ThiefHott Too much of everything

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Tim Kidner I loved this movie - it takes a good silent film to keep me glued to the screen, many Silents have huge amounts of frenetic studio-bound talking heads, but of course we have to wait for the titles to see what has just been said.Other reviewers have laid the premise of this one but as a Russian film lover and trying anything I come across (this DVD, just £3!!) and expecting propaganda and heavy symbolism, I had a tour de force of both Mongolian and Buddhist life, but far from being a National Geographic documentary, this had real passionate pizazz and incredible, often beautiful locations, with long-lost ancient rituals and occasions coming alive on the screen.I think it unfair to criticise and thus mark down a film because of the style and way it was made, at the time - this is 1928, the film stock and prints has degraded and the technical aspects made for slightly sped-up and jaunty action, whilst almost all the huge casts would have been local amateurs.However, what made it for me was the music - brilliantly (and I believe, the original choice overseen by the director just before his death, in the 50s) - the crisp stereo really prickling the senses and the variety - from strident symphonies to traditional music from the locations in the film, all perfectly matched to the action. So, when some of the strangest looking tube-like horns get blown by long bearded Mongolians, we get a strange sounding instrument, not an artificially contrived one. This might sound a minor point but for me, from the outset, it really put me in the mood and set me up for the duration.So - whilst many of the rather turgid Silent dramas are rather hard work and there's a sense of relief when they finally end, this was pure pleasure all the way through. Put to one side any preconceived notions about communist regimes and heavy Soviet symbolism and enjoy this much lighter and enjoyable classic. (It IS critically considered a Classic, actually and not just my say so or opinion)

chaos-rampant This is an unusual project, deeply polemic like all Soviet cinema of the period but with the entire 'tyrants and proles' puppet play relocated to the far eastern steppe; so standing in for the exploited but spirited with fight peoples are now the indigenous Mongols, but again trapped between antiquated, superstitious religion and a cruel ruling elite financed by unethical capitalism. Workers back in Moscow and Lenigrand were supposed to relate.Pudovkin is talented in making the equivalence, he intercuts the military aristocrats being pampered and groomed for an occasion with the Buddhist priests being helped in their ceremonial attire to receive them. The meeting of these two oppressors is marked with secret dances made to look chaotic, and Buddhist music made to sound intentionally grating and dissonant.The mockery continues inside the temple, with the all-knowing, wise high lama revealed to be only a child; he looks apprehensive as everyone accords him the utmost respect. The insidious comments are particularly egregious when viewed in context of what the Buddhist were about to suffer in the hands of the Chinese comrades and how much of that elaborate spiritual culture was trampled under the mass-suicide of Mao's agricultural reforms.Most of it flows by without much incident; vast dusty landscapes, petty human cruelties. Wars, and counterwars. The plot is eventually about a humble Mongol fur trapper being mistaken for the heir of Genghis Khan and groomed by the military to be the puppet ruler of a new nation.Pudovkin was never quite an Eisenstein or Dovzhenko; he could concentrate his films into a motion as pervasive as they did, but couldn't sustain for as long. So we get bumpy stretches across otherwise pleasant vistas.But then we have the ending, absolutely one of the finest pieces of silent cinema. It is a karmic hurricane of splintered image; motion that begins indoors with a fight is eventually transferred outside and escalates in a revolutionary apocalypse of stunning violence that scatters an entire army across the steppe like dead leaves. Trees, dust, crops, dirt - all rushing before the camera like Pudovkin's montage is so frenzied and powerful it threatens to rip apart the very fabric of the world.Watch the film just so you get to this part, then watch side by side with Kuleshov's By the Law for the haunting aftermath of the apocalypse that begins here, and Zemlya for how it's endured. The call is, as usual, for revolution, but we can use it now in all three films as a broader metaphor about the effort to release the energies of the soul, about a metaphysical breakthrough.Watch like you were having your soul trained for this breakthrough.

theskulI42 A confident and defiant film, Storm Over Asia succeeds as both a rabble-rousing bit of propaganda and an entertaining adventure film.The film depicts the simple Mongol herdsman and trappers calmly and pleasantly practicing their commerce, until one is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a CAPITALIST PIG (that's us, kids). He gets into a brawl with the dude, and is ousted from the co-op for doing so. In exile, he escapes to the hills and becomes a Soviet supporter, and helps them fight against the occupying British army. He is captured by the British (during a meeting with a baby that is apparently the reincarnated Grand Lama) and sent out to be shot. But after being sent out, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, so they rush out, save him (He fled and got shot in the belly), and install him as a sort of promotional puppet leader. But once he gains more prominence, he decided to turn against his CAPITALIST PIG bosses.The film is well-directed and well-put-together, with every scene having a rough polish befitting the Soviet defense. I considered mentioning that the CAPITALIST PIGS were a bit one-dimensional, but if honestly, they probably were quite a bit like this, especially from their perspective, and the most underpraised of the Soviet masters, Vsevelod Pudovkin, has a sure hand that keeps the film paced damn near to perfection, and I never lost interest for a moment, leading to a satisfying guns-blazing finale to which the film had been building throughout.Storm Over Asia provides yet another lament for the advent of sound, as so many films from the late 1920s exhibited a myriad of great directors perfecting the artform, before sound tore it all down, forcing them to start all over again, ensuring a film like Storm Over Asia would never be able to be made, the way it was so wonderfully made, ever again.{Grade: 8.5/10 (B+) / #4 (of 13) of 1928}

premortem Let me say this first: if you're willing to overlook the political message of the film and, instead, concentrate solely on its artistic qualities, you'll be more than satisfied. It has some of the most magnificent montage editing I've ever seen--quick and frenetic--and shows off the vast, open landscape quite well. There are a couple particularly memorable examples. At one point, a mountain rebel is on his deathbed; the film cuts between him dying and a sun low on the horizon, to touching effect. Later, a soldier executes an unarmed prisoner and feels some remorse as a shot of dirty, viscous mud is inserted, suggestive of the "muddy" morality here. And (spoiler) no audience could ever forget the climactic end of the film, with the protagonist going berserk and leading a small army against the government troops: wind blowing, knocking trees and soldiers over, while the rebels charge headlong. There are two storms in this last scene. A meteorological one, and a figurative, violent one. In short, Intelligent film-making with splendid cinematography and Soviet editing. (Even some canted frames, which I'd call innovative for such an early film.) Sure, the propaganda is conspicuous, but who cares? The techniques, the shots, are absolutely beautiful.