Australia Media Preview Screening of "The Storm Warriors" - Movie Review

Date: Monday November 30
Time: 6.15pm for a 6.30pm screening
Venue: The Reel Room
Basement level State Theatre Building
49 Market Street
Sydney, NSW

Myself and Andy Minh Trieu saw ourselves invited to the Sydney preview screening of The Storm Warriors before its Hong Kong release on Dec 10. This was the press preview screening the Pang Brothers long-awaited and highly anticipated sequel to The Stormriders as presented on behalf of Vendetta Films and Cineasia.

I recall The Stormriders as one of my favorite feature films growing up during my teens (It was made in 1998, by the I was undergoing the traumas of my pubescence years from year 8 onwards). It was a film that introduced me to dreamy Aaron Kwok a.k.a ripped up “Storm” who was so fiery, rough and typically brute hot.

Storm Warriors… I wish I could lie but this film felt awkward. The sense of adventure feel disconnect and it was a CGI mish mash with inspirations evident from 300 and Sin City.

So this is how the story goes, a new baddie in town name Lord Godless (Simon Yam) and Wind (Ekin Cheng) and Cloud (Aaron Kwok) have to find short cut ways to up their powers to battle against the tyrant. One catch is faced by Wind, to defeat evil he must embrace evil.

What is certainly down quite catch is the two new “love” interests - two girls named Chu Chu (Yang Tang) and Second Dream (Charlene Choi). It just seems that their purpose in the film was to render useless and your typical damsels in distress that continually utter “Wind!” or, “Cloud!”. Charity’s role from Storm Riders was was engaging, why go so wrong in this department?

Overall, if you have seen the previous film, Storm Riders, this is a must. If you haven’t, don’t bother because its hard to follow the plot and easy to get lost in the array of experimental fight sequences.

About The Film: The Storm Warriors

In the summer of 1998, the comic-adapted movie The Stormriders ("Fung Wan I"), starring pop idols Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng, premiered to great regional success. The movie was in theatre for 45 days and topped the box office chart for the year at HK$41,532.235. In Mainland China, the unofficial box office number hit RMB 100 million.

The Storm Warriors will be China's biggest martial arts fantasy ("Wu Xia") film of 2009, with direction by The Pang Brothers - Danny and Oxide (The Eye, Kung Fu Hustle, Re-Cycle and the original The Storm Riders [Edited by Danny]).

Zack Snyder's 300 (2007) set the bar for the realisation of comic-inspired cinema, and The Storm Warriors is set to bring the massively popular "Fung Wan" franchise back with a bang. Produced extensively across three custom-created bluescreen soundstages (60,000ft), with sets and scenes expertly rendered in CGI, this highly anticipated sequel is screening to Australian fans on the same day & date as its Asian release - December 10.

About The Cast: Ekin Cheng & Aaron Kwok

The sequel to 1998's CGI smash-hitThe Storm Riders (based on the comic 'Fung Wan') sees Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok reprising their roles of WIND and CLOUD.

Kwok and Cheng are massive, multi-award winning Cantopop stars in Hong Kong/China, Taiwan, Singapore & Malaysia. Aaron Kwok joins Jackie Chan as the only actor to ever win 2 Golden Horse awards ("The Oscars of China/HK/Taiwan", very prestigious) for Best Actor, in addition to one at the Changchun Film Festival.

Cine Asia bring big screen, big budget Asian movies to Australian cinemas on the same day and date as they are released in Hong Kong and China. Supported by Australia's leading cinema chains (Event Cinemas, Greater Union, Village Cinemas and Birch Carrol & Coyle), fans of Asian cinema can now enjoy a consistent monthly stream of quality Asian movies, all in Chinese with English sub-titles.

Check out: www.cineasia.com

My Comment 1: I think its really awesome to see initiatives happen to connect Hong Kong Cinema in Australia. It just shows the growing interests in the film making realm and potentially this could lead to co-production natures in the nearest future.

My Comment 2: Don't be tight please my Asian fellows! Don't do what you are stereotypically notorious for, taking glee in ripping films off the net. Get out of your homes and go watch it on the big screens!

Check out the trailer!