Wind & Cloud 2 (風雲 2), Chinese Soap Opera (2004)
6 May 2007I had to see this. I am already a huge fan of the Andrew Lau Wai Keung film THE STORMRIDERS é£äº, and ever since I heard there was a Television series that starred Zhou Wen Zhou I knew I had to see it. Unfortunately the first series did not have subtitles, and this version of the second series, while it has English Subtitles, it is cut down to 30 episodes from over 40, so there are some parts that don’t make perfect sense, but even with that this is still an incredibly enjoyable series, and I hope they do a 3rd one and release a translated version of the 1st. And yes it is still soap opera like, it has characters dieing and coming back, and losing their memories, but it also has bad ass action, a lot of depth to the characters, and a plethora of cool locations. The CG effects are pitiful, but the story is good, and the characters likeable, so it is well worth watching.
As with the film, this is the story of the great martial artists, Wind Nie (Nie Feng played by Zhou Wen Zhou) and Cloud Bu (Peter Ho Yun Tung), they have defeated their evil master Tian Xia Tong, and are planning on stepping out of the world of Marshes and Lakes (the martial arts world). Wind laments the death of his wife Second Dream or Di Er Meng (Betty Huang Yi), while Cloud lives with his wife Chu Chu, and her son Cloud’er Bu (who is actually the son of Jack Chen, who along with Cloud were the only students of Lord Nameless Wu Ming, and he was given an aphrodisiac by Duan Lang, who was another student of Master Tian Xia Tong, and raped her). They are living a fairly idilic life, until their lives are uprooted by the evil of a strange man who wears an ice mask, and who calls himself God, as well as Sun Wukong, the Monkey King, or Mr. Mystery, but whose name turns out to be Di Shi Tian, the leader of the evil Tian Gate. He is tormenting Wind and Cloud, and gives Second Dream a pill to awaken her from death, but when she awakens, she doesn’t remember Wind, and in fact thinks he murdered her husband.
REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS….
Wind NIe and Second Dream.
Chu Chu and Cloud Bu.
Chu Chu, Cloud Bu, Wind Nie, and Second Dream.
Master Tian Zia Tong
Cloud Bu with Jack Chen.
Cloud things that Second Dream is an imposter, and wants Wind to stay away, but he will not, and they part company. Cloud and Chu Chu end up running into Jack Chen, which makes Chu Chu very uncomfortable, because she can’t forget her rape at his hands, even if he was out of control.
WInd tries to get Dream to promise to stay with him, but all she wants to do is escape, and ends up hooking up with an honest knight named White Kong How, the student of master Tie Shen, a blacksmith and swordmaker. White Kong and Second Dream, slowly begin to like each other, while Wind searches for his wife, and Di Shi Tian tells Wind of his wife falling for White Kong, so Wind ends up attacked White Kong, but when he almost loses control to the demon blood inside him, he leaves completely depressed.
Di Shi Tian has also started to split CLoud from his wife, and he convinces Chu Chu, that Cloud has killed her son, so she leaves him. He also captures Dream, and helps her recover her memory, and lets her go. Wind is given the choice of saving his wife, or saving himself, and he takes poison and Di Shitian saves her, but instead of poison Wind has been given more demon blood, so he will soon lose all self control once again. Dream and Wind are reunited, but only briefly, as Wind runs, with Cloud and Dream following him. They follow a trail of bodies. They catch up to him, and WInd wants to kill himself, but CLoud stops him, and he loses all control and attacks, knocking Cloud into a river, and almost killing Dream, but a flute song makes him stop.
Cloud is thought to be dead, and is saved by Zi Ning, the blind daughter of a fisherman.
Dream find a frozen Wind, and a flute, but when she plays it he goes mad and starts attacking. Di Shitian ends up giving Wind a pill that awakens his mind, and he runs by himself to hide in a cave till he can overcome the demon blood in side of him. Dream sets off to look for her husband, and on the way finds a woman and her son who are being attacked, Dream helps them, but the mother is dieing, and she gets Dream to promise to take care of her son Long Er, and promise not to let him learn martial arts.
Zi Ning’s father wants Cloud to leave, but when he realizes that Zi Ning loves him, and he marries the girl. Chu Chu was out searching for Cloud, and meets Zi Ning, but Zi Ning doesn’t want to lose her love, so she doesn’t tell Chu Chu where her husband is.
12 Years pass, and Cloud and Zi Ning have a son Tian Er, and Dream is with Long Er is always trying to learn martial arts, and she finally agrees to show him martial arts for a year, and if he can beat her, she agrees to teach him.
Wind manages to suppress his demon side, and manages to become stronger in the process, and comes out of the cave. He ends up helping out a lady thief named Xian Luo, who starts to travel with him, and also falls for him.
Meanwhile White Kong’s master Tie Shen has a strange illness and only Tie Shen’s sword can save him, so White Kong gets set out to find out, without the help of his harsher older brother White Mie or his girlfriend Bai Ling.
