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Turtles in Movies   Red Cliff: Part 1 (2008)   Spoiler Alert ! Some of these pictures and descriptions may give away plot details that you might not want to know before watching the film.   This is an amazing two-part five-hour historical epic about the battle of red cliffs fought in China that started the Three Kingdoms period of 220 - 280 A.D. (There is also a condensed one-part version that runs about two and a half hours. I don't know if the tortoise scene is in that one.) The film's 80 million dollar budget was the highest ever in China when it was made. The plot is simple, but the number of characters all the strategy and intrigue keep it very interesting. In 208 A.D., Prime Minister Cao Cao manipulated Chinese Emperor Han to let him unite all of China by using his northern army to wage war on the kingdoms of the west and the south. The northern army was so enormous that the west and south had no other hope for survival other than to form an alliance. In part one of the epic, we see Zhuge Liang, a master war strategist for the southern kingdom, and a group of generals planning their strategy for an upcoming battle with the northern army, by which they are vastly outnumbered. Zhuge Liange tells the generals that he knows of an outdated formation that will be very effective - tortoise formation, and he puts a tortoise on a river on a large map of the battle site. But he never describes the tactic. Comically, one of the generals, a fearless warrior who's not too bright, asks how the tortoise formation can be used on water. (He thinks they are planning a naval battle.) Then he tosses the tortoise in a barrel of water showing that it will sink, making the tortoise formation useless on water. Immediately, Princess Sun arrives, sees the tortoise in the water, takes it out, and scolds the men for putting a land tortoise in water. Then we get to see the tortoise formation in action. As the northern army riding on a road, searching for the southern army, they stop for a tortoise in the road. The northern leader makes a face at the tortoise just as a messenger rides up to tell him that there is no sign of the southern army or civilians. The northern leader jokes that everybody has fled except for a tortoise in its shell. He'll regret that statement later. Then Princess Sun and her small group of women soldiers ride up and begin shooting arrows at the northern soldiers. The general jokes that he is not afraid of a few girls and he and his troops chase after them. The women lead them into a trap set by the southern army. The soldiers are spread out in a very large round formation, holding their tall metal shields together as walls. Archers shoot arrows over the walls at the northern army, then soldiers move their shields to open holes in the wall to let the northern army ride inside. On the inside, the southern soldiers have formed sedtions with their shields with their soldiers protected inside them. From above it looks like a maze, with walls of shields defining the paths. The northern soldiers are forced to ride into open areas then the southern soldiers move their shields to trap and kill small groups of northern soldiers inside the smaller sections. We see the battle site from above then we see a tortoise fade in over it, showing us that the tortoise formation is an imitation of the markings on the tortoise's shell, with smaller and smaller sections created inside larger sections (the scales on the shell), just like the soldiers are making with their shields to trap and kill the enemy. Before long they have killed most of the northern soldiers and won the battle. The outdated tortoise formation works. Later, when discussing another larger battle they must fight where they are even more outnumbered by Cao's army, the Princess tells the generals "So what if he has 800,000 troops? With only one tortoise, we stalled his army."