I have a movie about the Battle for Red Cliff (apparently also called the Battle of Chibi), it depicted the battle and the lead up events/skirmishes that ultimately lead the Lui Bei Defeating Cao Cao (correct me if I have the names wrong). Some of the tactics used in the battles depicted I believe were plausible (shiny shields in the sun?), but how historically accurate was the film in depicting the chronological order of the skirmishes and the accuracy of the Tactics used?
Assuming we're talking about the two part non-abridged version of Red Cliff, then just about everything is incorrect. The problem in the first place is that Red Cliff is based on the romanticized Luo Guanzhong version of events, which were written more than a thousand years after the era of Three Kingdoms.
Just off the top of my head, the borrowing arrow trick is never mentioned in historical records, the turtle formation was real, but in reality it was a rectangle, and no shields are ever mentioned, and it almost certainly did not work like how it was portrayed in the movie. Guan Yu did not wield the iconic Yanyuedao glaive weapon, as that was a late medieval Chinese invention which was attributed to Guanyu by Guanzhong in order to emphasize his immense strength, Zhangfei was not an uneducated idiot behemoth guy - no mention of this ever occurs in historical records and in fact implies the opposite in that he was an educated painter. Cao Cao was not some kind of evil genius while Liu Bei the stupid simple protagonist.
The attire of the cast are the most accurate I've seen of all the films depicting this era. Costume I would give a 90% authenticity score. The one part where I thought was strange was Zhao Yun wearing some kind of chainmail underneath his armor.
Catapults are inaccurate. Chinese catapults used slings and powered by hand:
http://www.grandhistorian.com/chinesesiegewarfare/index-english12122007.html
The shields are modeled after the ones shown in Wujingzongyao, which is a Song Dynasty military manual. They were used similar to the pavise in that they weren't personal shields meant to be used in hand to hand combat. I've never read any source which indicated shields were a major part in post Han Dynasty Warfare. To my knowledge this style of combat died off during the Warring States era. This is an example of a lacquered shield from the Warring States:
http://www.zsbeike.com/tp/6198798.html
The entire subplot of the warrior princess mulan female archery squad is fictional.
Zhou Yu came up with the idea to set fire to Cao Cao's ships. Not Zugeliang.
Pretty much everything aside from the plot and actual combat is 90% authentic imo.
Golden shields blinding horses was mentioned in Luo Guanzhong's novel, but's the only source I could find on it. Possibly a fictional plot device, but may also be grounded in some real world tactic.
I was interested in finding out if there was any discussion on this movie. I have to admit this is one of my favourite films ever, and I recently got hold of the Three Kingdoms books with every intention of reading them soon.
The discussion I am still able to see below was interesting, thank you. I hope maybe to be able to add to it once I have done my reading if anyone else is interested.