Fung wan: Hung ba tin ha (1998)

Director:

Wai-keung Lau

Writers:

Wing-Shing Ma (story) (comic-book)
Manfred Wong (screenplay)

Release Date:

18 July 1998 (Hong Kong)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Fantasy

Plot:

An evil warlord takes in 2 students (Wind & Cloud) in an effort to become invincible so he can take over the world.

Plot Keywords:

First Of Series | Part Of Trilogy | Super Powers | First Part | First Of Trilogy

Awards:

5 wins & 8 nominations

Cast

Aaron Kwok	...	Striding Cloud
Ekin Cheng	...	Whispering Wind
Sonny Chiba	...	Lord Conquer
Kristy Yang	...	Charity
Qi Shu	...	Muse
Michael Tse	...	Frost
Rongguang Yu	...	Striding
Alex Fong	...	Whispering Prince
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Lawrence Cheng	...	Jester
Roy Cheung	...	Shaolin Monk
Yue Dung Cheung	...	Striding Cloud - Child
Jason Chu	...	Ming
Yiu-Cheung Lai	...	Mud Buddha
Dion Lam	...	Crow
Siu-Kei Lee	...	Wedding Guest
Chi Hung Ng	...	Ming's father
Christine Ng	...	Ming
Elvis Tsui	...	Dragon
Yeung Ming Wan	...	Summit Yu
Anthony Wong Chau-Sang	...	Sword Saint
Wai Wong	...	Lord Conquer (voice)
Jinglei Xu	...	Phoenix Strike

Also Known As:

Feng yun (Hong Kong: Mandarin title) (short title)
Feng yun xiong ba tian xia (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
The Storm Riders (International: English title)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for intense martial arts violence and a scene of sensuality.

Runtime:

128 min | Germany:85 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Finland:K-11 | Netherlands:12 | South Korea:12 | Hong Kong:IIB | Italy:T (heavily cut) | Singapore:PG | UK:12 | USA:PG-13 (heavily edited)

Company:

Golden Harvest Pictures (China)

Movie Connections:

Remake of "Tian xia" (1988)

A triumphant mix of Western SFX and Eastern imagination.

The makers of The Storm Riders took a chance when making this experimental film. They did something that had never been done before by fusing extreme computer graphics into a Hong Kong style martial arts film. Needless to say they were very successful. I have never seen the amount of visual graphics found in Storm Riders in any film prior. With the help of SFX all the characters gain divine fighting abilities. In fact it's like watching battles between gods rather than humans. I enjoyed this film greatly and would have loved to have seen it on the big screen. The story is straight out of Asian folklore and the acting is painless. The only flaw I found in this film is also it's strength. Though beautiful and powerful, Storm Riders relies on SFX too much. There is actually very little fighting skill used. Most of the fights are completely computer enhanced and the actors never truly cut loose. The good news is that the creators of this fine film learned from it and did a little fine tuning in their next attempt, A Man Called Hero.