The Stormriders Reviews

A storm is brewing.. two sugars please.

Stormriders made almost three times as much money as Crouching Tiger at the Hong Kong box office, make of that what you will but for me Stormriders is one of the most impressive movies to come out of Asia for reasons that I have to admit, I don't fully understand.

Starwars is my favourite movie of all time, it's a movie that's easy to dislike but a movie that's impossible to ignore. Stormriders works for me in the same way, it introduced me to a kind of movie making that i had rarely seen before. Pure fantasy of course, but it felt fresh and exciting and it was a movie that I wanted to see again and again.

Of course, I'm not comparing Stormriders to Starwars. Neither film have anything in common, but Stormriders was the film that first made me look East. Hollywood movies had lost that spark of originality, just look now at the way that they are imitating Asian cinema and you'll realise that this kind of movie is a much more passionate affair. Style, colour, blistering choreography and overblown theatrics, it's what Hong Kong cinema is all about. Hollywood is a business, they hit their marks and make their money.

Stormriders will always be a personal favourite of mine. It's not perfect, but some would argue that neither was Starwars. And that opens up a whole new can of worms...

Don't bother

I rented this DVD as I had heard it had broken all box office records in asia. How disappointed I was.

Apparently, I learned later, this was because the film was based on a well known comic book, and the film claimed to be an accurate representation of it. Unfortunately this wasn't true and the film is neither a decent comic book conversion or a stunning martial arts action flick. The fight scenes are poor, some of the budget spent on the less than stunning special effects could have gone towards the choreography instead.

The storyline is wondering, trying to include too much from the comics, and not successfully representing any of it in the process. The characters dont get properly developed, the background of the story is hardly touched on and a rich universe is left behind in order to put forth a less than mediocre action film

I'd recommend giving this film a miss and renting some of the older traditional martial arts films, such as Drunken Master

++++++++EXCELLENT++++++++

A very entertaining martial arts fantasy action movie from Hong Kong. The fight scenes involve spectacular special effects and may not be of taste to martial arts purists. However they make the film more visually appealing - do you want a documentary or entertainment? The plot is based on the classic tale of revenge as in many other Hong Kong martial arts movies.

This will appeal to Mortal Kombat and Streetfighter fans but is in fact a lot better than the Hollywood films especially the latter.

Lacking in action

A rather dull film that takes itself far too seriously, The Stormriders comes up lacking in almost every department. The wirework is poor, with actors trundling through the air rather than flying through it. The fighting is lacklustre, cheap camera tricks hiding the lack of real action, and most of it in any case consisting mainly of people staring hard at each other while a lightshow plays out around them. The direction and editing were clumsy. The only time the movie came to life was with the brief appearances of Shu Qi, so good in The Eye 2, and here providing the only humour in the entire film. Overall, it reminded me of nothing so much as a CGI Hindi devotional drama, where people stand around for episodes on end talking about fighting, without ever getting around to doing any of it. Some bits were alright, but it isn't a patch on something like Zu Warriors of the Mystic Mountain or Kung Fu Hustle. For that matter, it isn't a great deal better than Warriors of Virtue - at least that had a bit of action in it.

Nice action, poor story line

Just a bunch of fighter....boring

Sheer Brilliance

This film is better than Mortal Kombat and Crouching Tiger put together! Stunning Coreography and REAL special effects (as opposed to the weird light and camera tricks used in most Chinese sword and sorcery). May not be to everyones taste but the fight scenes are truly breathtaking

[Highly rated reviewer]

Beware Disc 2!!

Not a bad film but don't order disc 2. its just the same film but dubbed.

Stormriders

Good film, but i wouldn't bother with the 2nd disc, it's the same film in english.

great movie

great storyline and special effects, the actors are also superb!

Stormriders 1

The martial arts in this film is superb and the actors who play Cloud and Wind are very good looking wearing Matrix style long coats.O.K. so it does help when the actors are good looking as well trying to emulate Keanu Reeves! I enjoyed the the film and recommend it.