Review of Stormriders, The

Introduction

This review is of the Director`s Cut disc and does contain spoilers so you`ve been warned!

Sonny Chiba plays Conquer, the warlord leader of the Conquerer Clan and is hell bent on global domination. However, a prophecy has foretold Conquer of his defeat in the form of two men going by the name of Wind and Cloud. When Wind and Cloud combine forces, they can defeat Conquer. Conquer seeks out Wind and Cloud while they`re young and orphans them, then takes them under his wing as his pupils. He won`t allow anything to stand in his way.

Ten years pass and the boys have grown, and so has Conquer`s daughter, Charity, and she forms part of a love triangle with Wind and Cloud. The story continues with a wedding to take place but things start to go awry while Wind and Cloud learn of Conquer`s maniacal plans and how their parents were killed. Time for revenge.

Video

This refers to the Director`s Cut. Unfortunately Stormriders doesn`t come with an anamorphic transfer. What this DVD has is a 2.35:1 letterbox transfer only and while this would normally mean a drop in the resolution, The Stormriders transfer quality is of a very high standard, and better than any letterbox DVD I`ve come across so far. This is very comparable to the Region 0 Chinese DVD, the only downside are the jaggies that you see on diagonal lines when you zoom the picture up.

The one thing which stands out in this movie are the visuals. The Stormriders oozes style and this wonderful look creates the impression of pure fantasy. There`s no mistaking how cool it appears together with a blend of subtle and not so subtle CGI. It looks amazing!

Audio

The sound for Stormriders is very impressive. We get quite a dynamic 5.1 DD track with a very wide soundstage showering you with sound. It sounds very forceful and rich and works very well with the film. I thought that Sonny Chiba sounded a bit like Jabba the Hut with his very low voice! A lot has been made of localised sound, where you hear certain effects in certain speakers follow the action on the screen.

Features

Only the disc with the Director`s Cut contains the extra features. We`re presented with a really nice animated menu with thumping music which leads us nicely to the Special Features menu. Here we get Theatrical Trailers, Making of "The Stormriders", Special Effects Featurette, Character Profiles, Cast & Filmmaker Bios and Production Stills Gallery.

There are 3 trailers: Cantonese, Mandarin, and International. All pretty much the same except the International trailer looks like a proper trailer. It doesn`t give too much away and just teases you into the movie. The Making of "The Stormriders" is quite interesting. It`s a 22min featurette which goes into some detail about the production and as someone who loves the technical side of filmmaking, I thought this was pretty good. Then there`s the 20min Special Effects Featurette. These are both subtitled.

Character Profiles gives you the lowdown on the characters within the story. Cast & Filmmaker Bios is as you might guess, pages of text for the main cast and crew. The Production Stills Gallery is nothing more than screen grabs and some extra composited shots. Nothing too note worthy.

Conclusion

It`s an interesting story based on the original comic book by Ma Wing-Shing There`s lots of great swordplay and action woven into the storytelling, however the slow pacing of the film to start with isn`t impressive. Couple this with some poor subtitling and you might find yourself a little confused.

We get a very superficial impression of Wind and Cloud`s role in the story, and before you know what`s happened, ten years have passed and we see them as adults. There`s lots of talk of their martial art skill, something which all sounds good, but we don`t see a lot of it, and we have to accept Wind and Cloud as these fantastic warriors. It would have helped to see them train, to give an impression of just how special they are, and to see them grow into adults.

Despite the pace of the film and the holes in the story, it looks impressive, and the casting is no less so. Kristy Yeung as Charity is spot on as is Sonny Chiba playing the warlord and Ekin Cheng with Aaron Kwok playing Wind and Cloud.

The DVD cover proclaims that The Stormriders took $42m at the box office compared to Crouching Tiger`s $15m. I don`t think making comparisons here work since I think both films are quite different from each other. I really like Crouching Tiger as a period martial arts film because its story simply works easier than Stormriders does. There`s no denying that Stormriders has some amazing visual effects that are well suited to the story being told, the style and execution of which are superb. There are a number of cool set pieces too, but it seems as though the underlying story has problems linking it all together. I can take a blind leap of faith with any movie (afterall, most action movies require some disbelief), but I found this film to be tough going.

I know The Stormriders is fantasy and I don`t have a problem with surrealism, but the slow pacing of the film bored me and it took more than one sitting to get through the Director`s Cut. I think better editing would help improve things.

I appreciate that characters have the space to breathe and develop, but there are things in the story that you learn of and never see. For example, if Wind, Cloud and Conquer are meant to be top martial artists, do we simply accept that ten years passed and we see nothing of their training? What about the relationship between the teacher and pupil? How dastardly is Conquer anyway? We never get a reason why we should care about what happens.

I was as keen as most to buy this as a region 2 DVD, the hype certainly delivering promise, but I`m glad that I refrained. I`d only recommend this to those of you that like Hong Kong fantasy movies and consider yourselves to be hardcore fans. For the rest of us who love good movies, I find it hard to recommend as I feel The Stormriders lacks a coherent story and has problems with pacing. A quick note about the International Version on the second disc. The video transfer is 4:3 pan and scan, the video quality is quite poor, the sound is good but the dubbing is quite laughable. All features are on the Director`s Cut disc.

This version of the film is as good as it`s likely to get, so if you`re still keen to get it, get hold of the region 2 DVD. Otherwise rent before taking the plunge to buy it.