Kevin Cheng, Michael Tse, Ray Lui and More to Headline “Storm Riders” Musical Concert

Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎), Michael Tse (謝天華), Ray Lui (呂良偉), Patrick Tam (譚耀文), Janice Yan (閻奕格) Bianca Wu (胡琳) Wayne Lai (黎耀祥), and Lawrence Cheng (鄭丹瑞) will be heading towards the musical stage next year to bring our favorite manhua characters back to life.

In July, manhua artist and publisher Ma Wing-shing (馬榮成) announced that he has teamed up with producer-manager Florence Chan (陳淑芬) to bring his best-selling manhua series Fung Wan <風雲> to the musical stage. His series, also known as Wind and Cloud, debuted in 1989 and spawned a dozen of adaptations in film, television, and gaming. The musical concert, titled The Storm Show <風雲5D音樂劇>, will be held at the prestigious Hong Kong Coliseum in April 2017.

On September 8, the team behind The Storm Show announced its main cast at a press conference. Kevin Cheng will star as Wind, the story’s saber-wielding hero, while Michael Tse will star as the other protagonist, Cloud. Veteran actor Ray Lui will star as The Lord Conquerer, the main antagonist. Patrick Tam will play Wind and Cloud’s mentor, Nameless. Wayne Lai and Lawrence Cheng, both who have starred in the 1998 film adaptation The Storm Riders, will reprise their roles as the Mud Buddha and Jester, respectively. Janice Yan will play the servant girl Hung Ci, while Bianca Wu stars as Yu Chor-chor.

Kevin and Michael shared that they have both learned of their casting a few months ago. Michael expressed, “It’s a different kind of pressure. This is a stage performance after all; it is not film or television, so we need to use a different style of acting. What I feel most stressed about are the special effects. It’s going to take even longer to rehearse. In addition to the dancing and singing, there’s also going to be a lot of choreographed fighting.”

Kevin added, “[Michael] has done theater before, but this one will be my first musical and theater performance. It’s a huge challenge. I hope we’ll have sufficient time to rehearse.” Mentioning that the show’s intense action choreography may aggravate his old injury, Kevin said, “Can’t do anything about it. This is a great challenge so I must go through with it no matter what.”

As rehearsal will take a few months, the duo had to turn down many jobs offers. Did they lose a lot of money? After a moment of thought, Michael said carefully, “There are times when you’ll have to sacrifice some things. After all, the way how you perform in theater is different. It’s not fair to use it as a comparison with our other jobs. You’re going to have to need a lot of time to rehearse, and even after you’re done with all of that, your time on stage is limited. That’s why, to do this job well, you have to be passionate about it. We can’t use money to measure it.”

Kevin said, “If it’s really all about money, not many will do [stage]. It is true that with mainland television dramas, you earn a lot more and save a lot more time, but television dramas are available all the time. Projects like this one aren’t, so we have to hold onto this opportunity.” (How many dramas did you turn down?) “It’s hard to tell, because once you accept one offer you eventually have to turn down another. I did turn down at least one.”

Michel joked “I turned down a lot meals with friends.”

Source: Oriental Daily, HK01

This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.