Cloud is in the village selling fish, when he gets caught in a gang war, and the power of his arms has his fighting, and he starts to get flashes of memory.
Duan Lian has joined Tian Gate, and is under the auspices of Di Shi Tian’s second in command, Godmother, who turns out to be the girl thief Zian Luo, and Duan Lian is ordered to get the leadership of the Union of Monks and Nuns.
Cloud’s powers start to manifest themself again.
White Kong runs into an evil villain who turns out to be A Gou, now named Wu Er, a man who used to be treated as dog till White Kong and Dream rescued him, and White Kong wants him to turn good.
Wind ends up in a deal with Bei Ye Ziong Zhi to help his son Tie Shi Nan to try and become a better man, and the father pretends to have been killed by Wind so that he will actually practice martial arts and get better.
Dream and Long Er rescue a Buddhist master and head to Lan Ruo Temple, and they run into White Kong there who things the hidden master might be Cloud Bu.
Zian Luo tells Duan Lang to stop for leadership, because she wants to get Wind Nie to become the leader, and Duan Lang becomes quite upset. White comes to the temple and is attacked by the monks. The abbot of the temple is killed, and Dream and White Kong are blamed till they find out the second in command is evil and works for Di Shitian.
Wind comes to challenge for leadership of the Union of Monks and Nuns, and sees his wife Dream, when he hears Long Er call dream mom, he assumes that White Kong has married her, so he loses the fight to the young Long Er, and leaves his wife without even talking to her, having listened to the evil lies of Xian Luo.
Long Er gets to meet the old master in the temple, who turns out to be his father, and who passes on his skills before he dies. Dream leaves Long Er at the temple so she can find her husband. Dream finds him in Luo City, living with Xian Luo, and Wind pretends that Di Shitian has put another brain in the dead body of Wind, as he wants Dream to be happy with her new husband.
Cloud meanwhile is having pains in his arm. White Kong is given a message by Di Shi Tian which leads him to Cloud. White Kong befriends Cloud and gives his wife a drug that may cure her eyesight, but wants to get the sword, and he must get it soon, or White Mie and Bai Ling will take the family by force. Zining ends up giving White Kong the sword, so he can get it out of her life, and have a happy life with her husband, but that doesn’t last as Duan Lang attacks, and takes Tian Er captive. Wind hears that Cloud is around and tries to find him, and finds that Duan Lang has made a demon beast, which has attacked Cloud again, killed Zining and wounded Tian Er. Wind heads off to find Tian Er, while Cloud deals with his dyeing wife.
Chu Chu meanwhile has been trying to live a quite life, but Jack Chen won’t leave her alone, and eventually tries to act as her husband, though she does not love her.
White Kong returns to his master and gives him his sword, but his master is not acting like himself, and is fact his evil brother Tie Kuangtu the former emperor of Japan who makes an evil suite of armor using blood of villagers and the energy of Cloud’s sword. Eventually White Kong finds out about him, and finds his master, and tries to get him out, but only White Kong manages to escape, with White Mie and Bai Ling on his trail, but Tie Kuangtu follows in his powerful armor, and knocks White Mie off a cliff, and White King and Bai Ling barely manage to escape with the help of some of White Mie’s men.
Jack Chen meanwhile gets a invitation to a heroes meeting, and the people who are running it have taken Chu Chu and Cloud Er.
Wind and Xian Luo have saved Cloud’s son Tian Er, and Xian leads him to an incredible healer, who is also evil, but will help the child if they get a special sword from a woman named Xiu Gu and bring her head. Xiu Gu is a scared girl who turns out to be the healers daughter, and WInd ends up getting the sword, but not killing her, having him run on the lam with her servant, and the healer implants the sword in Tian Er’s back saving him.
When White Kong escapes he gets a message from his master, that leads him to Tian Gate, where he can learn an invincible martial art to try and to take revenge, and he lock his heart and become not such a good man until he has his revenge. And he hides clouds sword in the woods.
Wind ends up meeting up with Cloud’s master Lord Nameless Wu Ming, and they want to go to the Hero meeting and find out what is going on, since their is no third disciple of his who was supposed to have called this meeting. Wind ends up running into the former Japanese Emperor Huang Ying, and stops him from defiling a temple and Wu Ming leeds him to the true grave of the previous Japanese emperor.
White Kong makes it to Tian Gate and meets Xian Luo and he takes 2 of her hits in order to learn the martial arts from Di Shi Tian.
The Heroes meeting was actually arranged by the Emperor of Japan trying to retrieve the old body, but it was recovered, so it was cancelled, but Tie Kuangu shows up and causes trouble, but Cloud manages to save Chu Chu and Cloud Er with the help of Jack Chen, and they go with Cloud, but Cloud Er hates Cloud and only wants Jack Chen. And again Chu Chu doesn’t believe in Cloud, thinking he is scaring her son, even though it is his adopted son.
Wind and Dream now reunited, though she still does not think it is him, meet an ancient man named Xu Fu, who ate pheonix blood, and was the one who 200 years ago took Di Shi Tian as his pupil, and even he can’t stop him. Xu Fu clears things up between Wind and Dream are re-united finally.
