Okay, who forgot to inform me about the rumors that the Pang Brothers are possibly going to direct a Storm Riders sequel and that Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok will be back as Wind and Cloud?

I also hear that badass Simon Yam is going to be the bad guy and the movie will cover the Juet Mou San / Japanese Invasion story arc.

I await giving Neil Koch some of my hard earned money if this hits DVD next year.

This reminds me...

Did the US release of Kessen Fist Of Thunder come out yet?

I mean it isn't Storm Riders great but it is fun little movie with our man Sonny Chiba (and both Anna Nagata AND Yuria Haga)

James

I haven't seen it on the titles list at Foreign Flix back home in the 804 and they're usually pretty good about striking first when it comes to bringing in stuff, so I'm inclined to believe there hasn't been a US release quite yet.

OK... hmmm... it was announced about a year ago as being picked-up beause TV-Nihon pulled it right away...

*checking the internets*

Okay, this got released under a different name in the States... Legend of The Seven Monks...

James

Oh, that? IIRC Westlake released that in the US last November. Two days after my birthday to be precise. I picked that up from Foreign Flix along with Jiakpae (aka The City of Violence) when I was home for the Christmas holidays.

I haven't heard anything about a Storm Riders sequel, but I'm not really on the HK movie news/gossip sites much anymore. All the crap surrounding the Edison Chen cell phone scandal earlier in the year kinda got me burned out on following all the news sites.

I'm not really sure if this sort of thing would be the Pang brother's bag - I guess it matters more who the action director is going to be. Also, I'm a bit surprised that a sequel would be made - martial arts films in general, and especially wire/computer fu pictures, are really out of favor in HK at the moment.

Is that the same thing as the photo scandal where Chen pretty much slept up one side of China and down the other, or is this something completely different?

And yeah, I was sorta stunned by the Pang brother's involvment also. They've done action and horror but never anything high fantasy / wuxia like Storm Riders.

Yeah, it was the one about the nudie pics on his cell phone. Last I heard, he had to run to Canada because he was getting death threats, not just from pissed-off teenyboppers, but from Triads involved in the film industry who are angry that some of their investments in the industry are pretty much worthless now (ie, the Twins have announced their "retirement", mostly due to the backlash from Gillian's pics being found on Edison's cell).

He's done with the HK industry now, and probably acting/singing in general. Probably the last thing you'll see him in is his tiny role in The Dark Knight.

As for the Pang Brothers/Storm Riders, I'm thinking that their involvement might be due to some sort of foreign (American) investment with the production. I believe the Pangs have a deal with Sony's US arm and this might be part of it.

BTW, this isn't a rumor, the movie's been in production since March and will be coming out next year - probably not until late, around October due to all the CGI that'll be put in.

There's a few on-set pics and concept artwork here:

http://www.beyondhollywood.com/the-storm-r...images-gallery/

This is why you are awesome, Neil.