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).

In any event, the purpose of this extended prologue is to establish that, although I’m very much a fan of the series, I wasn’t exactly frothing at the mouth at the prospect of the 2009 sequel, Storm Warriors. First of all, I’m older and a bit wiser — the disappointments of The Phantom Menace and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull have done much to temper my once unbridled enthusiasm for filmmakers revisiting previous successes via sequels. To be honest, I didn’t think we’d ever get a sequel, so the announcement that Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok had signed on for a new movie was a great little surprise. And so, the week of the Storm Warriors DVD release, I headed over to Clement St and picked up the two-disc set. I got some kettle corn popcorn, grabbed myself an ice cold coke, and popped the movie into my all-region DVD player. And guess what?

The movie was a major disappointment.

 Anybody know the number of the closest Mystic Tan location?

Seriously, WTF? How can a movie be so visually arresting yet so damn boring at the same time, too? Don’t get me wrong: it was great seeing Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok reprise their roles as Wind and Cloud respectively, but it’s a downright shame that the Pang Brothers  give them even less to do acting-wise than in the original. These guys are much improved as actors, and yet the filmmakers don’t take much advantage of that.

Look, I liked the first film, but I’m not going to pretend it’s high art. Hell, even back then I knew it was cheesy as hell. But what was great was how it not only got across the major beats of the comic, but it actually looked like it, too. The comic book was never so dark and murky as this movie was. Certainly, the Pang Brothers are entitled to reinterpret what the world of Storm Riders should look like. I mean, maybe the shadows are meant to create atmosphere, help smooth out the effects work, or — more bluntly — help make the environment look less fake and ridiculous — but for me, it didn’t quite work.

Incorporating a  color palette reminiscent of Zack Snyder’s 300 may make Storm Riders look cool, but it doesn’t make for a good movie. If I don’t give a damn about what’s happening onscreen, the viewing experience becomes something  akin to watching someone else play a  video game — maybe the graphics are cool, but the game itself won’t be involving. The only time I was ever emotionally engaged with what was happening  onscreen occurred near the end of the film — and that was in spite of some serious deficiencies in character development. I won’t spoil it, but something pretty devastating actually happens to one of the characters, which makes the resultant CGI assault not just visually breathtaking, but emotionally resonant. Why? Because there’s actual dramatic weight attached to the whizbang graphics. That was the key to this film’s potential success, albeit one the filmmakers unfortunately misplaced.

The supporting cast is pretty hit-or-miss. I liked Charlene Choi’s Second Dream, even though she’s woefully underutilized. Simon Yam’s Godless is cheesy, ridiculous, and pales in comparison to Sonny Chiba’s Conquer in the original film. Nicholas Tse is okay, but — just like Charlene Choi — he’s given very little to do to make him noteworthy. I suppose Kenny Ho looks like Nameless, but the costuming and hairstyling are all wrong — there’s an elegance to Nameless that just isn’t present here.

I think the real missing ingredient in this movie is Shu Qi; Tiffany Tang steps into her role as Chor Chor, and frankly, she just doesn’t compare. It’s not entirely Tang’s fault: her character serves mainly as window dressing until the climax, so it’s hard to gauge how much of that we can really chalk up to Tang. I’m not a Shu Qi fanboy, but I can’t deny that she possesses a certain quality that is inimitable and — perhaps — essential to providing the right feminine touch to the mostly stone-faced sausagefest that is Storm Warriors.

Really, the fundamental problem with Storm Warriors is its overemphasis on style over substance, which manifests itself not only in the CGI, but on its appropriation of the two very worst  aspects of the comic book form — 1) paper-thin characterization and 2) people beating the stuffing out of each other, oftentimes for no good reason. When people use the term “comic book” as a pejorative, this kind of stuff is exactly what they’re talking about.

George Lucas’s ideal cast

Will there be a Storm Riders 3? Well, Storm Warriors does end on a quite literal cliffhanger, so they do leave the door open for more installments. Despite my mostly lukewarm comments, I’d actually love to see a director try one more time with this franchise. But let’s be frank here: it’d be awfully nice if these movies were actually good.*

For my money, I’d prefer they’d try something different. Paging Wong Kar-Wai: hire Louis Koo as Nameless and film “A Tale of No Name” instead. Or even better, scrap the Storm Riders sequel and bring me A Man Called Hero 2 — that’s what I really want to see!

I want you…to make a sequel.

Coming Soon: An accident-prone dude, the fun of urban insanity, and the best of the 90s!

* Kozo’s excellent review of Storm Warriors can be read here.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 4th, 2010 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Pang Brothers, Storm Warriors, Aaron Kwok, Storm Riders, Ekin Cheng. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.