See ...

Dior Cheng's long, flowing hair!

See ...

Aaron Kwok's long, flowing hair!

See ...

Aaron Kwok brood, repeatedly!

See ...

Shu Chi's really long, flowing hair!

See ...

Special effects galore!

Despite the fact that I am making fun of it, I did enjoy The Storm Riders. Sure, there's not much plot, but it was quite
entertaining, on a completely superficial level.

The cast of characters: Sonny Chiba (yes, Sonny Chiba) plays Lord Conquer, the bad guy. He kills the parents of Wind (Dior
Cheng and his hair) and Cloud (Aaron Kwok and his hair) and raises the two boys as his disciples, training them into
bad-ass kung-fu dudes with long, flowing hair (the hair is very important). He has also raised Frost (played by Michael Tse
Tin-Wah, I think), who has much worse hair (not nearly as long or flowing as the other two). His bad hair is an obvious
indication that he is a sidekick, as no main character could possibly have hair like that.

The other important characters include Mad Buddha, a prophet who prophesies Conquer's rise and fall, as well as Jester,
Conquer's queenish servant. Conquer's lovely daughter Charity (with long, flowing hair. Hard to believe, huh?) is played by
Kristy Yeung. There are also two characters introduced later in the story, Hero Yu (played by ?) and his daughter Muse (Shu
Chi in cuteness overdrive mode). Shu Chi probably does the most acting in the film, although that really isn't saying much.
Fortunately the film doesn't demand too much acting (which is good because Dior Cheng can't really do too much acting
from what I've seen, although Aaron Kwok proved himself in Anna Magdalena).

The plot (what there is of it): Basically, Wind, Cloud, and Frost work for Conquer, who wants to conquer everything. Then
Wind and Cloud fight over Charity. Then eventually they unite and fight Conquer. Pretty straightforward.

This movie was touted for its special effects, and it sure does have a lot of them. They seem to primarily consist of computer
generated effects with blue and green screens. It does look good, although some of the effects in the fight scenes turned me
to thoughts of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat (the video games themselves, not the movies).

The Storm Riders is all about good campy Hong Kong style kung fu fun. It's certainly not much of an artistic achievement,
but it does a good job of challenging Hollywood on its sacred ground of special effects heavy action movies. Personally, I
preferred The Storm Riders to any Schwarzenneger explosion extravaganza. I would love to see it on screen, because I don't
think my TV did the effects justice. This may not ever happen, because apparently Miramax is considering buying the
American rights to the film (or already has bought them). Miramax owns quite a number of Hong Kong films which it has yet
to release in the theatres. And if they did, it would probably be dubbed (ugh!).