Wind from Storm Riders

Many moons ago, I received two statues in the mail from my family in Singapore — Wind, one of the main characters from Ma Wing-Shing’s popular comic book, Storm Riders, and Hero Hua, the protagonist of Ma’s earlier manhua hit, Chinese Hero (aka: A Man Called Hero, The Blood Sword). Both characters have a Hong Kong movie connection as they were each famously portrayed by Ekin Cheng in the respective film adaptations.

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When Wind and Cloud unite…you’re in deep $#!t.

Hi, I’m Calvin McMillin, and I like Storm Riders.

Now, of course, my lack of even the most fundamental Chinese reading skills puts me at a disadvantage when it comes to truly immersing myself in the world that Ma Wing-Shing created in his beautifully illustrated comic books, but that hasn’t stopped me from being a fan of the franchise. Still, I’m pretty familiar with the early story arcs since I own almost the entire run of the English language translation of the comic book published by the now defunct company, Comics One (those graphic novel reviews should be coming sometime around 2046). During my trips overseas, I’ve bought several Storm Riders artbooks, desk tchoktkes, and a pretty badass poster of Nameless that I keep threatening to hang up against my girlfriend’s wishes. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention my bad habit of collecting those little Storm Riders figurines that come out every so often. And of course, I own both Andrew Lau’s initial Storm Riders film as well as Dante Lam’s animated “sequel” Storm Rider: Clash of Evils. Heck, I even introduced the original film at a student-run film festival back at my alma mater, Oklahoma State University (in hindsight, we should have shown Shaolin Soccer instead, but I digress).

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As promised, in anticipation of the new HK movie, here are some photos from the Storm Warriors exhibit at VivoCity at Harbourfront in Singapore. After making the rather long trip on the MRT (subway to Americans like me) to see the exhibit, I was a little annoyed that the people at the Information Counter had no idea what I was talking about. You would assume that a major Hong Kong star like Ekin Cheng coming to a mall in Singapore would be kind of a big deal, but not only did the young man that I talked to NOT have an earthly clue who or what I was talking about, but he had the nerve to say — when I asked whether his co-worker might know — “She doesn’t know either.”

Ah, so helpful.

Thankfully, I found the exhibit all by myself. It was hidden away in the lobby of the theater. For more information on Ekin Cheng’s visit to Singapore to unveil these props, click here. Sorry about the image quality!

Since those pics aren’t exactly earth-shattering, I’ve embedded a link to a high quality version of the Storm Warriors Final Theatrical Trailer that was released a little while ago. Enjoy!

 In tribute to James Cameron’s new film, Sanjuro employs Lee Byung-Hun as his official LoveHKFilm.com Avatar.

Well, I’ve finally made it to Singapore, so it’s time for a blog update. During my stay I’ve already seen the Laughing Gor prequel, TURNING POINT, and I hope to see OVERHEARD eventually as well as the Singaporean film WHERE GOT GHOST? perhaps as early as today. I also finally got the opportunity to watch Pixar’s UP, which is hands-down the best movie of the summer.

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