“Anointed Fighters” Movie
A Fun DVD for Your Youth Group
Wanderlust Productions (#WPFilm), the Christian production company behind the popular Christian documentaries Finger of God, Furious Love, Father of Lights, and the upcoming Holy Ghost (which will feature interviews from Michael W. Smith, Lenny Kravitz, R.T. Kendall, Brian Welch from Korn, and the creator of Veggie Tales, to name a few) produced something that most people would have never expected them to do: an animated series for Christian youth. And it’s not your average Christian cartoon either: it combines the fun ethos of superhero and martial arts themes to teach Biblical truths about spiritual warfare and other topics often overlooked, like bullying. According to the film’s site:
“Anointed Fighters is a new cartoon series that combines a sharp sense of humor with deep spiritual truths. Adapted from a concept by Danny White, filmmaker Darren Wilson and his team at Wanderlust Productions have set out to create a series for kids that goes deeper than your average cartoon. Bringing a kingdom perspective to areas like spiritual warfare, bullying, broken homes, abandonment, and much more; this is obviously not your typical cartoon series.
“‘I wanted to make something for my kids,’ says Darren Wilson, the Producer of the series. ‘I see what my kids watch on a regular basis, and almost all of it, even the Christian stuff, pretty much lives on the surface of the topics that kids are dealing with–if it deals with them at all. So I just figure, well, if no one else is going to do this, it might as well be us.’
“Wilson and his team have big plans for the series, and a rough story arc has already been planned out for where they would like to move the characters in the future. If the series is able to find its audience, there is no telling where the adventures of Tommy, Faith, Hope, and the Grand Master will lead them…and us.”
The cartoon, which is created using high quality flash animation, is probably aimed towards a younger audience — perhaps older grade school to pre-teens (my rough guess); but I actually screened it for my church’s high school youth group to get their sophisticated teenage opinion on it. They liked it, and, according to them, there are two reasons for that: 1) the hilarious one-liners of dialogue given to the character Grand Master — lines that really tap into the absurdist humor common among young Millenials and Generation Z (the generation after the Millenials); 2) the unique storyline that has everything from kung fu to kids fighting bullies, and then learning spiritual warfare (in Jesus’ Name!) to fight demonic powers “in spiritual places” as the Apostle Paul wrote.
What I personally loved about it was how it reinforces the Biblical truth that we fight not against flesh and blood (i.e. people aren’t our enemies) but against principalities in spiritual places, and our spiritual warfare is useless if we’re not also loving others, especially our enemies. Just one episode packs a lot of unique Biblical lessons that led to some great discussion among the youth group.
And, seriously, there were two or three lines by the Grand Master that had the room rolling with laughter — and these are teenagers. I’m sure younger youth will love it as well. You can buy the DVD at the official site.
Did I mention it has kung fu? (That alone won me over because I train in wing chun kung fu.)
