First off, don’t watch this. It’s terrible and you’d only be wasting your money. That said, I expected it before I went in and still dragged my wife into the cinema with me. This is because the original film The Storm Riders from 1998 is a huge guilty pleasure for me. This old review from LoveHKFilm.com (who still haven’t posted their review of the sequel yet!) put it best by calling it the Hong Kong version of Star Wars. As the reviewer Kozo noted, the original film, for all its cheap CGI effects, poor acting and hackneyed plot, successfully transported the viewer into a fantasy version of a mythical China that never actually existed but is clearly drawn from and inspired by Chinese themes and legends.

For my part, I immediately recognized The Storm Riders when I first watched it as the Chinese analogue of the many Western fantasy worlds I knew so much, Tolkien’s Middle Earth being the most iconic example. Of course, it wasn’t the only Chinese fantasy world. The version of China that Louis Cha’s novels are set in is unarguably more famous and celebrated, but it didn’t really feel fantastical enough for me. Come on, The Storm Riders even has a freaking dragon in it! Considering The Journey to the West as being fantasy is a bit unfair too. It would be like calling The Bible a fantasy novel.

What I liked most about the setting was that it showed us a bit of the world but left heavy hints that all this was only part of a larger mythos. The world felt huge and filled with colourful characters with their own stories to tell. Director Andrew Lau astutely portrayed the lot of ordinary folk including poor villagers and peasants in the film, framing the feats of the superpowered martial artists within a realistic context and nicely suspending our disbelief to create the illusion of a living and breathing world. Even the various martial arts powers felt distinctive to each character and while none of the actors were real martial artists, the clever use of CGI nicely complemented their moves and made them look cool.

Flash forward ten years later and the sequel is a flop on every conceivable level. The famed Pang brothers bring no visible talent and even the half-hearted copying of the techniques from 300 and Sin City feels more like an attempt to save money than to achieve a stylistic effect. In fact, the whole thing looks like it was shot on a shoestring budget. There are no epic camera pans. Barely half a dozen extras in cheap looking outfits stand in for what should be vast armies. Remember those powerful, heavily muscled warhorses that the Persian emissaries arrive on in 300? Well, in The Storm Warriors, the horses look like they might snap one of their spindly legs if a Spartan so much as leaned on them.

I suppose this can be put down to the present day sad state of the Hong Kong film industry. If a high-profile property like this can’t muster a decent budget, what can? Yet at the same time, films shot and produced in mainland China don’t seem to have any problems raising cash. Red Cliff may have been over-produced commercial fare masquerading as a serious historical epic, but damn if it didn’t look good. They probably spent more money on just fine clothing in Red Cliff than the entire production budget of The Storm Warriors.

Don’t even get me started on the plot. The story in The Storm Riders was copy-pasted from your basic heroic journey template but at least it had a story that went somewhere. The story in the sequel is just a pathetic excuse to have lots of fight scenes, none of which are any good. I was actually bored as the climactic showdown between Cloud and Wind dragged on and on and on. Contrast this to the original in which every fight had a point and each had a distinctive look that made them iconic. Remember how cool Wind looked when he used that whirlwind move to bury that Shaolin monk into the ground? Or how casually Cloud used his shifting cloud palms to force everyone back and abduct Charity? In this film, the characters all sort of wave their swords in the air and the CGI does all the fighting.

Then there’s the acting. Let’s face it, Simon Yam is never going to have the gravitas of Sonny Chiba but at least he tries. My wife says that Nicholas Tse is more menacing but he looks too effeminate for me. Tang Yan is a poor substitute with none of the winsome charm that Shu Qi brought to the small role. Aaron Kwok may have matured as an actor since  the original film but since his only job in The Storm Warriors is to brood and to sit in the exact same pose as he did on the rooftop in the first film, he doesn’t really get to show those skills off. And is there any reason for Charlene Choi to be here other than simply being able to advertise the film with her name on it?

Ekin Cheng is by far the worst of the lot. Kozo called out his performance in the first film as being inadequate, especially when compared to Kwok. Well, if anything, his performance in the sequel is even worse. It’s so painfully awful that I wonder how Kwok can resist the temptation to say, “Dude, you suck!” every time they have a scene together. But the directors still gave the lines that should have the most emotional resonance of the whole film to him anyway. Are they even trying?

To be fair to the Pang brothers, even Andrew Lau who directed the original has a hit and miss record. He made A Man called Hero, another film based on a Ma Wing Sing comic only a year after the release of The Storm Riders but couldn’t rekindle the magic. Then he went and made the stunningly good Infernal Affairs in 2002, thereby forever cementing his place as a legendary director in Hong Kong cinema.

This still doesn’t excuse everyone involved in this production for simply phoning in a terrible job, not to mention ending a bad film on a stupid cliffhanger. I can’t really see anyone investing any more money in this property after this wretched mess, which is a real pity as I think the character, themes and stories have a lot of commercial potential. Heck, I even went to interview for a job with Phoenix Game Studios when they were making a MMORPG based on the license. But the game is dead now as well, leaving me to wonder why Hollywood can revive a 25 year old cartoon and turn it into a multi-billion empire but Chinese creative types just can’t manage their intellectual property well.