"The Storm Warriors" Movie Review

Director: Danny Pang and Oxide Pang
Cast: Aaron Kwok, Ekin Cheng, Kenny Ho, Nicholas Tse, Charlene Choi, Simon Yam, Lam Suet, Tang Yan, Patrick Tam

Firstly, I have to apologise as it has been quite a while since I last wrote a movie review. You see, I have this condition called "laziness" and the doctors told me that there is no cure for it. Yes, it's that serious. But anyway, let's begin with the movie review, shall we?

"The Storm Warriors" is the highly anticipated sequel to the 1998 Hong Kong film "The Storm Riders". So, is the sequel worth the wait? I don't think so. That's what most of my friends told me but that didn't stop me from watching this movie. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the comic book series but boy, was I really disappointed.

Just like to previous installment, "The Storm Warriors" is adapted from the "Fung Wan" aka Wind & Cloud comic book series created by Ma Wing-Shing and focuses on two of the most popular story arcs - 'Japanese Invasion' and 'Death Battle'.

The main problem here is that the film makers attempt to adapt the two story arcs which spans approximately 45 volumes of comic books and condense them into a single movie. As a result of this, the characters are under-developed and some of the plots are left unexplained.

Being made 11 years after "The Storm Riders", the visual effects of the sequel is much superior, as expected. But it appears that the film makers have put too much effort into creating the film's stylized look. In every fight sequence, slow motion is employed almost every few seconds as if to tell the audience "See how cool this looks!". How ridiculous.

As a sequel, "The Storm Warriors" arrives too late and delivers too little. Watch this movie only if you're a die-hard fan of the comic books.

Score: 5/10