Storm Riders
Review
Format: VCD
Stars: Sonny Chiba, Yu Rong Guang, some other young HK actors

This is a swordplay movie, a long one too. It runs around 2 hours long. But I don't like swordplay movies, so thankfully this one had some extras to keep me enjoyed. For example, lots of magic. There was a ton of magic in this movie, and I liked it. In one scene, the old swordsman stands outside a building and freezes everyone in a room to go fight the master, while he's still outside though, but when Cloud (one of the main characters) talks to him everyone unfreezes and the man looses. Interesting. Kinda like a an RPG in a way, actually a lot like one.

I don't wanna bother with the plot because it deals with all sorts of prophecy and the likes, but there are some interesting ideas here. Here's one, tear off unneeded limbs. Cloud (I think) gets his arm broken by the master and he rips it off afterwords because, frankly, it's not any good anymore. So why keep it?

The special effects weren't that good, in my eyes. Some of the magic looked cool, but when they tried to make an entire set in a computer, it looked horrible. Plus, they used the blue (green in this case) screen effect to put the characters out there without their actually being there or even being put into a computer first. The VCD I bought is choppy too. Every 25th or so frame is blended with the next one, and this leads to a very VERY bad quality picture. Perhaps the DVD would impress me a little more, but in this case it's very bad indeed.

Wu Shu? Hardly any. In one scene cloud beats a guy up pretty quickly, but that's it. Some swordplay, which is based around magic, and slayings are all really. I also didn't think that they always had a good camera angle. At times, it'd be as though the camera was everywhere.

As this is a genre that I don't get into very much, I don't have much to say about it. I did like the movie, truthfully. The picture quality, including the camera, vcd, and the computer effects, weren't to my liking, but the magic is very interesting. If you like those RPG games with lots of magic, I recommend this movie because even I, who don't like those games, found it entertaining. If you're looking for real swordplay, get something else. This movie is into character development and characters instead of action. If you want wu shu (kung fu as it's called in America), don't get this. Like I say, the magic is cool, and get it for that.

Oh and Yu Rong Guang is in it for a good 20 seconds making a sword without a shirt on. He makes a statement to his son, then he gets killed. End of Guang. Too bad really, he could have made a cool standing in this movie had his part been more important.

7/10 Just for the magic, and had that not been so diverse and interesting I'd give it a flat 4/10 for plot and characters.

UPDATE 10/9 - Rating System Change

3/5

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