Priest

Priest
2011 | Scott Stewart

Priest is live action film based on Korean comic 프리스트 (Priest). The story focuses on a Warrior Priest in a world (supposedly future or alternate world) after the last war between human and vampire. The Warrior Priests are under the direct command of the church, when the war was over they were all dismissed from their duty and scattered. Humans are living inside city wall under the protection and law of the church as their commandment states clearly “To go against the church is to go against God”.

The new breed of vampire is populating quietly outside the wall of the city and kidnaps the Priest’s niece. The church denies the existing of vampire as they believe every vampire was eradicated in the last war and forbid the Priest to leave the city and pursue the kidnapper. So the Priest breaks his vow and goes hunting the vampires on his own.

The film is not just bad. It’s so bad, really, really bad. The comic might be good, I never read it though. I just do not know why they picked this part to make a movie. There is too much background information on the characters for a supposed-to-be “action” film. People are not that stupid, they don’t need to hear or see every detail a character has been through. The best action sequence is what we saw in its trailer which the Priest throws some kind of bladed crosses across the scene. And when it comes to the big boss, he just uses his bare-hands fighting each other with martial art. I was like… WTF.

The film also reveals the final boss “The Queen” who has created all these weird Gollum-like creatures with no eye. She is like the Mother Monstrous Alien who is supposed to be in the sequel… Yea, right… If they had a chance to make another one. Is this considerably a cult film?