Capturing the storm's soul

Su at a recent screening of Soul of the Storm 2: Cruise in Beijing, and a poster of the film. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The trip took place in August 2019, when Typhoon Lekima — one of the most destructive typhoons to hit China this century — made landfall in Taizhou, Zhejiang province.

At the time, Lekima was dumping a huge amount of rain, with over 300 millimeters of precipitation recorded in 156 towns and villages across the province; the average rainfall in Taizhou's Linhai district even exceeded 500 millimeters.

"Back then, I didn't know how to drive, so my father was behind the wheel. He popped open the trunk and had me sit inside, holding a camera to shoot backward," recalls Su, adding that this is how he captured footage of the howling wind and torrential rain.

Although storm chasing is still a niche hobby in China, Su has met some like-minded individuals through online communities, such as Wang, a computer science major in Shanghai, who became his most important partner. Together, they spent six years chasing storms from 2019 to 2025.