The Purifiers
New Line Home Entertainment
Cast: Kevin McKidd, Gordon Alexander, Dominic Monaghan, Amber Sainsbury
Extras: Director Commentary, Trailers
Rating:
Fed up with their government's lack of control over escalating crime and violence, a group of individuals, made up of both men and women, who are highly skilled in Tae Kwon Do, take it upon themselves to restore the safety of their city's streets, in the action film "The Purifiers." Set in modern-day Britain, the group find themselves at odds with fellow street clubs as a corrupt businessman named Moses (Kevin McKidd) attempts to persuade the clubs to join his alliance. Deciding to go it alone, the Purifiers battle their share of hostility that the other clubs now feel towards them for backing out of the alliance, making for some rather incredible fight scenes.
I thoroughly enjoyed the stylistic cinematography of the well choreographed fight sequences that made up an overall great viewing experience.
New Line Home Entertainment presents "The Purifiers" in a truly amazing anamorphic transfer, displaying an aspect ratio of 2.35:1. You really could not ask for better balanced black levels, always rich and deep in appearance, which was more than adequate for the abundance of night scenes. Color saturation was also well rendered, helping to display natural looking flesh tones. I really had a hard time trying to discover any flaws produced in this transfer, as there were no visible signs of compression artifacts. New Line did a spectacular job with this overall presentation.
There are three soundtrack options available on this DVD, you may choose from; dts, Dolby Digital or a stereo surround track. I went with the dts option and I was treated to a great sonic performance that reproduced every slap, kick and punch that was present within the film's martial arts fight sequences. There was good use of all available channels and the low frequency channel also gets itself well noticed from the soundtracks smooth, deep bass. Voices were reproduced as to provide natural sounding dialogue, which adds to the great presentation offered by this soundtrack.
There was not much in the way of extras offered on this DVD edition, which was a bit of a let down. I would have enjoyed the inclusion of any behind-the-scenes footage or "making of" type of documentary. The DVD does manage to offer up a good feature-length audio commentary, from director Richard Jobsen, as well as trailers for this, and other New Line presentations.
