Movie Info:
AVI (XviD/MP3) (.srt muxed in AVI file)
(If you have problems with the sub then get the .srt at www.kloofy.net)
( DVD Rip by RedDraqon [RD] )
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http://AsianMovies.no-ip.org:6969)
The Storm Riders
Starring: Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng
Director: Wai Keung Lau
Genre: Action
Languages: Cantonese
Subtitles: English
Country Made: Hong Kong
Year Made: 1998
Running Time: 128
Synopsis:
Turning a comic book into a feature film is no easy task, as many Hollywood studios can certainly attest. When Golden Harvest, Hong Kong’s largest film studio, and special-effects company Centro teamed up to use one of Hong Kong’s best-selling comic book series as the background for their film “Feng Yun” (called “The Stormriders” in English), they laid ambitious plans. With a budget of over $10 million, this film set new standards for the local film industry. When the film finally hit the box office in July 1998, it broke all kinds of records in Asia, making “The Stormriders” the highest grossing film of the year in Hong Kong. What makes this film so special that legions of fantasy fans line up in front of movie theaters to see this film? Universe’s DVD release of this film gives us the chance to take a look at it for ourselves. The verdict: The film is truly stunning.
Conquer (Sonny Chiba) is the head of a large clan in medieval China who desires to expand his empire. The seer Mud Buddha (Lai Yu-hung) one day predicts that Conquer will have to earn the help of Wind and Cloud to achieve this goal. The emperor sends his troops to find Wind and Cloud, kills their parents, and adopts them as his children, raising them with Charity, his blood daughter.
As the prophecy foretold, Conquer’s empire flourishes for the next ten years. As the boys grow up, helping their master to expand his reach, they both fall in love with Charity (Kristy Yeung). She returns the love of both and is torn between the two but one day Conquer makes the decision for them, not aware of the love triangle. He wants Wind (Ekin Cheng) to marry Charity, much to the dismay of Cloud (Aaron Kwok), who interrupts the wedding ceremony and attempts to spirit Charity away from his brother. Wind and Conquer are determined not to let the impulsive Cloud get away with this. A fierce war erupts between the men that will take them to the limits of their abilities and emotions.
It took five scripts and three complete storyboards to bring the tale of Wind and Cloud to life and still, the film drags a little. With a running length of 132 minutes, it sometimes focuses too much on the characters and their motives, rather than driving the story home. This can be attributed, in part, to the film’s origin as a comic book and the fact that director Andrew Lau and his collaborators tried to stay faithful to the source, portraying the characters as three-dimensionally as they appear in the numerous comics. Fortunately, this is about the only bad thing you can say about “The Stormriders”, especially as its finale also features a cameo appearance by Hong Kong superstar Anthony Wong.
The film is an ambitious attempt to incorporate computer generated-effects in Hong Kong movies. After seeing this film, I can hardly wait to see more of it. Unlike Hollywood studios, whose first serious experiments in the CGI field presented us with dinosaurs and a series of other monstrous creatures, Golden Harvest used the special effects to create an enchanting world full of magic. Where other films, like “Zu: Warriors of the Magic Mountain” clearly hit the limitations of practical feasibility, “The Stormriders” excels and presents the viewer with surprising and compelling spell effects.
