Brooke Burgess, the creator of Broken Saints, was a video game producer with Electronic Arts who became disenchanted with the video game industry. Disturbed by the lack of emphasis on games with an adequate story, Burgess left this largest-third party computer and video game publisher in order to travel and ponder the innovations he could make.  

Burgess envisioned the “cinematic novel” which would merge the world of comic books with Japanese animation, musical score, text, and expert direction with the audio, video, animation and Internet streaming capabilities of Adobe’s Flash program. Broken Saints is the end result. It's a 24-part series of vignettes launched on the Internet in 2001 and now available in a new 12-hour, four-disc DVD set. What follows are snippets from this DVD offering. 

When teenager Shandala Nisinu knelt before a candle in prayer, she suddenly felt as if something had entered her head. Her vision started to blur, and as the candle flickered, she saw a disturbing vision followed by a loud noise and the momentary flash of a giant red-eye. Shandala immediately lapsed into a coma.

Chief Tiu Nisinu, fearing that he would never hear Shandala’s voice again or see her dance on the sands of Lomalogi, became gravely concerned at the thought of losing his daughter. He and his wife embraced Shandala as their daughter in 1982 when villagers awoke to a screaming baby who had washed up on the shore.

When Shandala emerges from her coma, Chief Nisinu faces  an even greater problem. An outsider, Gabriel Dunn, claims to know the truth about Shandala, and this could upset their bond. Dunn wishes to continue his father’s work as a captain aboard a ship. Dunn’s father worked for an elite couple who had set out to sail around the world. They took their only child, who was only a year old at the time, with them. A violent storm raged on the Koro sea and the family lost their daughter. Dunn says his father spent the last 15 years leading up to his death holding onto a glimmer of hope that she might still be out there somewhere. 

Dunn instructed Chief Nisinu’s son to deliver a photograph to his father. When the Captain claimed to know Shandala’s real story, the chief told him material records, papers, and birth certificates meant nothing to him or anyone else. Dunn must walk the path of fire in silence to prove his words are true. If he succeeds, he can ask Shandala to return to the Western world with him. If he fails, he must leave and never return. If he runs or reacts in fear, he will die.

In another setting, Raimi Matthews is shown as adept at creating, implementing, cracking, and hacking through encrypted code. Although working hard on an assignment for his employers at Biocom, a company manufacturing prescription drugs and communications devices, Matthews was removed without cause from his mission. When he hacks into Biocom’s computer system, the computer malfunctions. The monitor displays the words “I See You” in bold green letters. Matthews is unable to log off of Biocom’s systems and begins pulling the computer’s various plugs. A power surge knocks out all the power. The monitors then flash a red-eye as Matthews drifts into unconsciousness.

Viewers also meet Oran Bajir and Kamimura. Bajir is an armed and cowardly terrorist who hides in an underground lair trying to defend it on his own; Kamimura, a Shinto priest who used to study Buddhism, had been given an important task that he screwed up, which led to him being thrown out of his sect. He must search for a hidden container while his former sanctum is engulfed by flames.

Each of the four main characters in Broken Saints has experienced an apocalyptic vision which ends with a loud noise followed by the flash of what appears to be a giant red-eye that blinks and renders them temporarily comatose. Frightened by what they saw, the four find themselves drawn to the same city where they discover that their individual fates and that of the world are connected as part of a global conspiracy. The four must make tremendous sacrifices to unearth the truth and save the world.

Burgess’s indecipherable script and heavy-handed direction will probably leave most viewers lost once his characters and their problems have been introduced into the story. Burgess doesn't seem to know where the series or its characters are going, which may be the result of crafting and shooting the series over a three-year period.

Aside from mind-blowing animation by Andrew West, the only reason to watch Broken Saints is if your passion involves collecting Japanese anime or films inspired by it.

(Released by 20th Century Fox Home Video; not rated by MPAA.)