"Storm Over Asia" is a well made film. As other reviewers have pointed out, the film expertly uses film editing to make a very modern style film for 1928. It is really artistic and worth seeing--though there are also some serious lulls in the film that could have been tightened up a bit. However, that being said, the film is very obvious propaganda by the new Soviet government--and it sure isn't subtle about it.

A Mongol goes to town to sell a very valuable silver fox skin to the evil capitalists. Naturally, being evil (and fat) capitalists, they cheat the simple Mongolian man BUT they have a surprise--he won't just stand there and accept this maltreatment. He attacks the bad white men and flees to the hills--and eventually becomes a member of the communist partisans in the Russian Revolution. At this point, the film seems to drop this plot and A LOT of footage of Mongolian Buddhists is shown--including their costumes, dances and the like. At first, it seems like a nice bit of footage about these people but eventually you realize that the film is meant to mock Buddhist beliefs about the reincarnated Lama. Then, the communist forces attack--trying to kill off the evil forces of counter-revolution and international capitalism. Well what about our Mongolian hero? Where does he come into all this? See the film and find out for yourself--and you'll probably be quite surprised where the film goes next.

From an artistic point of view, the film is pretty good. The ending is also quite rousing. But as propaganda, it's very heavy-handed and not nearly as convincing or realistic as the much more famous film, "Potemkin" (also called "Battleship Potemkin"). I do understand that the new Soviet government was attempting to legitimize itself and drum up support by this film, but it just seemed to take the wrong approach as it lacked subtlety. As another reviewer pointed out, the villains in this film are just caricatures.

By the way, IMDb lists the film at 82 minutes. The DVD I watched clocks in at 125 minutes!! Is IMDb wrong or are there multiple versions and I just saw a longer one?

This Russian silent film from I found in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I didn't know anything about the plot or what it would involve, but I was hoping it would worthy of its place in the book. Basically it is set in 1918, where Bair, the young and simple Mongol Huntsman, herdsman and trapper (Valéry Inkijinoff) is cheated out a valuable fox fur that he tries to sell to unscrupulous European capitalist fur trader Henry Hughes (Viktor Tsoppi). Bair gets into a brawl with the trader after cheating him, this brawl becomes much bigger with more people involved and he is ostracised from the trading post, so he is forced into escaping to the hills. By the year 1920, Bair becomes a Soviet partisan, and he becomes involved in the fight for the Soviets against the British army who are occupying the country. But Bair ends up captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as The British Commandant, commander of the occupation forces (I. Dedintsev) meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama (F. Ivanov). Bair is shot, the British army discover an amulet in his possession, examining it is suggested that he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan, founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire. They find Bair still alive, and restore him to health and plan to use him, with his discovered heritage, as the head of a puppet regime, he is therefore thrust into prominence and placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end of the film however Bair as the puppet turns against his masters, who placed him in his position, in an outburst of fury, and a Mongol army is raised to clash against the British army, it ends at the point the two sides would strike each other. Also starring I. Inkizhinov as Bair's Father and Aleksandr Chistyakov as The Russian Rebel Leader - Commander of a partisan detachment. This film is very inaccurate according to history, the British army never occupied Mongolia, but the story of a simple fur trapper shunned away and then becoming like royalty is interesting, there are some great montage sequences with terrific editing, the costumes and detail of location are well done, and it is sweeping and action filled in some moments, I'm not sure I fully agree with five stars out of five by the critics, but it is a worthwhile classic silent drama film. Very good!

Contrary to what the English guy says (hey, the Brits are the bad guys in this movie, whaddaya expect),this is to my mind the most impressive work of Soviet silent cinema-- an epic with several dazzling sequences of rat-a-tat-tat editing that invite comparison with Gance's Napoleon, as well as a deliberate build to an explosive climax that, in its willingness to delay gratification until almost the breaking point, has the operatic grandeur of something like The Godfather. Highly recommended (in fact, highly recommended before you see less accessible works such as October or Potemkin).