Hold yer smokin’ guns just one minute there
Easy Rider! So ya think yer the best movie ever made on a budget that
would barely cover a high school prom? Well, have I got news for you,
pardner! There’s a new shoestring budget movie in town and it’s gunnin’
fer ya with crescent kicks an’ bagpipes.
I’m not sure exactly how to explain this
movie. I sure as hell don’t understand the plot. I know there’s something
in there about the blood lust of the Circle and the sage advice of Undan,
the greatest of all the Fight Circle warriors, but I can’t precisely put
my finger on it. On the other hand, I’ve never been able to satisfactorily
put my finger on what moved me beyond the sex, drugs, rock'n' roll, and
motorcycles of Easy Rider.
This movie was made for under $20K by
director/writer Donald Whittier, and it shows to all the world that you
don’t have to spend fifty million smackers to make something of quality.
Before I go any further, I have a couple
of reservations about this movie, so I’ll get them out of the way right
now. First, it’s available only on the Internet (I’ll come back to this
later), which, in itself, is not a bad thing. In fact, for somebody like
me who hates being packed into a full movie house with a bunch of popcorn
crunching, pop slurping and chocolate-coated peanut smacking zombies, it’s
a gift right out of cyber heaven. The movie played just fine on my ultra
high-speed home connection, but I had problems at midday on my T1 work
connection (although I should mention, we share this line with a
university). I don’t think I’d want to try this on my old AOL dialup. On
the other hand, I ran it on a variety of platforms and browsers and it
worked equally well on all of them.
Second, this movie won’t win any Oscars
for acting, but this is a martial arts movie with fight scenes right up
there with the greatest of all martial arts films, Enter the Dragon, which
didn’t win any Oscars for acting either.
Now to the good stuff.
In a mythical mediaeval world, various
marital artists leave necklaces with their family symbols in a mystical
circle in the woods. Other warriors find these, don them, and set out for
the fight. They fight to the death and the winner takes the loser’s
necklace. As fighters kill more victims and gather more necklaces, their
fame spreads and they become the fighters to beat. The greatest of all the
fighters is Undan (Sam Hargrave). Undan seems to have lost interest in the
Fight Circle and mostly teaches his student, Mullag (Thomas Shanks). In a
challenge to the system, a woman, Paky (Anna Henke), enters the Circle.
Nobody but her teachers, Undan and Trebor (Runyan Woods) and Mullag like
this one bit. It’s a male-dominated game and the men don’t take her
seriously until she starts beating the crap out of them.
With the exception of an indoor scene at
the beginning, the entire movie takes place outdoors in a wooded area
that, through brilliant use of available light and a haunting Celtic music
score, enshrouds the characters with magic and mysticism. The fighters
live in the forest in crude gypsy-like encampments, giving the movie an
earthy pagan surrealism that further enhances the magical quality of the
story. Some of the night scenes were difficult to make out (especially a
mysteriously recurring campfire scene) but the fight scenes thrived on the
natural light.
And did I mention Robert Hunt’s haunting
music? Well, it’s worth one more mention. As crisp as the sound is (right
down to the crinkle of every stepped-on leaf), Hunt’s primordial drum
beat, mixed with bagpipes and Irish whistles, carries the pagan mood of
this film beyond scene and circumstance.
And now on to the best part of the movie:
The fights.
If you love martial arts movies, you’ll
love Fight Circle. If you have any knowledge of the marital arts, you’ll
appreciate the authenticity of the fight scenes. No trampolines or trick
photography in this flic. Just brilliantly choreographed and expertly
performed fighting. The way it should be. Even the short scene in which
Undan trains Paky with the help of his senior student Mullag, reminded me
of my own long-ago days of training in Karate. Complex techniques executed
faultlessly by Henke, Woods, Shanks, Hargrave, and Kas DeCarvalho (as
fighter Kas in the movie) make this movie a spectacular martial arts
extravaganza. One scene doesn’t even lose step when the action goes
underwater and you have to guess what’s going on under the bubbles. If you
accept the trade-off between acting and performing, you will appreciate
this action film with genuine martial artists doing what they do best –
fighting for the sheer love of Zen in motion.
What really amazed me about these scenes
was Ad Santell’s incredible photography. Somehow he manages to capture the
exact execution of fighting techniques while framing them in just the
right angles of natural light and forest setting. A friend of mine once
had himself filmed while he did a Karate Kata. To get it right took a
whole day. And that was just one person on a gym floor. Santell’s work
with multiple combatants in the middle of the woods is a remarkable feat.
And did I mention this movie was made for less that $20K?
And then, of course, there’s the editing
of the fight scenes. Andy Spain had his work cut out for him (did I really
write that?) with this movie. You could easily eat up the movie’s entire
budget on editing alone.
Like I said, Fight Circle is available
only on the Internet at www.fightcircle.com. You pay 7 bucks (and there’s
the occasional half-price special), you submit your email address and
create a password, and you get 25 tickets. The movie is divided into 9
chapters, and you use 1 ticket for each chapter. That means you can view
the movie twice and then watch your favorite 7 chapters once more. Or you
can watch it once, and then watch your favorite single chapter 16 times
more. Like the fight between Paki and Kaz. And, through, the web site, you
can email the performers and the director.
A word of advice, turn the lights off so
there’s no glare on your monitor. And make popcorn. And pop open a can of
coke. Crunch and slurp all you want. After all, theater or Internet,
you’re at the movies!
NOTE: You might glean a greater
understanding of the philosophical underpinning of this movie (especially
the ending) by reading Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai. I found more
than a few parallels between Undan’s views and those of Yamamoto Tsunetomo,
whose writings are the basis for Hagakure.
Contributing reviewer Biff Mitchell is the author of:
WAR BUG
They have his family. He has their secret. Their world is collapsing.
He has just hours before he looses everything. He has only one friend and
ally, the computer virus that started the whole thing in
the first place.
Order your copy of War Bug from
Double Dragon Publishing.
THE BATON
Ever thought about getting back at all those people who bug you? Watch
out! Some day, you just might.
The Baton is now a Dollar Download from
Echelon Press.
Find out more about Biff Mitchell at:
www.biffmitchell.com.
