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.

williamcauble I expected an epic tale of some kungfu heroes versus the tyrannical Japanese Imperial conquerors, in the modus of "Ip Man" but what I got was a CGI nightmare. Seriously I watched for 27 minutes just hoping that the special effects would stop long enough for some real kungfu fighting. It was so disappointing. Even the special effects were so wild and out of it. The director tried to piece together CGI with pseudo-anime style scenes, stitched together with a real boring plot line. I do not dislike CGI; don't get me wrong. I liked Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon although the bamboo forest flight scenes were a little corny, LOVE Kung Fu Hustle, with the guys who shoot darts off of their Chinese zithers and the lady with her Dyna-yell, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera; but this movie is a STINKER.

DICK STEEL It has been a long wait, but better late than never. When the first Storm Rider film was released I remembered it caused a stir, for its relatively seamless combination of special effects and martial arts, and for its departure from the established mythos by creator Ma Wing-Shing. Then there is the casting, with popular idols Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng in the leading roles, overshadowed by the magnificently charismatic Sonny Chiba! That was some 11 years ago, and given its box office success, a sequel was thought to be expected and imminent, with big name stars like Andy Lau even thrown into the hat at one time as Nameless, but alas the project got stuck in development hell.It was during an interview session for movieXclusive.com that my friends and I had the opportunity to meet up with Ekin Cheng, and toward the end of the interview he had revealed to us quite candidly that the next Feng Yun film would be made soon, which was why he's keeping his locks after a bald turn in the television serial Huo Yuanjia. We thought he was kidding, or we had heard it wrong, but here we are now, with the Pang Brothers taking over the helm from Andrew Lau, and no, there's no Andy Lau, but long-time-no-see Kenny Ho taking over the role of a pugilist master.While the Pang Brothers are famous for their horror-suspense-thrillers, they had brought with them those sensibilities honed over the years and tweaked them for this sequel. Gone are colours from the first film, and in comes grittier shades, complete with plenty of metallic clang courtesy of heavy armors, and cloudy shadows possessing powers of sword energy. The story here is pretty straight- forward and had dove straight into the thick of things, with the first film having established the background of the key duo already, and here we see a more mature take probably taking place years where the earlier film had left off.To get there though, we have to read a lengthy prologue, where Lord Godless (Simon Yam) and son (Nicholas Tse) had invaded China and are seeking the fabled Dragon Spinal Cord (or at least it looked like one to me). They magically managed to capture most of China's top pugilists including Nameless and Cloud, and basically presented a scene to demonstrate just how badass the Godless father and son team can be, which translates to an opportunity to showcase how advanced the special effects have evolved in the Chinese martial arts arena.Danny and Oxide Pang managed to retain signature key elements from the first film, such as the CG generated, fantastical backdrops in which our heroes do battle in, and little things like the animated opening credits scene. The fights though was a mixed bag, some brilliantly executed though falling for the slow-motion fad, while others succumbed to too quick a cut and too close an angle to make out what's going on between the sparring partners. Those familiar with the mythos would welcome both Aaron Kwok and Ekin Cheng back into their roles of Cloud and Wind respectively, and frankly I couldn't fathom how anyone else could have stepped into these roles. Simon Yam as Lord Godless unfortunately didn't bring to the table the kind of charisma that Sonny Chiba had, and struggled to fill those shoes, made worst by a very poor characterisation of what's ultimately a weak villain, though one would expect that the combination of Wind and Cloud would render all their enemies powerless against their sheer combined destructive force.The story here took a chunk out of the fact that Wind turned evil at one point, and thus that actually became the crux of the story, although I felt this was more of a Cloud story than a Wind one because the scenes in which one had over the other, was rather obvious, with screen time significantly devoted to training montages, and rescue missions, versus Wind turning into an incredible hulk through an immersion in evil waters (yes, seriously, he just stepped into a wading pool, and voila!)So story aside, watch this for some of the mind-boggling action sequences between Wind and Cloud which the trailers had included, and had almost the last 30 minutes solely focusing on some massive action sequences that didn't seem to want to end. One of my favourites was the Battle of the Minds sequence, where no self-respecting martial arts film can find itself shying away from using tonnes of water, though Storm Warriors had a legitimate reason to (with rain the aftermath of a wind-cloud combination). If there's a fight scene that stood out, this was it, other than Nameless Vs Lord Godless which left you wanting for more right from the start.Alas this film is but half a movie, ending with a literal cliffhanger. But if all bodes well, we should see the next Feng Yun film hit the screens sooner than the 11 year wait that we have been subjected to. It's true about the limited dialogue here (some of which were quite hilariously nonsensical, such as the naming of sword strokes), but hey, one comes with the expectation of a flashy, style over substance sequel, and it duly delivered.