, Variety

I'd be dropping out of this movie before it even started, as I'm personally very tired of John Woo's terrible action - it doesn't live up to today's "standards" anymore, but that's a story on its own. In one of the most interesting bits of news this week, a report from a website called Monkey Peaches (and also Variety) states that actor Chow Yun-Fat has dropped out of director John Woo's film The Battle of Red Cliff after three days into filming. Why is this intriguing? The film is apparently the biggest independent feature ever filmed.

The film is apparently a 4-hour, $75 million adaptation of The Battle of Red Cliff. It's based on the classic Chinese novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," and is set in the final days of the Han Dynasty in the year 208 and covers the war that established the Three Kingdoms period, when China had three rulers. Here's what was said about the drop, which was later confirmed by Variety.

According to a statement Chow Yun-Fat sent to Sina.com, Chow resigned from John Woo's The Battle of Red Cliff last Friday not because of some unrealistic demands from him. Chow received the screenplay just one week before and the production had already begun. This gave him very little time to prepare for his role as he had to deliver his lines in Mandarin. Chow said he had agreed to take a pay cut for playing his role.

If you're really interested in this story, head over to SlashFilm, as they've done a lot of good research on the film and the project and more reasons behind why he dropped out and other troubles the film was having.