Stometer Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Destroyer Wod I had this movie for a while in my "to watch list" , got it from a VIDEO STORE selling a while ago, i think 2 years... Yeah, been a long time. I finally decided to watch it today. I had saw a trailer back in the day and tough it looked cool, thus why i purchased it.So let me start this review positively. The CGI is actually pretty good. I mean it does look like a video game in some point but in a way that the movie is constant and you never have this impression that it is out of place. Obviously if you enjoy the style or not, this is your own point of view, but i personally did enjoy it and i am not a fan of wired fu to say the least.That being said, sadly the movie fail on almost every other aspect for me. Sure the music was alright but all the rest, characters, story, all movie long i was wondering what was going on. The movie start very abrupt and show us our main heroes all chain and ready to be executed. But by some mean they manage to escape, think there stronger than the bad guy, but get there a** kicked. So they then need to find a way to get stronger in order to defeat the bad guy. That part is easy to understand but all the rest surrounding this is really hard to understand. I get that this is based on a comic book, and no i never read it, and i never saw the first movie either. Actually you can blame me on jumping on the sequel and then complaining about the story or you can blame the North American distributor for naming the movie The Storm Warriors instead of The Storm Riders 2. Yeah i figured out i was watching a sequel later when i checked IMDb. So yeah i did had a hard time connecting to those characters and the lore of the movie, and especially that whole plot point which end up being a major one about a stupid dragon spine that for some reason is super important for china to stand together. Spoiler ... the bone actually get split in half and never is mentioned again... wow, what an important plot point.I really had a hard time figuring who is who, maybe learning more about the lore would had help me, again if i knew before watching the movie, but so much character are there and you don't know too much about them. For example that Lord Wicked guy, he is supposed to be the strongest of them all, yet he cut his arms because he was evil? That plot point almost made no sense what so ever. And "Nameless" which is supposed to be such a legend, it seem the movie kinda tell us midway that he was poisoned and for that he does not have all his strength so thats why he can't defeat the bad guy. I just feel there is just too much characters with little development to really care about them. In a magic word like this, you want to know who is who and why he is so...As for the fights... well beside the special effects which i said where pretty good, there is not much fight choreography for the martial arts aficionado, a little here and there but its almost purely a special effect CGI fest. Honestly this movie somewhat remind me of Dragon Tiger Gate done wrong. That movie had a similar premise as young pupils training to beat an almost unbeatable enemy in a martial art set up that also involved super powers. The difference tough was you cared for the characters, the special powers added to the movie but there is still plenty of great martial arts. Obviously Donnie Yen... hard to wrong. But anyway that movie was much more entertaining than that Storm Warriors movie.This is the kind of movie i feel i will forget in T-minus 1 hour... yup already forgot.

a_karamys208 Recently seen this film on DVD and to tell you the truth this movie is superb in terms of visuals and martial arts choreography.But story wise,I find this a bit of a let down.Being no fan of the original comic books or the previous feature film(which happens to have the same lead actors),I kinda expect it to deliver more than what I have seen the trailers.Despite the film's bad script and simple execution,I still personally enjoyed watching this movie due to its unique visual feasts(yes, the spectacular fight scenes especially during the films climax) and over the top production which is similar or equivalent to Hollywood productions.Go and see it only if you are a martial arts and love fantasy cum action films!If you are the type who loves watching serious and good movies, I suggest you give this movie a miss.

Roberto Di Donato The sequel to Storm Riders, the Chinese comic-adapted movie that broke box office records in 1998, Storm Warriors defiantly delivers more 'Pang' for your buck this time around. Based on the comic 'Fung Wan' we see the return of pop idols Ekin Cheng & Aaron Kwok who are huge teen idols sensations in Asia, although they are now much older than when the first movie came out. But I guess their audience is too.From the opening scene...BANG... We get right into it; There are Fireballs, Flying swords and a lot of graceful martial arts for arts saké thrown in, and a few Sakés will go down well before watching the movie as it it full on and getting in the right mood with some mates will be best as this 100% action CGI OverLord of a movie is geared more towards a younger crowd.I found the BIG orchestra soundtrack was set to OverKill throughout the entire movie, but with an epic battle scene nearly every 5min, it's expected and a little full on, I needed to come up for some air but couldn't as a new fight scene was just around the corner.I particularly liked the Streetfighter-esq still shots placed mid battle that moved across the screen just like the video game.The plot had Elements of Chinese folk lore and a sexy cast like Chu Chu (Yan Tang), it's got it all. A little full on for myself, but the Nintendo generation (old & new) will love it.

Likes_Ninjas90 Directed by Oxide Pang Chun and his brother Danny Pang, The Storm Warriors (Fung Wan II) is a martial arts film set in ancient China. It is a period of kung fu experts and deadly warlords. The evil warrior Lord Godless (Simon Yam) has taken a number of people, including the Emperor of China, hostage. Godless plans to break into the Emperor's tomb and rule China himself. Initially he is forced to battle a martial arts expert called Nameless (Kenny Ho) but comes out victorious, declaring himself the new ruler of China. In order to stop him, two warriors named Cloud (Aaron Kwok) and Wind (Ekin Cheng), enlist the help of the warrior Lord Wicked, who will train them quickly for a showdown with Godless. Despite knowing he could be corrupted by evil martial arts, Wind is selected for the assignment over Cloud as he is more in control of his power.Having not seen its predecessor The Storm Riders (Fung wan: Hung ba tin ha), it is difficult to make any sense of this truly awful kung fu, special effects film. The only mildly redeeming quality about The Storm Warriors is its rather impressive visual effects. The martial arts experts in the film posses magic powers, allowing them to conduct bolts of lightning and turn droplets of water into massive balls of ice. Yet like many recent Western films, the Pang brothers have opted to over edited these fight scenes to the point where they lose any coherency and grandeur. The film also pales compared to much more visually intriguing and extravagant Asian films such as Hero and Oldboy. The computer generated backgrounds of the landscapes are a particularly painful sight. The fights are also so frequent in this film that they diminish anything that might have once resembled character, development or even just a plot. There is one particular battle that takes close to a quarter of the entire film. What remains of the story is so minimal and insignificant that some trailers would exhibit more narrative and depth. Wooden performances and amateurish expository dialogue further poison this film. However, the latter could be due to the poor translation of the subtitles from Cantonese to English. The dialogue might sound better in its native tongue. There is very little reason to see this film unless you are interested in mild visual effects, the appearance of a character that resembles Skeletor, or a credit sequence, complete with an Asian pop song, which would be more fitting in a James Bond picture.