In 1998, a cheap and nasty Chinese film about fantasy based martial arts was released named The Storm Riders.
Storm Riders is about a Lord Conqueror (played by Sonny Chiba) who received word from the Mud Buddha that if he finds his apprentices Cloud and Wind he will be invincible for 10 years. Simultaneously the rest of his fortune would be revealed by opening a sacred box that is presented to him.
The Lord Conqueror then goes out and finds any child who fits the description and name of the Mud Buddha’s words, killing their parents and taking the two he finds.
10 years pass and the Lord Conqueror is sitting pretty and has only one enemy left to defeat. His adopted sons Cloud and Wind are powerful fighters and serve under him loyally. But the Mud Buddha has disappeared and must be found. Finally the Lord opens the box and hears that Could and Wind will come together and defeat him.
So the Lord Conqueror turns the two against each other by marrying Wind to his daughter Charity, knowing that Cloud and Charity have been practicing the horizontal dance (screwing). On the day of wedding Cloud arrives and takes Charity away. Wind confronts Cloud before the Lord Conqueror has a chance to attack him. Trying to protect Cloud, Charity steps into the path of the Lord strike and is killed.
From there Cloud disappears with Charity’s body and both he and Wind start to plan their own attack and revenge on the Lord Conqueror.
Amazingly Colorful Fantasy based Martial Arts.
This movie sure is colorful and tells the story of some powerful beings who deliver energy blasts and all sorts of terrific fighting moves. But the over saturation of this colorful CGI combined with just really cheap looking shooting and sets (not too mention the CGI itself looks pretty cheap) makes this movie hard to take seriously.
It looks like it was made by students studying special effects during their first year of college, it’s pretty bad for ‘professionals’.
Look past the special effects and you’ve pretty ordinary movie that has a lot of unrealized potential. Had it been an Anime movie from Japan or something with higher production values, less ‘in your face’ CGI’ and actual martial arts it’d be cool, but that’s 95% of the film process.
The story, stripped of it’s method of being told is pretty cool and easy to follow. But this movie just doesn’t cut it in my opinion.
The Action & Martial Arts
With a guy like Sonny Chiba in the cast, I expected at least one decent fight with him but unfortunately over use of CGI and ordinary Wirework make up most of the action.
I haven’t much more to say, it’s quite possibly the worst movie I’ve reviewed so far. I didn’t like it at all.
On Blu Ray –
Region A (US & Canada)
Storm Riders Blu-Ray
On DVD –
Region 1 (US & Canada)
The Storm Riders
Region 2 (UK, Europe, etc)
The Stormriders [DVD]
Region 4 (Australia, New Zealand, etc)
I agree with you completely this was a very boring movie, I am watching through this list, I have about 5 more movies to watch all of them
Yep, I thought this movie was a waste of time…
My favorite movies.
It’s the most expensive film in the history of HK.