The Stormriders

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.

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 saw the DVD of this movie in a local HMV store and on the cover it said that it outsold 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' in Hong Kong. I read the back and it sounded very interesting. The DVD contained 2 discs - the international version and the Director's cut. I opted for the Director's cut as I like to see films the way the Director intended.

So, I bought it, sat back and pressed play. I was absolutely amazed - the story was fascinating, steeped in Eastern mysticism, the acting was superb (especially Aaron Kowk as Cloud and Ekin Cheng as Wind, the two principal leads) and the special effects were mind blowing.

I won't give the story away and to be honest, the plot wouldn't do justice to the way the film's made and how entertaining it really is. Ideas are thrown in one after the other, Lau's direction is assured and there are set pieces which defy belief (for example, when Wind is fighting the fire dragon in the cave).

It's simple, if you have a chance to see this, then watch it. Watch the Director's version though - the International version is many minutes shorter and badly dubbed.

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.

When I first saw the box for The Stormriders, I had never heard of the comics, let alone the film. But given that this is one of the biggest films, Hong Kong had ever made, I had to watch it for myself.

I was, it has to be said, very pleasantly surprised. The storyline was a bit dark (possibly one might say it could have been darker to give it a bit more depth), and some of the martial arts action were brilliantly choreographed. The characters were on the whole well built giving the whole movie an edge.

However, the main weakness of the film has to be the discontinuity in many places in the film. It does feel, even with the Directors' Cut, version that I saw, there was too much edited out of the film and it left you slightly disoriented at times. I can't begin to imagine what the International Version must be like as it has some 40 minutes taken out of it.

But credit has to be given to the graphics team behind the special effects. They were all discreetly put together into the film, such that it added to the film rather than the film depending on it. The film is already some four years old as I write this, and it seems to not have aged at all.

Overall, it is a good film to watch. The box also mentions that it's Final Fantasy HK Style, and though I'd say the story itself might not make a great Final Fantasy game, the SFX do give it that feel. The film isn't perfect, but I have to give it full marks have for effort.