The Stormriders

Wow. This movie is a CLASSIC, almost entirely because of it's extreme unintentional hilarity. The "fighters" are actually Chinese pop stars, and it comes through quite easily in this, dare I say, "Film." The special effects will leave you either in painful laughter or extreme incredulity, and not because of how well they are done. The plot has the solidity and continuity of a jellyfish, with characters appearing, leaving and reappearing for what appears to be no reason at all. It's best to watch this movie with several friends late at night, but a warning: the laughter might cause some damage. Every kung fu fan should immediately watch this movie, and then watch a good movie, such as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or Fist of Legend.

The makers of The Storm Riders took a chance when making this experimental film. They did something that had never been done before by fusing extreme computer graphics into a Hong Kong style martial arts film. Needless to say they were very successful. I have never seen the amount of visual graphics found in Storm Riders in any film prior. With the help of SFX all the characters gain divine fighting abilities. In fact it's like watching battles between gods rather than humans. I enjoyed this film greatly and would have loved to have seen it on the big screen. The story is straight out of Asian folklore and the acting is painless. The only flaw I found in this film is also it's strength. Though beautiful and powerful, Storm Riders relies on SFX too much. There is actually very little fighting skill used. Most of the fights are completely computer enhanced and the actors never truly cut loose. The good news is that the creators of this fine film learned from it and did a little fine tuning in their next attempt, A Man Called Hero.

Stormriders was a movie that was not highly publicised. After a friend recommended it I popped it into my player with no real expectations.

From the opening credits it grabbed my attention. The music was excellent and it had a hi-tech appearance that belayed my fears that it was yet another low budget Hong Kong B-grade martial arts flick.

The story progressed rather well and I became entranced in the subtleties of the plot. It flowed well from start to finish and had very little confusion that I find occurs a lot in HK movies. The action scenes while very 'Fantasy', were well balanced and not cheap. In general, Stormriders possesses a fantastic mix of stunts, CGA and musical score and will please.

I have seen both the 128 min version in Chinese with subtitles, and the 91 min English dubbed version. The only serious critical comment I have with the 128 min Chinese version is that the subtitles were a little small.

However watch the 91 min version at your peril!! Its missing so many scenes that it becomes so watered down that it becomes farcical. The main characters English dubbed voices don't suit the chars: Striding Cloud (Aaron Kwok)loses his essential moodiness, Jestor becomes a real on screen joke and Mud-Buddha loses his credibility as the all seeing prophet. In general you miss out on so many lovely little tidbits especially from Qi Shu (Muse) and the plot suffers terribly as you are forever fighting to catch up on what the heck is going on. You'll find yourself saying 'Hang on..!!', 'How the heck...', 'Woah, why is that..' etc.

When comparing 'Stormriders'(128min version) with 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon', there is no comparison. It made me wonder why the latter received so much publicity and awards and Stormriders received nothing. It is seriously like comparing 'chalk and cheese'.

However, the 91min version of Stormriders I would rate 3/10 and that is being 'very' generous. Seriously - 128min version or nothing.

To this day, Stormriders (128 min)is up there with my very favourite all time action/martial arts movies. See it, I bet it will endear to you too:)

I heard about in Kung Fu/Qigong magazine and finally got to see it in 2000. It fully lives up to the hype that surrounded it. Watching this makes you wonder what the Street Fighter movie would've looked like if it were done right. For those of you who prefer American action films because "the special effects aren't cool enough" no longer have a reason to "b & moan" anymore. My main problem is the same as others who've watched this film: sometimes the effects overshadow the fighting. But don't let that stop you from seeing this one. Plus it's nice to see Sonny Chiba again. I wonder if that means there'll be more Jademan Comics adaptations in the future.

I caught wind of this movie in a hong kong based design mag that ran a feature on it. The stills were amazing, so I did everything in my power to track it down. I'm no stranger to the world of Hong Kong action, but this was something completely new to me. Kinetic swordplay, astounding special effects, great story, great acting. This is the future of Hong Kong cinema. Andrew Lau has really gone the distance here. Aaron Kwok plays the moody and violent Cloud while Ekin Cheng plays the level headed and disciplined Wind. They fight under the guidance of the not-so-nice Lord Conquer excellently portrayed by Sonny (the man) Chiba. Together they conquer all of China with their martial arts might. But if Cloud and Wind combine, fight together and discover the truth about their cloudy pasts, Conquer is screwed. There's really not a bad thing I can say here, maybe the editing is a little liberal during the great fight scenes and really takes away from the glory, but even that's not too bad.