Martial arts films have never rated highly in this reviewer’s opinion, but a good fight scene can generally make it worth sitting through the B-grade acting or predictable storyline. The trouble with The Circuit is that the fight scenes don’t make the grade either, leaving a rather sour taste in the mouth. Lemon anyone? Being a cross between Kickboxer, Karate Kid and any number of other martial arts films, there is nothing at all original here.

He with the porn star name Dirk Longstreet (Olivier Gruner) is a university coach. This is the life he has chosen to lead since he left The Circuit, an underground fighting circuit where men would battle in order to become champion. They would not fight to the death, but bones would get broken in the process. Dirk had been an unbeaten champion and was the only man who had ever been able to leave the circuit. He was now happy living a normal life as a coach, one of his students being his younger brother Jeremy (Ilya Morelle).

Through a series of events Jeremy is recruited into the circuit against his will and Dirk must return in order to get him out. Now who would have thought that was what the bad guys wanted all along? C’mon, hands up! Meanwhile Nichole (Sandra Maunder), a reporter, is stalking Dirk to try to locate the circuit. She is getting a little too close though - not to the circuit, but to Dirk. Will Dirk be able to save his brother? Will he manage to beat the current circuit champion? Who cares?

OK, so maybe my expectations were a little high. I expected a B-grade film with a predictable story, average to poor acting, lousy directing and a screenplay that could be compared to a porn film, but at least the fight scenes would be good. I was almost right, the film delivered on all except the last. For a film aimed at a martial arts audience the fight scenes should be the highlight, building up to a showdown with the ultimate bad guy at the end. Come on guys, it’s a tried and tested formula and one that people pay money to see. Quite frankly I have seen better fight scenes on any number of video games. This is really annoying when you consider the lead actor is a former world champion kickboxer and many of the cast were brought in especially for their fighting ability. For someone who is a champion and lead of the film, he only seems to win fights easily when he is up against four or five opponents, while against one he struggles.

Another annoyance with this film is the accents, I mean pick one and stick with it! The lead actor is French and he does stick to his accent quite well throughout, but his co-stars are a bit harder to understand. Sandra Maunder is a former page three girl, so is not really there for her thespian capabilities, but her accent changes from scene to scene. The same can be said for many of the other cast members as well. The saddest thing of all though is that The Circuit 2 has already been filmed and is due to hit a bargain bin near you any day. Put simply, if you want a good martial arts film then get a Jackie Chan or Jet Li film and give this one a big miss.

Presented in full frame and therefore not 16:9 enhanced, this transfer is not great, but that’s OK because neither is the movie. There are several problems with shadow detail and grain giving a rather blurred image on occasion. Aliasing is also evident and although colours are generally quite good, they do appear washed out in some areas. The biggest problem though is the detail, caused to some degree by many scenes being filmed at night. There are no subtitles supplied so the viewer is challenged to work out what the character's are saying, not helped by the ever changing accents mentioned earlier.

Audio is supplied in English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround and this is not too bad. The surround usage is minimal and the rear speakers can tend to dominate when the music soundtrack is used. Dialogue is generally clear throughout - that is to say clear if you can understand the accents - and there are no other major problems. Directional effect could have been much better, but for this film the audio track is more than sufficient.

Extras supplied come in the form of a theatrical trailer and three teaser trailers. The teaser trailers come into play when the disc is inserted into your player. This would normally be fine, but when the first trailer is for The Circuit 2 and shows what happens in the follow up to the feature you are about to watch, it is a major annoyance. Most will have a pretty good idea of how this film is going to go anyway, but we don’t need to be shown how the sequel begins straight away. The other teaser trailers are for Dog Soldiers and Brotherhood of the Wolf and these play straight after the trailer for The Circuit 2. The theatrical trailer for The Circuit is selected from the main menu, so it is hard to determine why these teaser trailers have been placed where they are.

Overall this film is a stinker. Olivier Gruner does his best to hold it all together and fans of his will be interested to see this film, but few others will. As stated earlier, the backbone of a martial arts film is the fight scenes and sadly the ones here are just not up to standard. View this one at your own risk.