Sometimes a movie comes along that gifts you with so much stupid that you don’t know what to do with it all. If I were to snark on every last bit of slack jawed crapitude that this film contains, I'd have to publish a book, not a review.

Therefore, my review will be brief, hitting only on the most egregiously awful bits of stupidity in Circle of Iron. It’s a matter of priorities -- I don’t want to grow old and die trying to get this review written.

ALSO FROM PAT POWERS

You can tell that Surfer Dude (aka “Cord”) is the hero because he wears the uniform of sword and sandal film heroes -- diapers. In his case, leather diapers. And given that Cord spends a lot of his time running around in the desert in his leather diapers, you have to figure he gets real itchy, but hey, it’s his groin.

I mention this only because it might explain the slightly deranged grin he wears throughout much of the movie -- he's not happy, he's trying not to think about the itching. We've all been there, man.

Cord tries desperately not to think about the itching.

Cord is on a quest for a man, probably Elvis, but they call him Zetan, and a book, called The Book (apparently, literacy has declined to the point where everyone is the sort of person you don't give a book to because they've already got one).

To find Zetan and The Book, Cord must wander the land and face trials which mostly involve him beating the snot out of people after they've tried to beat the snot out of him.

But an important element of Zen artsy-fartsiness is added to the film when Cord hooks up with the Blind Man -- David Carradine doing a reprise of his role as Kane in the TV series Kung Fu, only this time he squints real hard like his eyes are closed whenever the camera moves in for a close up so you know he can't see, except he moves and acts exactly like a person who CAN see, but that's just part of his mystical Zen powers created by all the fatuous Zen nonsense he spouts at every opportunity.

Kane -- er, the Blind Man, relaxes with his giant flute as he prepares to spout mystical nonsense.

For example: "If you tie two birds together they cannot fly, even though they have four wings." And "Up is down and sideways is straight."

I guess the reason so many guys who spout stuff like this take up martial arts is so they won't get beaten up so often for saying such lard-brained nonsense. Just a theory, mind you.

So now we have Cord the hippie-dippie seeker hanging with Kane, er, the Blind Man. This takes the zen artsy-fartsyness levels to new heights, so dizzying that mere mortals may be forgiven if they experience nausea -- lots and lots of nausea, in fact.

Perhaps the most powerful example of the film's Zen stupidity is linked to the film's single bondage scene. One of the challenges that Cord must face is a battle with Changsha, leader of a band of people who apparently travel around putting on hippie-dippie kinda Renfairs & you know, jugglers, dancers, rats on a stick kinda stuff, only everyone dresses like hippies and belly dancers.

And so ...

Wait a minute, we have to go back a bit to Naked Eli Wallach in a Barrel of Oil. No, I'm not kidding, there's a long scene with a man who's been living in a barrel of oil in the desert for ten years, and the guy is played by Naked Eli Wallach (fortunately, the barrel covers everything below his shoulders).

So, Wallach is in the barrel of oil not just because it feels good, but because he is hoping it will eventually dissolve his penis off since he's too chicken-hearted to cut it off (wimp).

Wallach explains to Cord that he used to be a fairly successful mystic -- damn near found Nirvana, but it turned out to just be a coffee shop -- but his penis kept him from being entirely free of the flesh and so forth, so he decided to dissolve it off.

When Cord reveals that he himself has made a vow of chastity, Wallach gets very excited and insistently invites Cord to join him in his barrel of oil. In fact, he's so insistent that you get the feeling that he's not likely to remain chaste very long with Cord in the barrel with him. Cord must have tumbled to this, because he laughs at the guy and heads into the desert. Clearly, Cord's not a total idiot.

Here we have martial arts action at Bondagerotica sponsor Ultimate Surrender's website. As you can see, it's fairly vigorous stuff. In this case, unfortunately, the upside-down woman was disqualified for illegal use of tattoos.

Image also courtesy of sponsor Ultimate Surrender.

Anyway, that sets up the whole vow of chastity thing.

And so that night Tara, Changsha's ninth wife, goes to visit Cord with sexual intentions on her mind. Cord, apparently having been under a vow of celibacy for quite a while, is easy pickin's for her -- she uses that line about how they can have much pleasure and still not go all the way. It's pretty much the same line women have used on guys a million times when they were the ones who didn't want to go all the way, only this time Tara really DOES want to go all the way, she's just figuring to get Cord all hot and bothered and see if that chastity vow thing holds.

"Y'know, you're right ... my palm DOES feel more relaxed."

Works like a charm -- a little palm-sucking and he's hers. They do some massage, go to a hot tub and have a latte cappucino, and have sex in bed.

Next morning, Cord wakes up alone in bed. Ain't that always the way? A guy gives up his vow of chastity to a woman and as soon as he's a notch in her lipstick case, she's off to another conquest.

Well, actually Tara hasn't gone. Everybody ELSE in the hippie dippie Renfair has packed up and gone, but they left Tara behind, tied to a cross and feeling and looking very dead.

"Hey guys ... guys ... I'm not really dead, I was just pretending! Now come get me down off this thing ... Dammit, I know you're out there ..."

Cord is upset by the sight of last night's true love hung up to dry, so to speak, and runs off into the desert, quite distraught.

But that's not the really creepy thing about this scene. The really creepy thing occurs later in the film, when Cord has once again met up with Changsha.

Changsha figures Cord must be mighty pissed at him for crucifying his wife for a night of love that he himself had been pimping for. But Cord says no, he is not.

"But did I not crucify her with these hands?" Changsha asks, holding up his hands.

In response Cord holds up HIS hands and say, "No, I did, with THESE hands."

Now, isn't that sweet -- the hero and a mentor are having a pissing match to determine who was responsible for the torture murder of the woman they both had been fucking. And when Cord claims responsibility for Tara's crucifixion, Changsha gets all happy and friendly. Mmm, male pair bonding over the body of a tortured and murdered woman. In a less Zen enlightened film, such behavior would be reserved for psychotic homosexual serial killers rather than the hero and a mentor.

What's more, the sexism in this scene is bone deep. At no time are we given any idea what Tara's views might be on the whole crucifixion of her concept. My suspicion is that they might run along the lines of, "No! NO!! NOOOOOO!! Please, god no! AAAAAAH! Ouch! AAAAAAARGH! STOP IT! Oooch! Eeeeech! Ouch! PLEASE!! NOOOOOOOO! AAAAAAAAAGH!"

And the mystical Zen approach to the situation just adds an extra layer of creepiness. You're left uneasily wondering, "What the hell do these guys think they're doing?"

There’s more stuff in Circle of Iron that I could be snarking on, but like I said, I don’t want to write a book about it. And I don’t need to. Point made, I think. The one thing I will say about it is that it thoroughly comes through on the martial arts action -- there’s plenty of fighting and posing and leaping about. Between that and the oh-so-snarkable mystic babble, it’s worth watching … once.