Zian Luo ends up taking White Kong out of Tian Gate as a servant. White Kong ends up getting tricked by Bai Ling who he loves and Wu Er to harden his brain, so he can learn the new martial arts from Di Shi Tian, and he finally gets to battle his nemesis, but Wind lets him go, and helps him. Mie also ends up joining Tian Gate, and it turns out Wu Ming has also been captured by the gate and is held prisoner.
Cloud ends up reuniting Chu Chu and Cloud Er to Jack Chen as she will make a better wife. People from the gate take Chu Chu and Cloud Er, and Di Shi Tian makes Jack Chien promise to do something for him.
Meanwhile Shi Nan captured Tian Er, and Wind fought with him, but Tian Er uses an evil martial arts which rips off his own arms and ends up killing Wind. Dream goes to Xian Luo to use Di Shi Tian’s rejuvenating powers to bring him back to life and Zu Fu can save him from there. Xian Luo loves wind so she will do it, if Dream agrees to serve her forever after. Wind is revived, and Xu Fu wants Wind to take Xian Luo as his second wife, though he doesn’t want to, but he does convince Xian Luo that maybe she can get this.
White Mie becomes a master pupil of Di Shi Tian much to Duan Lang’s distate. Mie tells Duan Lang to get 7 godly weapons to serve him.
Wind finds out that Di Shitian wants all the strong martial artists to kill a dragon and take his essence, because while his body won’t die, he still ages, and with the essence he will not age. Di Shi Tian wants to kill Wind now, though Zian Luo does not want to do it.
Mie also gives Dream a poison to turn her evil and attack her husband, and she kills him, but it is a trick, because the poison didn’t affect her thanks to Xu Fu. Dream gets Cloud to join Tian gate to help Di Shi Tian. Di Shi Tian and his followers, including Jack Chen, and Cloud go to Dragon Island to battle the dragon, and Wind comes to help. The dragon is killed, but the essence is split into 7 parts. Di Shi Tian kills Jack Chen to get his piece and ends up getting 2 pieces, while Cloud and Wind each get one.
Wind and Cloud help the dyeing Po Yun who works for Di Shi Tian, and they take him to see his son he has never seen, and the woman he left, and as he is about to die, Cloud gives him his piece of the essence to save him.
Fend ends up fighting Duan Lang, but doesn’t kill him, and spares him. Duan ends up meeting a woman he saves Du Yunling, who swore to stay with him, though he doesn’t really care.
White Kong and Wu Er go to Tian Gate to steal the Dragon Essence, but they are caught and Wu Er is killed. White Kong tries to kill Di Shi Tian, and he is killed as well, and Mie watches it, and decides he will avenge his brother.
Xu Fu decides to take Wind and Cloud to train them in martial arts, but Dream realizes that Long Er has almost been turned evil by Xu Fu, and she realizes that Xu Fu is in fact Di Shi Tian, and they go to save Wind and Cloud. They only manage to escape with the help of an old master named laugh 3 Times or Xiao San Xiao, but CLoud is badly injured, and to save him they give him the dragon essence.
Wu Ming is a captive of Xu Fu, and his martial arts are broken. Duan Luang rejoins Tian Gate, and promised to help retrieve the Dragon essence. Duan Lang takes Dream, and forces Wind to retrieve the other dragon essence or he will kill her and Chu Chu and Tian Er and Cloud Er,
Duan Lang gives Chu Chu a choice to save her son Cloud Er, or to save Cloud’s son Tian Er, and she coses Tian Er, so she gets back to Cloud with the dead Tian Er, and ends up killing herslef, as she feels she killed her son, and Cloud is left alone.
Xu Fu learns a new martial arts skill, because he can’t mix the dragon essence with his phoenix blood, so he is lessening his powers so he can never age. Duan Lang tells Mie about it, and Mie attacks, but doesn’t succeed, and Wind goes in as well with Dream and almost kill Xu Fu, but Duan Lan helps him escape, but then kills him and takes the dragon essence, becoming ultimately powerful and evil.
We find out that Meng is pregnant as well, and then she is captured by the much more powerful Duan, and he wants to kill her but Du Yunling stops him and lets her have her son. She then sets to save the child, and escapes with her own son, which Huang Ying takes thinking it is Cloud’s son, and gives it to Dream. She then leaves with their actual son, which they will never get, and he holds a party for the son to draw out Wind, Wind and Cloud attack, Wind with his new martial arts he has learned which once beat Xu Fu, and Cloud unable to die, but he is badly hurt. They manage to get out with Dream though. Dream wants Wind to leave with her, but Duan Luan will execute whole cities if he does not return so he fights, and just in the nick of time Cloud shows up and the 2 kill Duan Luan at last.
And Wind and Dream leave with the child of Duan Luan they think is their own, and Cloud heads off to look after Tian Er.
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The end of the series, though obviously not of the story. I wonder if they will do more? I would love to see it!!!
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