One of Shen's friends was renovating a narrow alleyway next to Wuhou Temple, which commemorates Zhuge Liang, the ingenious military adviser to Liu Bei, founder of the Shu Kingdom.

A Chengdu restaurant celebrates ancient China's epic Battle of Red Cliffs in a most ingenious way.

Piles of stones and grass appear on the dinner table, a row of yellow croakers sitting among them. A chef pours Chinese rice wine on the fish and sets them alight briefly. Their skins turn crispy, leaving the insides soft and smooth.

This is just one representation of the dinner version of the battle presented on screen by John Woo in the 2008 blockbuster Red Cliff.

The stones stand for the famous Red Cliffs, and the croakers, for warlord Cao Cao's warships that bond together in the Battle of Red Cliffs, the decisive campaign that laid the foundations of the Three Kingdoms period (AD 220-280).