The Purifiers [Import]

What happens when you rip-off the plot of the Warriors and combine it with a future world and cruddy kung-fu action scenes? You get the Purifiers; an even more cruddy allegory about a street gang who performs good moral services that becomes the target of every other street gang under the order of Moses (Kevin McKidd of Trainspotting and HBO's Rome) who is basically this movie's version of Cyrus from the Warriors, only he doesn't die in the beginning. Moses has his sights set on Purifiers leader John (Gordon Alexander, who also did the fight choreography) since the both of them have a past together, or something like that. The saddest part of the Purifiers is that it seemed like there was an actual interesting (somewhat) story to tell here, but it all gets lost in the mix of annoying quick-cut editing, terrible acting, atrocious dialogue, and lame slow motion fight sequences that we've seen thousands of times before, and done much better as well. If the film has one thing going for it, it's that it's a low budget movie, yet it doesn't always look that way. That aside, there's nothing else redeeming about the Purifiers one bit. Lord of the Rings and Lost star Dominic Monaghan appears on the cover of the DVD, and he's in it as well, but he's not the main attraction here (and appears to sleepwalk throughout much of the running time), so even his fans will be disappointed.

Ok, You tend to get films where you watch them and you get so in to the movie that you dont realise where the time went...how I wish this was one of those films. This is one of those absolutely terrible films where you wish you could reclaim the last 2 hours of your life so that you could waste it on something much more productive like watching paint dry.

First of all the script is so predictable that all of us managed to guess what the actors were going to say before they said it. The script is about as complex and thrilling as spitting chewing gum out in the street.

Ok, now that we have established that the film is terrible and the script is a complete waste of paper and ink I shall move on to the fight scenes.

Considering that this film uses martial artist with absolutely amazing abilities Ashley Beck, Shane Steyn, Chris Jones and Silvio Symac to name a few, it just really lets you down when the fight scenes do not involve these skills to be shown. Instead the fight scenes are totally unbelievable with a chubby biker chick in a white pvc outfit back handing a man and woman about a field. If you are lucky enough to be treated to a nice bit of kicking the director decides not keep the shot wide enough or at the right angle so that you may view the grace of the martial artists.

As one fellow reviewer stated this is a B-movie, however I believe that even B-movies would be ashamed of this film. The budget to this film makes Xena Warrior Princess look like it had the budget of Lord of the Rings.

This film fails where Kickboxer 4 somehow managed to get a few things right. If the director and editor were not laughed out of this business then it proves the World is not fair.

There are two reasons why you should buy this film :-

1. You wish to laugh yourself to death with the bad acting.

2. You wish to use the DVD as a shiny mug stopper when you realise you just wasted your money.

Overall I would give this film 0 out 5 however I have to select 1. My opinion... dont waste your life and paint that wall that your parents want doing.

If you listen to the director in the comments section, he says right off the top that this is a low budget B grade movie. Lots of cheap fixes for special effects, home computer CGI.. etc. etc... The plot leave a bit to be desired, its true! But what this movie does have is lots of experimental martial arts moves (without all the wire work!!) Just like Reboot the kids cartoon did so much for animation, I think movies like this will push forward the types of martial arts we see in the big productions... Just my humble opinion. Worth watching once :)