On Thursday, January 28, it seemed the roof of the Spaulding Auditorium was on the verge of collapse over a largely unsuspecting audience.

Fortunately, the brilliance of the Grammy-winning Vanguard Jazz Orchestra stopped at shaking the dust off of Spaulding’s rafters. The band’s potent concoction seductively combined sultry modern jazz with the sounds of the city, as their thin tendrils of smoky sound snuck through the audience like the mist on a cold mountain day.

The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra was formed in 1966 by jazz legends Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, and they’ve never looked back. When Lewis died in 1990, they changed their name to honor their favorite night club, the Village Vanguard. In 2009, they won the Grammy for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance in recognition of their album Monday Night Live at the Village Vanguard.

Vanguard’s set kicked off with a stirring rendition of the jazz standard “Mean What You Say,” an upbeat composition to start the audience’s journey. From there, the band slipped into “Eye of the Hurricane.” Keyed by Gary Smulyman’s frenetic baritone saxophone solo, the performance was so riveting that the floor shook with the vibrations of two thousand tapping feet. The trumpets spoke the truth of life itself. After this, Vanguard waltzed into the highlight of their performance, “St. Louis Blues.” The band started out with a slow march, which gradually picked up into an up-tempo weave of passionate, triumphant swing. Replete with joy, the fast section sank into Jim McNeely’s poignant piano break, retrieving the main theme once again closing the great circle the group had painted for us.

The performance was remarkable for a variety of reasons. Each member of the band had clearly reached the absolute height of their craft on their respective instruments, and expertly displayed all of their incredible skills throughout the entire show. They tore through some incredible passages—whether improvised, fixed, or a little of both—without missing so much as a note, and what’s more, they did it with emotion. The highlight, however, was the onstage chemistry and the connection the group forged with the audience. The group would laugh and joke amongst themselves onstage during the songs, and then cue the audience into becoming as much a part of the act as they were. They reached out to us, asked us to give feedback, and acted out their music. They danced, they bobbed, and they made funny faces, making this performance as memorable as possible.

Good performances lead to a sense of happiness and a sort of satisfaction. Great performances sweep the brain’s folds—a housecleaning for the mind. The Vanguard Jazz Orchestra put on a truly great performance.

Its uncut version is longer than any of the Lord of the Rings movies. Its spectacular battle scenes boast impressive combat shots, with CGI flyovers and lush scenery rivaling any of James Cameron’s films. Its rich plot is anchored by an exhilarating chess match between rival generals hailed by historians as military geniuses.

Red Cliff is an epic film that succeeds in its grand ambitions of bringing to screen one of the most complex battles of Imperial China. Director John Woo recreates the famous Battle of Red Cliffs of 208 to 209 A.D.—a David vs. Goliath affair that pits Chancellor Cao Cao’s (Zhang Fengyi) Imperial army against the allied forces of Zhou Yu (Tony Leung) and Zhuge Liang (Takeshi Kaneshiro). Interlaced between massive battle scenes on land and water are romantic subplots and the exploration of rapport between military generals. Earlier on in the film, Zhuge Liang approaches Zhou Yu in hopes of forming an alliance against Cao Cao, and the two perform a duet on the stringed zither-like qin instrument, which USC’s Asia Pacific Arts calls “one of the most bromantic scenes in recent cinematic history.” To top it off, they each deduce, merely through their duet, each other’s intentions to enter into war with the Northern army.

Despite this unfamiliar setting, film buffs and casual film watchers will still be able to find solace in the themes and tropes of Red Cliff that are similar to today’s epic films—men fighting over women, for instance. Cao Cao starts his all-consuming war in pursuit of Zhou Yu’s wife Xiao Qiao (Ling Chi-ling), similar to how Menelaus started the Trojan War to reclaim his wife Helen in Troy. In addition, the Southern alliance’s severe troop disadvantage is similar to King Leonidas’ predicament at the Battle of Thermopylae in 300, albeit without Gerard Butler’s chiseled cobblestone abs.

Yet, where Red Cliff marvels most is when it is least predictable. Drawing from Chinese historical texts, the movie is chock-full of “wow” moments, especially for those unfamiliar with either the battle or ancient Chinese culture. From the use of the ba gua battle formation, which resembles a tortoise’s shell, to the execution of melee combat scenes that would impress even a sober frat brother, Red Cliff has a full platter of enthralling eye and brain candy.

Unfortunately, the North American cut of Red Cliff runs only two and a half hours long (in comparison to the five hour original cut). Thus, while it has received praise, there has still been criticism of the film being action-heavy and lacking character development. While true, especially since the movie presupposes a shared cultural lore that American audiences lack, the shorter version is well paced after a descriptive opening narration that might confuse some and alienate others.

Instead of nitpicking, John Woo and Red Cliff should be commended for providing a different flavor to the war epic genre that consistently falls under the spell of Hollywood’s Eurocentrism. For that, it deserves emphatic praise.