The much anticipated sequel of The Storm Riders has finally arrived. To be exact, it is not exactly a sequel, since it is produced and made by different filmmakers, but it retain the same leads, and the story take place after the event of The Storm Riders. To distinguish this, and prevent any possible legal action, the new film is named The Storm Warriors instead of being The Storm Riders 2, since the English title was created by the previous company. Still, the Chinese title still retains 風雲 and the title is simply風雲 II.Cloud is still played by Aaron Kwok while Ekin Cheng is still Wind, but the rest are new characters, except for Cho-cho楚楚 who was previously played by the Shu-qi but now replaced by a piece of wood.
The plot of the film is based on the Japanese Invasion arc in the comic, where a Japanese warrior is invading China. The film start at the end of the first step of the invasion, where the villain 絕無神 successfully drugged the best martial artists in China and have them capture in order to a) force them to serve him b) stripped of the most physical powerful peoples in China that will rise to fight his invasion. These martial artists however manage to escape and Wind and Cloud have to undergo special training to upgrade their power in order to fight絕無神. In the course of this training, Wind succumbs into the dark side. The second act of this film is the defeat of絕無神 which is rather anti-climatic, but we all know what will be the direction of this film when it choose to use Japanese Invasion arc for its plot. It is the fight between Cloud and the dark Wind at the final act. This is one of the best plots in the comic and it also serves as the conclusion of the first part of the comic.
The casting of the film is good, save for楚楚. The actress performance and presence is almost non-existence. While Shu-qi in the previous film provides a good contrast to Cloud, this楚楚 is almost as quiet and gloomy as Cloud. There is no on screen chemical for this couple, and I was quite happy that she died in the end, but sadly, her bad performance made us unable to identify with Cloud’s sorrow at the sight of her demise.
Getting Kenny Ho to play Nameless無名 is almost flawless. Kenny has previously played Hero華英雄 in ATV’s TV drama adaptation of 中華英雄, a comic by the author. Hero is actually used as the blueprint for Nameless in風雲. His loneliness, his costume, hair cut and looks, and even one of his servants, 鬼虎 are exactly the same as Hero. So although I personally will wish to have Andy Lau as Nameless, but having Kenny Ho is good enough. The only thing is his voice. I was looking forward to see the first big screen Nameless, and finally saw it, but the moment he start to speak…WTF? He sounds like a thin and sick guy! I thought maybe that is because at the beginning of the film Nameless was drugged, and thus having such weak voice, but apparently not. He sounds like that for the rest of the film. How sad. You know how shock I was? Try to think back the first time you heard David Beckham speak. This good-looking footballer looks manly enough, and you may expect he will at least sounds like Brad Pitt, but at the end, he is speaking as if Victoria is squeezing his balls all the time! The same apply to this Nameless.
Kenny Ho is ATV's 中華英雄 more than 20 years ago
Kenny Ho as Nameless
The best acting performance in the whole film perhaps is from a tertiary character, the Emperor, played by Patrick Tam. In just a few minutes of screen performance as the kidnapped Emperor who is force to make a choice between revealing China’s biggest secret or having his family murdered, Tam is able to show the elegance of a royal family, the dilemma his is facing and the heart-breaking sadness of witnessing his family being slaughtered. It’s rather ironic, the most successful emotional scene are not about the primary characters, but rather this little character that has little to do with the whole film.
As always, adapting a book is hard, but adapting a comic book is even harder, especially Chinese comic book. One arc usually takes a long time to end, and for most of the time, it has a lot of characters and the events are connected with events of other arcs. Thus, the plot of this film feels weak, and there is no one major focus. One third of the film focus on the fighting 絕無神 and the final act is Wind and Cloud fighting.
Characters chart
To have such fight as final act, the whole arc has to be compress, and the plotline showing the start of the invasion, how the martial artists get drugged and kidnapped, and character development for the villains, Nameless and other secondary character are omitted. Even there is little character development for Wind and Cloud. After we were left with the conflict reconciliation between Wind and Cloud in the previous film, now we hope to see more on how they interact as a team, partners and brothers. But all this are sacrificed for the sack of having a good and cool pose visually. The on screen development for them is important, for only then we can actually feel the impact and identify with the pain of Cloud having need to kill Wind once he is totally turn into an evil monster. This does not happen, and unless you read the comic and know the significant of the third act, basically you won’t give a damn on who is winning.
Wind turning evil
But the main star of this film is still the special effect. Like the previous film this is still a GCI porn. Ten years in between and we can see how advance we are. While the imaginative fight scenes and martial arts portrayals in the film is slightly different from the comic, it is still a marvelous job on interpreting lines and colors from page into realistic looking visual effects. The directors certainly have a good eyes and ears on the pacing, look and impact on how a comic book still fight should be. But still, there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially in creating a virtual set. The computer generated outdoor scene still can be easily recognized as CGI, but I don’t know if this is deliberate to give the film a fantasy feel. If they want to stay true to the comic, they should make it looks real. For the magic of the comic is, it has very conventional costume, set and scenery; only the fights and supernatural elements are presented with superb imagination. It is such contrast that makes it so engaging.
As a whole, this is a great interpretation of風雲, its success is due to its special effects and one of its flaws is also the special effects. The original comic has very good visual of scale. We need it. If it happens in a massive mountain, we need to feel that it is massive. The CGI work in here does show us literally a certain scene takes place in a huge area, but it does not feels so. The screen shows peoples fighting in a wide area, but we still felt like it takes place in a small soundstage.
Perhaps, and hopefully, in the coming sequel, the third film, the filmmakers will improve again. Although this film is a good take, but I also long to see scenes where the pages on the comic literally comes into life, a combination of authentic Chinese scenery, natural rays of sun, real grass, real mountain with imaginative special effects. Need not to get production and costume design to redesign the characters, the sets, just take the pages from the comic, and make it real. Then perhaps, the definitive風雲 adaptation will be born.
As a whole, this is a great interpretation of風雲, its success is due to its special effects and one of its flaws is also the special effects. The original comic has very good visual of scale. We need it. If it happens in a massive mountain, we need to feel that it is massive. The CGI work in here does show us literally a certain scene takes place in a huge area, but it does not feels so. The screen shows peoples fighting in a wide area, but we still felt like it takes place in a small soundstage.
Perhaps, and hopefully, in the coming sequel, the third film, the filmmakers will improve again. Although this film is a good take, but I also long to see scenes where the pages on the comic literally comes into life, a combination of authentic Chinese scenery, natural rays of sun, real grass, real mountain with imaginative special effects. Need not to get production and costume design to redesign the characters, the sets, just take the pages from the comic, and make it real. Then perhaps, the definitive風雲 adaptation will be born.
