PM at the pictures

Hope Kevin Rudd did not make the same mistake as me yesterday by choosing to see the highest grossing film in Chinese box office history. I noticed him leaving the cinema as I arrived but after sitting through 150 or so minutes of Red Cliffs I can only hope for his sake that he chose Harry Potter to get his mind off Labor Party matters. I wish I had. From the acclaimed director ofMission Impossible II, Face/Off and The Killers, it might have been but there was nothing dazzling or visionary about this account of the legendary Battle of Red Cliff, in which a force of fifty thousand defeated an army of nearly one million. On second thoughts, it probably was the kind of film Kevin would like as he considers how to strengthen Australia’s place in the world.

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