The Circuit (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Theatrical Trailer Trailer-The Circuit II, Dog Soldiers, Brotherhood Of The Wolf
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	90:12
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Jalal Merhi
Studio Distributor	Amsell Ent. Inc Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Olivier Gruner Bryan Genesse Gail Harris James Kim Simon Kim Billy Drago Loren Avedon Ilya Morelle Daphne Orrell Jalal Merhi Bret Williamson
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Varouje

    A car ride, a body dumped...and so it begins, a very bumpy ride through a very low budget movie (and the body dumping you'll have to work out for yourself as it's never explained in the movie, but then, it's that sort of flick). The Circuit is one of those extremely low budget martial arts movies that used to be so popular during the height of the video craze in the mid 80's. Unfortunately, there is a marked disparity between this and even those low budget B-grade masterpieces, probably not so much in terms of quality of script or acting, but certainly in entertainment value at least. So unless you are stuck on a desert island with only one DVD to watch then you are probably better off staring at a blank wall... well almost.

    The Circuit lacks both power and punch (sic), the one thing it's really meant to deliver. Olivier Gruner has been around for quite a while and done some half decent movies, but to be honest I believe he's about a decade too late and good B-grade martial arts movies have simply waned away to nothing. Throw in a director (Jalal Merhi, who also plays a very bad part in the movie) who does little with the material on hand and even wastes the talents of Gruner and you are on a loser all the way. Importing Mike Blanks (the brother of Billy Blanks, you know, the guy who invented Tae-Bo) and the Tiger Twins (James and Simon Kim) can't get the fight sequences out of the mundane at the best of times, and the less said about the climatic finale the better. I do believe it has all the action of a wet sock being blown around on a Hills rotary hoist. A quick synopsis follows for anyone that's gotten this far and STILL wants an idea of what the movie is about.

    Dirk (Gruner) is the only man to have ever competed in an illegal underground martial arts tournament called The Circuit without having ever lost or been hurt. Years later, having gone to ground, he is spotted rescuing his brother's girlfriend from some thugs at a local bar where Kwan (played by The Tiger Twins.. oops, I've given away most of the plot, damn), the current champion on the circuit is having a quiet drink. Discovering who Dirk is, Kwan wants to prove to everyone that there is only one undefeated champion and convinces Vixion (Brian Genesse) to find a way to match them up. Hatching a plot, Vixion works on enticing Dirk's brother, Jeremy (Ilya Morelle) into the circuit and making sure that he's a winner by matching him with easybeats, all the time working towards getting Dirk back into the arena. Hovering around Dirk meantime is a reporter for a local paper who is after a story on the circuit and illegal martial arts contests. She begins tailing Dirk in the hopes of getting information out of him, but becomes quickly compromised. Intermixed with this is the interests of the FBI who want to put an end to the illegal fighting and the dead bodies that keep popping up - Dirk certainly has his hands full. The appearance of his old trainer, Lenny (Billy Drago), provides him with some welcome assistance as he must fight to save his brother and put an end to Vixion.

    Second to the direction, the biggest problem is the editing. There are ad-hoc scenes, tacked on, without much thought, given to continuity, all over the place (just like the punctuation in this sentence). The whole reporter/editor subplot was so out of place that it defied logic. Some subplots simply got dropped or never completed and the movie dragged in places where it should have been flying. To be brutal it simply never gets above the pedestrian. Even the fight scenes which should have been its biggest asset are mediocre. Gone are the days when Michael Dudikoff or Sho Kosugi would bring life to the martial arts. Now, you have to be more than a little desperate to watch dross like this. So unless you are a big fan of Gruner, who deserves a whole lot better, this is a movie destined for late night cable TV and nothing more. Oh and one final thought. If you think I've canned this enough, there is a sequel, Circuit II, which from the previews promises to be even lamer than this. Evidently it was released 2 whole weeks after this movie, so you can probably guess as to its quality...can't wait...not!!

Video

    Given that this direct-to-video effort probably had a budget of no sizable proportion you can't expect a whole lot of quality, but it's surprising just how good these movies can be, all things considered. This isn't anything to write home about, but then again it isn't the worst thing around at the moment, especially visually.

    This movie is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    The movie is relatively soft with no real sharpness to it. Although it wasn't marred by any signs of obvious edge enhancement for the most part, if you look it is there (eg 9:54 on the profile). Shadow detail is fairly minimal and fine detail is lacking throughout. Grain is surprisingly light all through the movie with no noticeable low level noise. Overall, it isn't the shapeless blob you often see in such low budget efforts.

    The colour is fine except for too much red in the picture. It isn't too bad, but skin tones have that sunburnt look to them. There is no noticeable chroma noise or colour bleed and the palette, while not exactly spectacular, is decent enough.

    The usual marks and scratches are in evidence during the movie. Most are the more invisible black spots (21:05) over the annoying white marks (19:56). Their frequency, fortunately, isn't that great so there is no big issue on this score. I didn't notice any pixelization, moiré or aliasing which was surprising. There was some slight shimmering from time to time but not enough to be an issue. Other MPEG artefacts were pleasantly absent.

    There were no subtitles on this disc.

    There was no layer change noted.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    A Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track is all that is available on this disc but it probably didn't require much more. Overall the sound was solid but unspectacular. No need to go turning this one up for effects as there was little to write home about. Little separation was noticeable across the fronts except on rare occasions, but surprisingly there was a decent amount of bass emanating from the front speakers. This gave the soundtrack a far more solid sound, but it still lacked some punchiness. The centre channel struggled a little with the voices and they were often a little indistinct and hard to make out. No unusual pops, hisses or crackles were noted.

    The dialogue, apart from being pathetic verbiage at best, was decent enough to listen to. As I mentioned before, it was a little indistinct at times and Gruner isn't the most eloquent of speakers. For the most part you won't have too many problems, though. There was one noticeable lip sync error at 5:45 with a reporter on TV - otherwise, it was OK for the rest of the time.

    In my notes I have written "the music is eminently forgettable" which speaks volumes to me. The music is simply too bright, too overpowering and just seems wrong. Varouje Hagopian is credited with this effort and his list of previous efforts sort of explains things a little. Don't get me wrong, this is no terror in the night stuff, but it smacks of something thrown together quickly.

    There was no surround channel or subwoofer activity noted on this disc.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Theatrical Trailer

    This has a running time of 2:24 and is presented with Dolby Digital 2.0 surround sound and in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1. It is a typical trailer, actually making the movie seem better than it is.

Trailer

    Ads for Circuit II (God forbid, it looks even worse than this mess), Dog Soldiers (which is reasonable for a werewolf movie) and Brotherhood of the Wolf (which I absolutely loved, and everyone else I know hated). There is nothing special about any of them except you can't play them individually and my stop/pause buttons suddenly became inoperable when playing them which was annoying.

        There appears to be a Region 1 release of this disc with lots more goodies, although tracking down exact details was a bit murky. What I found was hard to swallow but if true makes the Region 1 release the one to go for. The Region 1 has the following extras:

• Audio commentary track
• Interview segments with the cast and crew
• Several deleted scenes / alternate takes, plus optional commentary

    If this is on your list of 'must buys' then the Region 1 is the disc of choice. Otherwise, I can't honestly recommend this as anything more than a rental.

    A poorly constructed and filmed movie with few redeeming qualities. The video quality is decent enough and the audio holds up fairly well, but there are no extras to speak of. Unless you are desperate, a martial arts nut, bored beyond belief, or seen every movie ever made and need something to watch, give this the big miss.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall