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.

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.

The best thing about "Gymkata" is that it takes itself very seriously. Actual men and women worked on this film with no intention of creating a hysterically abominable failure. Yet, despite a premise that fails to produce anything beyond derisive laughter, the project somehow landed financing.

Highlights include: The Khan of Parmistan, a man who looks like Albert Einstein with Carl Levin's comb-over. "The Town of the Crazies," a village of criminally insane people. A man who severs his own hand for no apparent reason in the aforementioned town. A man (also in that town) who wears a cloak with the back cut out to reveal his buttocks. The oft-repeated location, "Karabal, on the Caspian Sea." The title card that lets us know when we've arrived at "Karabal, on the Caspian Sea." Princess Rubali and her odd fascination with cutlery. A man named "Thorg," who has been admired by the hero "since Munich." An actual line of dialogue that refers to "a nightmare in hell." The five punch/kick sound effects that get recycled beyond believability. A character who presumably fell to his death in a gaping, barren canyon only to have his fall "broken by some trees." The random placement of gymnastics apparatuses. The complete lack of resolution to numerous dangling plot points. Kurt Thomas's wardrobe and haircut. The men working at "The Salt Mines," who just poke a large pile of refined salt with hoes. Also, we get the privilege of seeing a shadowy government agent push away a gymnastics groupie who tries to get too close to a post-dismount Kurt Thomas.

If you happen across this movie, you must watch it. "Gymkata" stands as an example of what happens when no one offers a dissenting opinion anywhere in the filmmaking process. This is a technique that was later revealed in Joel Schumacher's "Batman & Robin."

"Gymkata" fulfills every expectation you may have of a film combining gymnastics and ninjitsu. Plenty of gymnastics, plenty of ninjitsu. See it with a friend and enjoy its many failures. All hail "Gymkata!"

I met Kurt Thomas at a gymnastics even in 1992. First thing I said to him was "Gymkata?" It is probably not difficult to imagine the look that came over the poor man's face at that point.

But I love Gymkata. We used to watch it for its tremendous entertainment value as an all-time great "bad" movie. My own personal favorite parts are the pommel horse in the medieval lunatic asylum, the guy saying "there is some anti-American sentiment going around here" immediately before being shot with an arrow, and of course the "Yak-MALLA!" war cry of "Parmistan." Oh, yeah, the four or five repetitions of "Karabal, on the Caspian Sea" before the place is shown with just that as the caption on the screen.

Yak-MALLA indeed!

JP Marat L'Ami du Peuple