The Storm Warriors

The Storm Warriors opens with an evil Japanese warlord, Lord Godless intention on conquering China. He subdues a large number of martial arts masters using his special poison. Among the captives are Striding Cloud who surrenders out of concern for Chu Chu and the Mou Lam legend Nameless.

Lord Godless gives them two choices, they can either surrender and be part of his army, or they will be executed. It’s not a surprise that none of the masters accept the offer. Whispering Wind comes to the rescue and ensuing battle takes place.

We see swords form the martial arts masters take formation at Nameless bidding and fly to attack but unfortunately all three are badly wounded during the battle to escape. Now they have no choice but to take extreme measures in order to defeat Lord Godless.

This is where the story really starts, where the heroes go in search of Lord Wicked, the only one strong enough to finish the job. But alas they are unsuccessful in persuading him till Wind’s love interest, Second Dream arrives. He then relates how he had lost control of himself while practicing evil kung-fu and had chopped his hands off to stop killing innocent people.

He kicks pebbles at Cloud and Wind to test their reaction. Cloud crushes the pebbles in his hands while Wind catches them intact. Lord Wicked concludes that Cloud is too aggressive and like him, would not be able to handle training the evil way, Wind on the other hand is more in control and would have a chance to return to normal.

But we don’t really see Wind training; he just sits immersed in a black pool of evil waters, literally. On the other hand Cloud is trained by Nameless at the Lin Yi Temple creates sword styles and moves that are more deemed as martial arts. Here we see Aaron Kwok reprising his role as Striding Cloud who plays his character to perfection. Obviously well trained and toned, his fighting scenes were believable.

Since I didn’t watch The Storm Riders that was screened 10 years ago, I didn’t have anything to compare with but I felt that the crux of the story was more on Cloud with more time duration given to the training montages, rescue missions and his relationship with Chu Chu, although not fully developed.

The other hero was Ekin Cheng who also reprised his role as Whispering Wind in this Fung Wan’s popular Japanese invasion story arc. I didn’t think the combination was equal until their fighting sequence towards the end that seems to go on forever.

The Battle of the Minds sequence was superb, where the fighting scenes were done with gallons of water/rain, wind and snow. Water and wind I could comprehend as a possible wind-cloud combination but snow… hmm. But if there’s a fight scene that was impressive, it was this one.

The shots were fantastic, the special effects were complimentary and the music was fast. And like all good martial art movies, the fighting sequence should never be shot on close-ups except to show facial expressions of the actors in combat, Cheng’s weird looking eyes and of course Kwok’s piercing gaze…

This Hong Kong film produced and directed by the Pang brothers also uses colors to enhance the story telling, red was used most in the fighting scenes symbolizing blood, Cloud’s cape and portions of the background that was computer generated-imagery that looked like it came out of a game. Some of the fight scenes were also shot on chroma-key or blue screen for this background to work.

Surprisingly, this movie also has limited dialogue. Even the fighting scenes were silent if not for the heart thumping music and good effects.

But the movie ends with a cliffhanger as some questions are left unanswered. I’m sure that the heroes will be back to find the Dragon Bone that would determine China’s destiny. Hopefully it will not take another 10 years for the next sequel.

And yes, The Storm Warriors theme song sung non other by Aaron Kwok was energetic and entertaining as per the trailer that accompanied it!