Favorite Characters: Zhu-ge Liang (Red Cliff)

Shoutout to one of the two smartest guys in Red Cliff.  Due to A Little TLC(w), I’ve already talked about Zhou Yu, but now it’s time to take a look at his partner, the awesome war strategist Zhu-ge Liang.  In a pair of films full of badass soldiers, he – a non-fighter – is something of an odd man out, and yet he also deserves a lot of the credit for the allied army’s approach to fighting Cao Cao (some Zhu-ge Liang-related spoilers.)

We quickly get used to seeing Zhu-ge Liang outside the action.  While the bloodshed is going down, he stands apart from it, either from a vantage point where he can see the battle or somewhere he can receive messages about its progress.  The fact that he himself does not fight, however, in no way reduces the importance of his contribution to the war effort.  Beginning as a strategist for Liu Bei, Zhu-ge Liang is the first one to recognize a need for an alliance, and he’s the one who rides south to broker a partnership with Sun Quan of the neighboring kingdom.  So, even at the most basic level, without him, we’d be talking about a very different movie.

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Watching Zhu-ge Liang in (mental) action is watching a master at work.  He comes up with the idea for using tortoise formation in the battle at the end of the first film, and it’s only through his strategic employment of this inventive, “outdated” formation that the allied army is able to hold its own against Cao Cao’s vastly-larger force.  And that’s Zhu-ge Liang’s MO in a nutshell:  figuring out how to use what limited resources the army has to its best advantage.  Not enough men?  Put the (incredibly awesome) shield-bearers to work dividing and conquering Cao Cao’s army, boxing them into small areas to be taken out more easily from the (relative) safety behind the shields.

His strategy for getting 100,000 arrows in three days marries the “use what you’ve got” philosophy with two others: “use what your enemy’s got” and “let Mother Nature work for you.”  This made it into my Top Five Big Damn Hero Moments post for these films despite Zhu-ge Liang not lifting a single weapon himself – it’s badass ‘cause it’s just so damn smart.  He takes a small number of boats, covers them with straw, and sails them to the edge of Cao Cao’s camp under heavy fog with a skeleton crew.  Cao Cao’s naval commanders, fearing an assault hidden behind the fog, orders wave after wave of arrows fired at the ships, which get stuck in the straw, turning the boats into arrow-laden pincushions.  Thanks, Cao Cao!

Zhu-ge Liang’s knowledge of the physical world helps in the final battle as well.  When Zhou Yu recognizes that the wind is blowing in the wrong direction to use fire in their attack, it’s Zhu-ge Liang who reads the signs of the weather and season to realize that the wind is going to shift.  His predictions help the army plan their attack for exactly the right moment.  Additionally, when an epidemic hits the camp, his quick thinking prevents the spread from being even more severe than it is, and he knows which plants to collect for making medicines.

Basically?  He’s the epitome of a non-threatening guy who calmly walks around with his everpresent fan, but Zhu-ge Liang is one of the allied army’s most valuable assets.  His mind saves countless lives and helps turn the tide of the war.  In my book, that’s very cool.

Relationship Spotlight: Zhu-ge Liang & Zhou Yu (Red Cliff)

There are two Red Cliff movies, so it’s only fair that I have two A Little TLC(w) posts in lieu of the reviews I already wrote.  Last time was a Favorite Characters post on Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s character Zhou Yu, and today, we’re looking at the relationship in the films between him and Zhu-ge Liang (some Zhou Yu-Zhu-ge Liang-related spoilers.)

From the start, the circumstances between these two are perilous.  They back different leaders – Zhu-ge Liang is a strategist for Liu Bei, while Zhou Yu serves as a viceroy under Sun Quan.  The two kingdoms aren’t in conflict with each other at the moment, but it’s a contentious time, and land and resources could certainly bring them to blows sooner rather than later.  However, Zhu-ge Liang is the one who has the vision that the two leaders need to unite their armies in order to beat back the tyrannous Cao Cao, and he convinces his lord to send him south to try and broker an alliance.

Getting Sun Quan, the young southern duke, on his side is no easy task, and in order to do that, Zhu-ge Liang first has to win over Zhou Yu, who has the duke’s ear and can bring him around.  As soon as these guys are onscreen together, they’re wary of one another but also impressed with what they see.  Zhou Yu notes Zhu-ge Liang’s frankness and cool practicality, and Zhu-ge Liang admires Zhou Yu’s integrity.  However, it’s not over training maneuvers that they decide to come together.  Zhu-ge Liang proves himself to Zhou Yu by helping one of his horses through a difficult birth, and the two later bond over music.  Playing the qin together, they don’t come to any agreements about the war, but Zhu-ge Liang leaves for the night convinced that Zhou Yu is in, declaring that he heard Zhou Yu’s answer in his playing.

That’s a rather unconventional way to become allies in a war together, but hey – it seems to work for them.  There are a lot of competing voices from both sides of the blended army, but it’s always Zhou Yu and Zhu-ge Liang who are the strongest voices of reason and intuition.  Both have an immense talent for strategy, though each brings his own skill set to the table; Zhou Yu is a great observer of human behavior and can predict Cao Cao’s next moves, while Zhu-ge Liang employs his knowledge of science to use the natural world to their advantage.  Each has his moments of brilliance, where the other just sort of sits back and admires his ideas, and they also work incredibly well off each other.  They often take a thought together, passing it back and forth and fine-tuning it until it becomes what their army needs.  I love how eager each is to listen to what the other has to say – this is, by and large, a partnership without ego, and each would rather be right together than surpass the other.

Which isn’t to say that all is love and brotherhood between them.  Running beneath their interactions – unspoken most of the time, although they do discuss it with each other on occasion – is the fact that their ultimate loyalties tend different ways.  It’s all well and good coming together to fight Cao Cao but if, in the future, Liu Bei crosses swords with Sun Quan, Zhu-ge Liang and Zhou Yu will find themselves on opposite sides.  Both hate the idea of fighting the other, which they openly admit to one another, but they also make it clear that they will fight if it comes down to it.  As such, the alliance between them is deep, full of respect for each other’s knowledge and abilities, but it’s also fragile, subject to the whims of their individual leaders – all in all, it makes for a really intriguing dynamic between them.