Is half of ‘Red Cliff’ better than nothing?

I’ve always been a John Woo fan. But as with all foreign directors who have tried their luck with Hollywood, Woo has at least two faces. And I prefer one over the other.

The one I prefer is the pre-Hollywood filmmaker. The guy who made such films as “A Better Tomorrow” and “Hard-Boiled.” This was the Woo who gave the action film a new feel and that helped introduced America to such actors as Chow Yun-Fat, Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung .

His Hollywood resume is far less impressive, though still worth checking out, including the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle “Hard Target,” the John Travolta vehicles “Broken Arrow” and “Face/Off” (with Nicolas Cage) and the Cage historical abortion “Windtalkers.”

Woo is now back in Asia, and his latest effort is playing theatrically in some cities (Seattle included) and on IFC On Demand for certain cable television companies (Comcast, for example). That’s where I saw “Red Cliff,” Woo’s historical epic that stars Tony Leung as the right hand of a Chinese warlord. Based on a 14th-century novel, which in turn is based on real events from 208 A.D., the film pits the giant army of the empire, led by an ambitious general, against the two remaining independent voices (Leung stars as the “viceroy” of one of these voices).

There is much to like about “Red Cliff,” which has the usual Woo touches - white doves, a fluid camera, intense performances by manly men, lots of bloodshed, themes of love and loyalty - but much of what passes for the U.S. release feels rushed, consistently abrupt. That’s because, in telling his epic, Woo constructed a two-part film that runs about five hours. In their wisdom, the decision-makers sliced the film down to a combined near-two-and-a-half-hour cut for American audiences.

So what I saw last night wasn’t the real “Red Cliff.” That cut has been released in other places - Britain, for example - on DVD ( some online reports say that it is available in “English-friendly” editions). But Amazon.com , for example, still does’t have a date for it.

If you’re a real fan, you might want to wait. There is much to like about the abbreviated cut. Woo’s sweep is impressive, and the performances are everything that you would expect. But there are a lot of familiar touches to the movie, including some of the fight scenes (directed by the much-traveled Corey Yuen ).

And, overall, it feels like Cliff’s Notes.