The second installment of "Red Cliff", reportedly Asia's most expensive film, will premiere in cinemas on Jan. 15, ten days ahead of China's annual Spring Festival holiday.

A still from the second part of war epic 'Red Cliff'. [xunlei.com]

The trailer for Taiwan and Hong Kong was available on-line on Friday, while the trailer for the mainland is to be released in December, according to the Beijing-based Legal Evening News on Friday.

Taiwan supermodel Lin Chi-ling, who said only a few words in the first part, will take the spotlight in the second episode, the paper said.

The first instalment of the two-part epic, adapted from the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms, debuted in Asia on July 10.

On its first day, the movie took 17 million New Taiwan dollars and 2 million Hong Kong dollars.

Directed by Hollywood-based Hong Kong director John Woo, the cast features leading Asian stars, including award-winning Hong Kong actor Tony Leung, Taiwanese-Japanese heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro and mainland actor Zhang Fengyi.

It attracted public attention for the 80-million-U.S.-dollar investment, said to be the most expensive Asian movie of all time.

The story revolves around the epic Battle of Red Cliffs in 208 AD in China's Three Kingdoms period. It was a famous military case of an underdog victory, when the 50,000-strong allied forces of southern warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan defeated the 800,000 troops of the northern warlord Cao Cao.

The biggest scenes involved 2,000 actors and crew, and a wide range of special effects.

(CRI November 17, 2008)