Gymkata - Le parcours de la mort

I first saw this movie with three friends at a theater in Norman, Oklahoma when it first came out. Aside from the four of us, the usher was in the theater, and the projectionist too. They should've gotten combat pay.

The US government goes to a gymnast to get him to train for and participate in The Game, a decathlon cum obstacle course held each year in the tiny country of Parmistan (the four of us immediately decided its major export was Parmesan cheese...). The Khan of Parmistan grants each winner a favor, and the US wants our hero to ask pretty please to let the US put some kind of radar installation in Parmistan to support SDI. Our hero agrees--after all, his dad mysteriously disappeared in Parmistan.

Our hero gets some help from the Khan's daughter, who turns out to be the only citizen of Parmistan who looks even vaguely Asian. (_Gymkata_ was filmed in Zagreb, then in Yugoslavia.) There are people who want to stop him, though--fortunately, every place our hero is in danger, there happens to be a convenient piece of gymnastic equipment that he can leap onto and kick some enemy behind. (It even comes pre-powdered so his hands won't slip--they think of everything!)

A high point of the film is the Khan himself, and his pronouncements from the balcony. We in the theater swore up and down that Mel Brooks was playing the Khan... He always uttered some non-English interjection that we promptly forgot (UPDATE: it's "yakmalla!"), replacing with "Uff- da!" when imitating him during and after the film, and followed it up with "My people!"

I recommend this in a double feature with _Phenomenal and the Mask of Tutankhamen_. Think you need an Abdomenizer? Nope--just watch these two movies.

It's hard for me to explain in words the passion i have for this work. If you will imagine me thrusting my hands into a chalk bag and clapping them together - bursting an advancing white cloud into the air - but mentally - before i can begin to describe to you the unadulterated genius of Gymkata - then you may begin to fathom this...passion. A gymnastic Tour de Force for Thomas. Who doesn't loose themselves watching this and straddle their ottomon in Bruce Lee-like pantomime as Thomas "pommelhoarses" several battalians of earnest shedsmen?

Wow! This one has been stuck way in the back webs of my mind. Almost erased until I stumbled across it on the IMDb! As soon as I saw the title I immediately remembered the movie as if it were last week. I can see why many would consider this to be a bad movie, but oh well, opinions are like #*$holes, everyone has one. So be it. I liked it. The cheesy element made it work in a weird way. The locations were authentic from what I remember and the action was pretty good.

The scenes that stick in my mind are the crazies in the village, very funny, but almost creepy. I remember when he entered there were creepy noises, I was 11 yrs. old in '85. Also, the flagmen, dressed in colorful uniforms pointing the way to the next obstacle. I liked this movie and I remember it as a late night classic on HBO/Cinemax in the 80s. I hope cable brings it back with this release. If not, I will purchase it.

"Call me Snake"

It's a rare film that actually attains the heights which it reaches for in a world so filled with really bad chop-socky flicks.

Which brings us to "Gymkata"... which succeeds in being the absolute WORST.

A shock, since it was directed by the same Clouse who gave the world "Enter the Dragon", Bruce Lee's signature film. But then, what can you expect in an action film that features Buck Kartalian?

The real star is Kurt Thomas, or at least that's what the credits say. But if every actor had as little talent as he, there would be no need for Lee Strasberg. Let's just say as an actor, Thomas makes a great gymnast.

Which is all this movie really calls for. Kurt plays a gymnast recruited by the CIA to help the good old US of A claim a distant land for their "Star Wars" military post. Great, we all think, until we realize Darth Vader won't be making an appearance.

But this also isn't a "Rambo"-style actioner - Kurt doesn't go in with machine guns and grenades, ready to blow this peace-loving country into submission. No, he is instead trained in the lethal art of gymkata, which consists of walking up a stairway using only your hands, carrying on a conversation with yourself with intermittent back-flips thrown in every so often and hoping and praying to God that wherever you fight there will be uneven bars, pummel horses and other gymnastic-looking pieces of architecture about.

Why all the training? BECAUSE, dear movie-lover, this aforementioned foreign country will only give its land over for military use to whichever nation's representative can finish a deadly kind of decathlon where everything from arrows, scimitars and the mentally-unbalanced are thrown at the competitors. Of course, with no other weaponry in evidence, it's shocking that Russia hadn't already claimed it. Heck, Australia could have shipped all their excess kangaroos over and kicked everyone into submission in less time than this movie takes.

Anyhoo, "Gymkata" is about as graceful as a doped-up rhinocerous and twice as intelligent. Of course, for entertainment value, there's always the Village of Crazies and Buck Kartalian playing the ruling Khan. Yes, the same Buck Kartalian who once played the lead in "Please Don't Eat my Mother", about a guy and his carnivorous plant (Buck played the guy).

And if you thought THAT movie was derivative....

No stars, no hope, no future and (please) no sequels for "Gymkata".

I understand there is also a 1978 movie called "Gymkata Killer". Well, there went the ONLY original thing about this movie - its title.

This is one of America's finest films. If you don't know, now you know. In the words of Lord Bephfington "I would give my right arm for DVD copy of this classic." By combining both humor and action, Gymkata makes for easy viewing over and over again.