This martial arts fantasy film--starring Ekin Cheng, Aaron Kwok, and Sonny Chiba--is based on the best-selling, long-running comic book series WIND AND CLOUD by artist Ma Wing-Shing. Dazzling special effects combine with high-flying kung fu action to create one of Hong Kong's biggest hit movies. Read more
| Starring | Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng, Sonny Chiba, Kristy Yang |
|---|---|
| Director | Wai Keung Lau |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, World Cinema |
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This martial arts fantasy film--starring Ekin Cheng, Aaron Kwok, and Sonny Chiba--is based on the best-selling, long-running comic book series WIND AND CLOUD by artist Ma Wing-Shing. Dazzling special effects combine with high-flying kung fu action to create one of Hong Kong's biggest hit movies.
| Starring | Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng, Sonny Chiba, Kristy Yang, Qi Shu |
|---|---|
| Director | Wai Keung Lau |
| Studio | MIA VIDEO ENTERTAINMENT LTD |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 10 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, World Cinema |
| Language | Cantonese |
| Dubbed | English |
| Subtitles | English |
| Released | DVD: 22 Oct 2001 Production year: 1998 |
| Format | DVD |
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"...Technically dazzling....[A] convincingly imaginative look and style. Performances, particularly Chiba's are universally strong and convincing..."
The team behind the Young and Dangerous series adapt another bestselling comic (the Fengyun storyline from Ma... read more on Time Out
Stormriders made almost three times as much money as Crouching Tiger at the Hong Kong box office, make of that what you will but for me Stormriders is one of the most impressive movies to come out of Asia for reasons that I have to admit, I don't fully understand.
Starwars is my favourite movie of all time, it's a movie that's easy to dislike but a movie that's impossible to ignore. Stormriders works for me in the same way, it introduced me to a kind of movie making that i had rarely seen before. Pure fantasy of course, but it felt fresh and exciting and it was a movie that I wanted to see again and again.
Of course, I'm not comparing Stormriders to Starwars. Neither film have anything in common, but Stormriders was the film that first made me look East. Hollywood movies had lost that spark of originality, just look now at the way that they are imitating Asian cinema and you'll realise that this kind of movie is a much more passionate affair. Style, colour, blistering choreography and overblown theatrics, it's what Hong Kong cinema is all about. Hollywood is a business, they hit their marks and make their money.
Stormriders will always be a personal favourite of mine. It's not perfect, but some would argue that neither was Starwars. And that opens up a whole new can of worms...
A rather dull film that takes itself far too seriously, The Stormriders comes up lacking in almost every department. The wirework is poor, with actors trundling through the air rather than flying through it. The fighting is lacklustre, cheap camera tricks hiding the lack of real action, and most of it in any case consisting mainly of people staring hard at each other while a lightshow plays out around them. The direction and editing were clumsy. The only time the movie came to life was with the brief appearances of Shu Qi, so good in The Eye 2, and here providing the only humour in the entire film. Overall, it reminded me of nothing so much as a CGI Hindi devotional drama, where people stand around for episodes on end talking about fighting, without ever getting around to doing any of it. Some bits were alright, but it isn't a patch on something like Zu Warriors of the Mystic Mountain or Kung Fu Hustle. For that matter, it isn't a great deal better than Warriors of Virtue - at least that had a bit of action in it.