Red Cliff

After years of procrastination, we have finally spent the last week watching those two Ang Woo epic films, Red Cliff and Red Cliff II. One of the things that had pulled me back from watching these films were their lengths. Together, they took up more than four and a half hours on the couch, and we normally watched only about an hour on television every day. Okay, perhaps I do watch more than an hour daily but with my wife, it's only an hour of telly together-time. The rest of the time, I watch other man-cave shows on Youtube and the like.

So there we were, watching Red Cliff and Red Cliff II. The second film was, however, too absorbing to stop and we continued watching till the end. Red Cliff came out in 2008 and Red Cliff II was released in 2009. Interestingly enough, the real Battle of Red Cliffs in China took place near Chibi on the Yangtze River in 208 and 209 AD. But the actual location remains disputed until today,

If the lengths of the two films had been a dissuasive reason for watching them, then the persuading reason must be the constant urgings to watch this epic by various metaphysics practitioners. Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮) was the man to watch out for, they kept insisting, because he was a master of Chinese divination, the art of Qimen Dunjia (奇門遁甲). 

But what is Qimen Dunjia? According to wikipedia, it is an ancient Chinese form of divination which was originally devised to help form military strategy and tactics. It is very difficult to translate the meaning of this term into English but I would cautiously venture to say that 奇門遁甲 means the technique of transiting through mysterious doorways. Doorways can mean practically anything!

When watching the two films, I could see why the technique of harnessing the knowledge of the environment - wind, water and fire - to one's advantage would be so appealing to the metaphysics practitioners. This fits in very well with the five elements of fengshui (風水) or Chinese geomancy: metal, earth, fire, water and wood.

Chinese scholars believe that Qimen Dunjia was used at the Battle of Red Cliffs to defeat Cao Cao's ship-borne army. Over the centuries of Chinese history, Qimen Dunjia grew in popularity and expanded to include a number of other types of divination, including medical divination, matchmaking, childbirth, travel and personal fortunes. Today, it includes contemporary applications, most notably in business and finance. 

Quite possibly because of people's constant search for instant self-gratification and growing rich quickly, the practice of Qimen Dunjia keeps growing and is especially popular in Malaysia, Singapore and other nations of South-east Asia.