THE STORM RIDERS
(Chinatown Video)
Reviewed by Jonathan
Marshall
The flagging traditions of Hollywood action cinema secured a much needed
boost in the ‘80s from Hong Kong film, and just when the latter seemed to be
increasingly chasing its own tail too, along comes director Andrew Lau Wai-Keung’s
breathtaking Storm Riders (1998). The film is arty, almost avant-garde, while
remaining resolutely in swords’n’sorcery territory. Like Lau’s
subsequent A Man Called Hero, Riders employs
superb computer graphics of various flying elements, as well as lush backgrounds and
settings, using a similar program to that of Tekken and other games (the titles
are particularly striking, featuring chiselled warriors on windswept locales). The
cinematography is equally luxuriant, with strong wipes of color and tint. The characters
dress in vibrant, shining costumes which - like the sound design - leap out of the screen
to add to the epic weight of the narrative. Almost every computer editing technique is
employed, from a fabulous blurred, inter-cutting fight set in a green-lit, sonicly booming
bamboo forest to a surprisingly interesting sex-scene, in which images freeze before the
action jumps along at the pace of the bassy beats under the strings of the sound track.
There is even montage and text à la Greenaway’s Pillow Book or
Prospero’s Books.
The film has indeed a Shakespearean feel to it (particularly Lear and
Macbeth), of Conquer attempting to defy his destiny that the children he raised
will: ‘be his making and his undoing’. Sonny Chiba is fantastic
as Conquer, with a weighty, almost massive physicality which makes even the slightest
gesture a poem of force, while Aaron Kwok has an elegant, sweeping anger
as Cloud, and Ekin Cheng is suitably restrained and light as Wind. Even
the comic figure of the queer Jester is touching. Indeed, Riders is remarkable in
how well drawn the peripheral characters are - even if a few details are left implied
rather than detailed. As in Tolkien or Beowulf, one is drawn
into a complete world peopled by individuals with histories and conflicts. Thus although Riders
is most impressive for its hyperbolic yet highly physical fights, it is a complex,
compelling work. Even the sound track is impressive, deftly mixing Indian sitar, Chinese
pipes and harp, MTV-esque electronica and more traditional orchestration. Riders is
a must see with appeal far beyond the confines of action cinema.
© 2000 Jonathan Marshall
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