What if I were to tell you that there was a movie based on a story by Bruce Lee (sort of based on his zen philosophy), starring David Carradine (in multiple roles) but also featuring Christopher Lee, Roddy McDowall and Eli Wallach? And maybe I would also say it takes place in a fantasy world and Carradine plays a flute that he also uses for a weapon, and let’s say that my man James Coburn – well, he’s not in it as an actor, but being a student of Bruce Lee maybe he helped write the story. And then the screenplay was written by Sterling Silophant who wrote THE TOWERING INFERNO and crap like that. But then the director was some guy named Richard Moore who only directed that one movie. But he was cinematographer for THE STONE KILLER with Charles Bronson. But also ANNIE.

Well let’s take the gloves off, you can forget about “what if” and come down to the world of reality because I’m about to tell you that I just saw EXACTLY THAT movie described above. (see above.) CIRCLE OF IRON starts out with a corny statement about Bruce Lee before going into a MORTAL KOMBAT type competition where half naked white dudes with mustaches do karate against each other as some type of a test. See, they are fighting for the right to go on a quest to kill some dude named Zetan and steal his book. (I know that sounds like a waste of time, but it’s a pretty rare book though, one of those magic books that tells you all the secrets.) We figure out quickly that our guy is the shirtless guy, Cord the seeker. This is the first sign of trouble when you realize the main character is just some long haired soap opera dude with no presence or charisma of any kind. And not necessarily the greatest martial artist you ever seen, either. He’s interchangeable with any of those long haired white dude types from the ’70s and ’80s. He could be the dude from BEASTMASTER or ALIEN NATION tv series or anything, but it turns out he’s from DALLAS and YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS. (more…)

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