The Storm Riders

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 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 how great this Hong Kong flick, so I was really happy to find a copy of it at my video store. Unfortunately, at the time of my rental, I didn't know that the U.S. video/DVD distributor hacked out about THIRTY MINUTES from the original running time! What a mess! The movie made absolutely no sense!

Still, I could see enough in this butchered print to indicate that the full uncut version must be fabulous (and make a heck of a lot more sense!) So I think it's safe for me to recommend you see it - though ONLY if you can see the uncut version!

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.