Ever heard about “The Romance of The Three Kingdoms”, the extraordinarily famous historical story of the Chinese? Why so famous? Some people claim that this nonfiction history has created abundance of success stories. How? The credible strategies used by the characters in this story are applicable in the recent business world. These strategies are generally called “Sun Tzu’s Art of War”. Lots of successful conglomerates claim that their successes are because of adopting and inspired by the Chinese strategies in Sun Tzu’s art of war. These strategies are the core content of Red cliff I & II.

These John Woo’s movies are about the war between dinasties for territorial domination in a period when the mainland China was divided into three kingdoms (Wei, Shu and Wu). This movie also explains the strategies about how a force of 50,000 caused a disaster to enemy’s force of 800,000 which was much stronger. There are three important aspects within this war: Wealth, Power and Women. Red Cliff is divided into two parts, the first part is focused on the acquaintance with the talented characters and the second part is about the strategies and its analysis and the war. The strategies are related to some factors which can affect the success or failure of a war, such as motivation, size of forces, aggression methods, leadership, weather etc. These strategies are considered useful not only in the war period, but also in the business field. The use of the right strategy at the right moment will give a great success. Otherwise, the wrong use or timing will cause a massive disaster.

This movie is a great and recommended movie for the executives, managerial consultants, investors, business owners, economic analysts and even military officers. Lots of recent strategies adopted by huge and successful companies are based on these Chinese traditional strategies. Of course the strategies are adjusted, adapted and applied based on the current condition and timing to achieve the satisfactory success.

Is Red Cliff a true story? Well, in an interview, Woo admitted that his movie is based on the official history “Chronicle of Three Kingdoms (San Guo Zhi). However, some effects have been added, deleted and edited in order to dramatize the story, as John Woo is an expert in dramatizing his movies. Do not worry about the story, because it is still analogous with the real one.

Overall, Red Cliff – I & II is a great movie that reflects the strategies of Chinese in war, the strategies which have inspired the creation of many successful stories in the recent business world.

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