BOB SHARE

Storm Shadow Style

Funny how a movie can really change your life.

I used to be a huge Duke fan, but after GI Joe: Rise of Cobra, Im now a Storm Shadow junkie! Well, at least as far as movie Joes go. And its entirely because of this guy:



Its Korean drama serial "Auntie Killer" Lee Byung-Hun! Why the nickname? Because the housewives here in Asia loooove him. And because we call housewives, especially the old ones, aunties. (Not you, Wanz! :P) Yes, go ahead and YouTube him. 1630 hits, people. Thats how big the guy is in Asia, and perhaps now the rest of the world, because of the movie and his toy!

Enter Paris Pursuit Storm Shadow, who bears a pretty good likeness to the actor.

Now I have to say that one the whole, the majority of the movie 3.75" range of movie Joes have great face sculpts that resemble the actors playing them. General Hawk, Ripcord, Zartan, and Duke (Marine uniform) come to mind. And you have to give Hasbro credit for at least trying.

What they did do really well, though, was the articulation on the figures. Storm Shadow here has 22 points of bendy parts.

He has a ball-jointed head and chest, pin-swivel shoulders and elbows, swivel wrists. legs are ball-jointed, with double-joint knees and swivel and ratchet ankles. His lower half articulation is excellent, with perhaps the end of his pants getting in the way of him pivoting his feet, but that really is a minor problem.

His upper half, though, is slightly more problematic. But only slightly. First off, his head cant rotate as far to the right as it can the left because of the slightly lopsided collar. Second, his vest doesnt allow his arms to come together in front of him. They do rotate all the way back but lack of frontal flexibility means he cant properly wield his katana two-handed. And he definitely cant hold the huge ass cannon that come with him on his shoulder with 2 hands. Speaking of which, PP Stormie comes with a variety of good stuff!

Two swords, two sai, a pistol, a stand and a big friggin cannon/bazooka. He also comes with a double sword scabbard, and a suction cup-like thing that has handles on it. And whats a GI Joe figure is it doesnt come with good stuff? Thats right, toys that come with toys for the toys are the best. ;P

Just look at how much you can arm him with!





































And check out the nifty places he can store his arsenal:

But defeinitely no place for the BFG, which I might add, only Stormie gets to fire in the movie to take out the Eiffel tower. It wouldve been a super cool accesory if only Paris Pursuit Storm Shadow came with it, and not every figure in the movie line. I dunno, maybe Hasbro wanted to keep those of us who havent seen the movie from guessing who actually gets to fire it. Or maybe they thought every kid in the world would wanna have a BFG after seeing what it can do. Hmm. But too bad Stormie here cant have two hands on it while hes holding the weapon.

Hey but check out the suction cup thingamajig, though. Its deinitely going to come in handy in a glass display cabinet. Finally, all the 3.75" figure height troubles in tall shelf space solved! Itll also make for a nice wall-climbing battle scene.

OK lets rate him!

Character accuracy: 9.5/10 - Great likeness, jumpsuit is nicely detailed and collar molded to look like the way LBH wears it in the movie.

Aesthetics: 9.6/10 - Gotta love the detail they put into this guy. The creases in his jacket and pants, his hair molded just like Stormie in the movie, his light smirk, and his eyes. When painted well, they look like hes actually looking at you. ;) But I have seen some where his eyes are painted too high and he looks like hes perpetually rolling them. Mines painted slightly high, and looks like hes always looking up when his heads turned to the side--his collar gets in the way left and right. Also, Ive seen some with worse painted hair than my Storm Shadow. Or you can just touch him up with a little paint if youre not fussy. :)

Sneakers!








Poseability: 9.7 - I really wanna give him a 10 here just for the double jointed knees--you can do so much with them!


But he loses points for the head and also for the vest getting in the way of his arms and hands coming closer in front of his chest.
























And just for fun, heres Storm Shadow executing a side-kick (At least I hope thats what it is):

Overall: 9.6 - They couldve gotten away with doing Storm Shadow with just his ninja mask on and thats it, but they didnt. They gave him a face, and a good one at that. And theyre not stopping there. The next wave will see a bare-chested Storm Shadow with cuts all over ala the final battle with Snakeyes in the movie, and therell be masked and unmasked versions. Ill probably get them both! Woohoo!

Hasbro have done a good job with this line, if Storm Shadow is anything to go by. Now I cant wait to crack open Snake Eyes, General Hawk, Pit Commando, and Accelerator Suit Ripcord, the latter 3 of which I got over the weekend. :) Yo Joe!

download
alternative link download