Red Cliff Review

A couple days ago, I finally watched John Woo's version of Red Cliff, the $80 million epic based off of the Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms, or San Guo Zhi. While previous Three Kingdoms films have all taken from the fictional novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms (San Guo Yan Yi), Woo told interviewers that his film was more realistic and avoided the traditional black-and-white symbolism that the novel endorsed. As a huge fan of San Guo Yan Yi, I naturally wanted to see this new, more grounded version of the decisive Chi Bi battles.

Instead, I walked away craving the original 1980s Romance videos (which I watched on youtube hours before my thesis was due). Red Cliff was a great movie - the acting was for the most part good, the effects were astounding, and Lin Chi-ling is a cutie:). What it lacked, ironically, was realism. In the end, I felt that the old Chinese series, based nearly exactly off San Guo Yan Yi, was both more believable and more realistic, despite its ties to the novel rather than history. Here's why:

1. Things that make you go o_O
In comparison with actual history and San Guo Yan Yi, Red Cliff might have been the most otherworldly. The battle itself, for example (Shu/Wu army vs. Wei army):

History: 50,000 vs. 240,000
San Guo Yan Yi: 100,000 vs. 800,000
Red Cliff: 1* vs. billions

*Guan Yu, the halberd-wielding half-man half-beard
























o_O. Seriously, there was a scene where an exasperated Zhang Fei begs for reinforcements, until the camera then pans to a wall of shields vigilantly parting to make way for the noble Beard. Except... he's alone. Even the horses knew failure and stayed away. And yet, Guan Yu fights his way to Cao Cao's inner circle, where Cao Cao's hundreds of elite champions could not stop him.



2. Hollywood Music
From the movie's start, a full orchestra reminds us time and time again of the main theme: a symphonic, part-noble and part-melancholy work of grandeur. In other words, hollywood stuff. This contrasts to the TV series' simple, guzhen-based pieces. I might be a music snob, but holywood music, though enjoyable, is far from reality. Stick with the authentic stuff.




3. Strategists need Makeovers
Guys like Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu were supposed to be not only the intellectual cream, but also some cocky badasses who knew exactly how to take over the world. Just take a look at Zhuge Liang's future resume:
- Successfully invaded the Kingdom of Shu
- Captured barbarian leader seven times
- Scared Zhou Yu to death with mental prowess. This is not a figure of speech; he actually gives the poor guy a stroke by proving he's more brilliant.
Red Cliff Zhuge Liang spends his free time helping animals give birth. Seriously?









The thing is, having a more badass chief strategist actually makes San Guo Yan Yi more believable than Red Cliff. Badass Zhuge Liang makes you believe a few thousand men can utterly annihilate a million-strong army, or that a handful of fishing boats can alight an entire fleet of battleships. Confidence, even arrogance, is what drives his character. Wimpy Zhuge Liang hides behind his one-man army (i.e. Guan Yu) and shys away from man-to-man conflict, much less total war. You just can't imagine him burning entire regiments to death or slaughtering old men with his knowledge of Confucian literature (go to 5:30).

More Zhuge Liang
And this

Symphony Orchestras and Market Segmentation

*This is an older entry that I wrote while I was still working on the thesis (still feels weird talking about thesis in past tense). The subject didn't really pertain to my thesis topic, but I felt it was important enough to warrant discussion.

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In the past few weeks, I've spoken with several symphony orchestra CFOs and Vice Presidents about their strategies on hiring guest soloists - musicians who symphonies contract to perform virtuosic works like concertos or arias on a per-concert basis. As it turns out, many orchestras base these policies on a commonly-referenced statistic: classical music audiences are driven by composition, not performance. What this means is that people who attend symphony concerts go primarily because they want to hear a particular piece rather than a particular soloist.

Audiences of pop music, on the other hand, are different. They attend concerts based on who the performer is; the work performed is secondary.

How does this factoid drive policy? Basically, symphonies will skimp on spending for the best soloists and instead pick up "emerging talents" to perform more popular works. In fact, this policy has some advantages. First of all, it's cost-cutting: many symphonies are already running budget deficits, and spending on more expensive soloists may not be the most sensible decision in the short-run. The strategy also allows symphonies to “incubate” young performers; a constant influx of new performers may raise standards and challenge the status quo.

My doubts lie with the actual meaning of the statistic. When these surveys were conducted, only those who currently attended classical concerts were polled. So the only definitive conclusion is that current classical audiences are driven by composition. The studies ignore potential classical audiences and assume that all music audiences are the same. Why adopt this static viewpoint?

In fact, current classical audiences belong to different market segments than pops audiences. The average age of a symphony audience, for one, is much higher. Occupation, income, and race are also vastly different. It is not safe to say, therefore, that classical audiences who are not currently attending many symphony performances are composition-driven. If there are performer-driven classical audiences, then they might only show up to symphony concerts with esteemed soloists. Through my experience, I’ve met both kinds of classical audiences, composition and performance aficionados alike. My best guess is that younger audiences tend to be more performance-driven than older ones – this hypothesis would in fact explain the results of the aforementioned studies.

From an academic standpoint, further research needs to be conducted. Ideally, we would want to know the general characteristics and tastes of everybody who would be interested in attending a symphony concert. Managers should be interested in knowing the market segments of both current audiences and potential audiences – this knowledge would help them conduct targeted marketing. When they only study their existing audiences, many symphony orchestras are ignoring the big picture and catering to only a fraction of their potential patrons.

It is crucial to understand the preferences of both existing and new audiences. The classics face deficits not only due to rising costs of living but also to decreased revenue growth. This knowledge could expand symphonies’ audience bases and increase not only ticket revenue but patronage as well, currently orchestras’ largest source of income.

I’m not necessarily recommending for symphonies to spend more for good soloists. The strategy might only work on a case-by-case basis. However, symphonies could take a longer-term approach by exploring new market segments rather than limiting its research to existing segments. The latter approach might alienate an entire generation of classical patrons and hurt orchestras’ long term sustainability.