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With the long-awaited sequel The Storm Warriors out next Monday, we look back at the original adaptation of Ma Wing-Shing’s comic book Fung Wan, directed by Andrew Lau (Infernal Affairs)…
In ancient China, the appropriately named evil Lord Conqueror (played by Sonny Chiba, The Streetfighter, Legend Of Eight Samurai, Kill Bill, on particularly fine raucous, bellowing form) learns from a Buddhist prophet that his future as ruler lies in two children, Wind and Cloud, and sends his legions out, King Herod style, to find and bring them under his wing and kill anyone who gets in his way.
But the final part of the prophecy must wait 10 years, as Wind (Ekin Cheng, Tokyo Raiders, Heroic Duo, Forest Of Death) and Cloud (Aaron Kwok, Murderer, Divergence, Saviour Of The Soul) grow up to be the most powerful weapons in Conqueror’s arsenal.
Wind is kindhearted, oblivious to the truth that his father Whispering Prince (Alex Fong, One Nite In Mongkok, Portland Street Blues) was killed during a dual with Conqueror. Cloud, on the other hand, is fully aware of the part Conqueror played in his father Striding Sky’s (Rongguang Yu, Mulan, New Police Story, Musa: The Warrior) death, and has become bitter, a cold and ruthless servant.
When the second part of the prophecy us revealed, that Wind and Cloud will not only make him, but also be his undoing, Conqueror sets about setting them against each other. This only results in backfiring on him, with his daughter Charity (Kristy Yang, A Man Called Hero, The Duel) murdered by his own hands.
Soon both Wind and Cloud have reasons to revenge themselves on Lord Conqueror, but can they work together to do it?
When The Storm Riders debuted at cinemas in 1998 it marked a turning point in Hong Kong filmmaking, the introduction of a high percentage of CGI effects that were (at that point) state-of-the-art. Even now the effects stand up pretty well. And that was kind of the point, co-produced by Hong Kong based Centro Digital Pictures, the film can be seen as much as a calling card for their work as it can a blockbuster, and really proved that HK could match Hollywood special effects.
Still riding the success of the Young And Dangerous series, which turned Ekin Cheng into a star and is attributed with glamorising triad life to teenagers of the time, this one-time Wong Kar-Wai cinematographer invigorated the wuxia genre, which had waned in popularity since the early 90s, setting the scene for Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon a few years later.
Taken from the successful long-running manhua, or comic book series Fung Wan by Ma Wing-Shing, it’s interesting to look back on The Storm Riders and see how reverent it is to what came before. In the same way that Wing-Shing referenced the martial art novels of the 50s and 60s, Lau looked to the big screen adaptions, such as those by the Shaw Brothers studio.
In particular it’s the series of Gu Long adaptations by director Chor Yuen such as The Magic Blade and Death Duel that come to mind, as Each character is announced with text on screen. The later Buddha’s Palm seems quite an influence too, with that films attempt to imbue martial art powers with post Star Wars effects. Lau doesn’t stop there, there’s the casting Chiba with his long history in Asian film; the childhood scenes and stylised vision recall Ronny Yu’s The Bride With White Hair; and the dual between Conqueror and Whispering Prince in a bamboo forest pays homage to that in King Hu’s Touch Of Zen, much as Lee would do a couple of years later in Crouching Tiger.
Yet unlike Lee, Lau brought a more modern sensitivity with him. He pulled on those modern references from Young And Dangerous, with slo-mo action scenes with more in common with pop promos, and fights set to dance music (rather than more classical Chinese influence music), much as The Matrix would do a year later. This was wuxia re-interpreted for the post-MTV generation, echoing Tsui Hark’s early, anarchic take on the genre in The Butterfly Murders, and was probably the biggest step on since Hark’s own Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain and Ching Siu-tung’s A Chinese Ghost Story.
With an all- star cast, including Shu Qi, Michael Tse and Anthony Wong, The Storm Riders is still a highly enjoyable film, reaching the right balance of narrative and action (unlike it’s successor!).
Unsurprisingly, it was immensely popular. Inspiring another Ma Wing-Shing adoption, A Man Called Hero and the similarly themed The Duel, both also starring Ekin Cheng, and setting the scene for Hark to revisit his earliest triumph in the disappointing CGI led Legend Of Zu. Lau then tried an (unofficial) attempt at bringing computer game Tekken Fist to the screen in The Avenging Fist and rebooting the Wisley character (Legend Of Wisley, The Seventh Curse) in Wesley’s Mysterious File, before moving on to the Infernal Affairs series that finally made his name internationally.
The Storm Warriors is released Monday 12 July on Blu-ray and DVD by Cine Asia.
DVD details
Distributor: Universe (HK)
The now out-of-print original HK DVD release of the film had, for the time, a pretty reasonable transfer of the picture and soundtrack. You can still get hold of the original UK 2-disc set, which includes the original and the utterly missable international cut which removes 38 minutes from the running time and by all accounts makes the film incomprehensible.
Just in time for the release of the sequel, there's also been a 10th anniversary remastered version, available on DVD and Blu-ray.
