Making a good martial arts movie is tough, and it's no surprise when even experienced action filmmakers deliver disappointing results within the subgenre. This is understandable. But every once in a while, you see a karate flick and realize that the people behind it had absolutely no business attempting this kind of feature. Such is the case with CIRCLE OF FURY. This is a feature that wants to get in on the MMA film market but doesn't have the first clue of how to do it, to the point that all of the dreadful direct-to-video MMA flicks that came before and after it can breathe a sigh of relief and find solace in the fact that at least they're not the absolute worst – that title more than likely belongs to this one.
The story: A homeless veteran (Randy Spence) must wrestle with his conscience and grapple with opponents as he is coerced into the underground empire and fight club run by his childhood friend (Adonis Williams).
This is not an ambitious movie, so it's all the more surprising when it stumbles with basic things like productive dialogue. The movie's visual presentation is decent enough, but you'll be tempted to mute the audio whenever characters interact. When they aren't delivering forced, inappropriate lines that clearly sounded better in the writer's head, they're engaging in redundant and time-wasting exchanges that have no place in a movie with a story to tell. Adonis Williams' character is the main offender of the latter ill: Williams is charismatic enough, but it seems as though the director's instructions to him were "You can't talk enough; fill up every possible moment with banter and bluster." You can probably imagine how quickly that gets old.
The action content is in serious trouble. While I have definitely seen worse fight scenes than this, I have rarely seen so many bad ones piled on top of each other, each doing the same things wrong again and again. Most of the on screen fighters have some martial arts background, but it seems like most have never filmed a fight before and are foremost concerned with not actually striking their opponents. We're told that these are MMA bouts, but even though some fighters find the time to throw in an armbar, too many of these are bland slugfests. The choreography will have its moments here and there, but their dragging pace and the terrible camera-work makes these fights almost collectively worth skipping. Yuck.
When the most pleasant surprises a movie has to offer are instances of its goofy characters making sensible decisions for a change, there's really no reason to watch unless you're purposely looking for a bad movie. CIRCLE OF FURY is helplessly poor, possessing the bare tools to make a decent film but not the dexterity to wield them. If you're thinking about seeing this one, you better be ready for some serious shoddiness.
