Full trailer for ‘The Storm Warriors’

By Mark Pollard | Published June 2, 2009

THE STORM WARRIORS (2009) A full trailer is out for THE STORM WARRIORS, Oxide and Danny Pang’s CGI effects-filled sequel to Andrew Lau’s THE STORM RIDERS (1998). This fantasy wuxia actioner brings Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng back together as “Cloud” and “Wind” respectively, both super-powered sword heroes first made popular in the pages of author Ma Wing-shing’s wuxia comic book series, “Fung Wan.”

The 1998 feature was Hong Kong’s first major CGI effects film. It was followed by unofficial sequel A MAN CALLED HERO, also starring Ekin Cheng and later Tsui Hark’s poorly received ZU remake, ZU WARRIORS (2001).

The Pang brothers appear to have given this sequel a heavy dose of their patented visual style that begs comparisons to Zack Snyder’s 300 and Chen Kaige’s visually stunning yet vacuous fantasy epic THE PROMISE. Hopefully they’ll be able to deliver more than a screen full of slow-motion action and digital eye candy. Then again, Hong Kong rarely produces films like this and THE STORM WARRIORS was pretty entertaining for what it was. This is China’s answer to Hollywood’s comic book superhero movies and should at least make for a distracting popcorn flick. On top of that, it has a strong cast of mainstream Hong Kong acting talent filled out by Simon Yam, Nicholas Tse, Charlene Choi, and Lam Suet.

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  • The file has been released
  • ardy
    so gread.....
    when i can get ur film
  • James nesbit
    Love this movie storm warriors love all just didn't see the last one
  • Dark_Hadou
    For me The Storm Riders movie was the benchmark of fantasy wuxia and rasied the bar pretty high,
    for me it reminded me of a live action Dragon ball or similar although by todays standard the film may come off half arsed but when I first saw the film on release it trully blow my mind and have sinced waited for the sequel after seeing the above trailer I can hardly contain myself.
    It is a shame that Andrew Lau missed the opportunity to make this sequel but the pang brothers sure have skills to pull this off and in the end it cant be as worst as the Dragon Ball Evolution movie.
  • zugasta
    stomriders was unwatchably awful, i dont expect this to be any different. expect it to the get roughly the same audience reaction as tsui hark's similar cgi-fest legend of zu (ie massively negative).
  • justin quizon
    I am little disapointed on the fact that this film will be directed the Pang Brothers and not Andrew Lau.

    Nothing against the Pang Brothers (who are very talented) but I was missing the Andrew Lau that made "The Storm Riders" and "A Man Called Hero" as oppose to the Andrew Lau that tried to recreate his success with "Infernal Affairs"(the first film I dearly love).

    It is especially disheartening when I read that Andrew Lau was quite mad about the new sequel because he supposedly had plans to come back to the series himself.

    I also am not sure how I feel about the "300" style effects, but I shall wait and see.

    But the Pang Brothers can make some amazing cinema, so I am still down with to check this film out.
  • douglas ferguson
    a man called hero is not a sequel or unofficial sequel to storm riders its based on a completely different comic book, a man called hero is based off of blood sword dynasty a jademan comic.
  • jiujitsu77
    mark im interested to hear what your thoughts are on cgi and martial arts combined in general. for me im not too crazy about it, but given the subject matter, i suppose it is only natural for them to go that route

    that being said, i really did enjoy storm riders if only for the return of sonny chiba. the film turned out to be very entertaining, and proved to be a great rental at my store (seeing as we only had two vhs copies...so the turnover was really good...we had it before it was released here in the us)

    a man called hero was more entertaining to me simply because i loved the comic book it was based off of...which leads me to my other question....have you ever been into the jademan comics? i saw a new interest in them since the release of dragon tiger gate, and i think it would be a great writeup for the site seeing as the company and its creator had a rich history and great images to display
  • @jiujitsu77
    CGI-enhanced martial arts screen action is fine with me if presented in the proper context and done well. Wuxia films have a long tradition of merging special effects with action and Ma Wing-shing's stories are pure fantasy that need visual enhancement to be adequately represented on screen. It all comes down to application and the overall quality of the film. Look at KUNG FU PANDA. It was 100% CGI and it was a great martial arts movie with equally great action sequences. It's harder to be successful with CGI that tries to trick the viewer into believing that digital doubles are real people. I think that's where films like the MATRIX sequels disappoint. That's why action filmmakers that know what they're doing still use real stunt doubles or actors and leave the digital effects to fill in the world around them.
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