Getting Gangrene Goo Gone
Here comes Johnny Yen again.
Nnnngh. Hi kids. It's joiless, back in action and mad enough to chew nails. Chew them, swallow them, and excrete them as fucking gold ingots. Wait a second... I need some nails!
Anyway. You might be wondering - why has joiless suddenly reappeared like the Ghost of Comedy Past, packing mad heat and flexing his pecs like he's a handsome boy? Why, to do a movie review/rehash/commentary of course! YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT ONE COMING, DID YOU, MOTHERFUCKER.
The film that we'll be discussing is a cinematic gem from the '80s called GYMKATA. That's gym, as in gymnastics, followed by kata, as in practicing for martial arts. You put the two together and you know what you have? A goddamn mess, if this movie is any indication.
A Fred Weintraub production, GYMKATA stars an actual gymnast - Kurt Thomas - as a gymnast named Jonathan Cabot. Weintraub means "wine grape" in German. It was filmed in Yugoslavia and it basically shows, since this is Yugoslavia circa 1985. Yeeesh.
The film opens with some very ominous music sort of played on an organ or a synthesizer or maybe a cello. It's very bass-heavy and menacing. There's a static shot of some kind of gray line while words materialize around it. I found myself eagerly awaiting the SKILL of gymnastics combined with the KILL of karate. No, I did not make that up. That is from the fucking movie posters because some idiot actually released this thing in theaters.
Okay, it's definitely a synthesizer. It noodles on for a bit while we look at the gray bar thing and try to figure out what it is. The music was composed and conducted by Alfi Kabiljo, and I have no idea who that is, nor do I want to know. Since this movie was directed, filmed and produced in Elbonia, the music sort of warbles and grumbles and threatens to be mostly horrible for the duration of this film. It delivers on this threat, trust me.
One of my favorite parts about this movie is the production designer's name. Veljko DESPOTOVIC. I can only imagine what this guy is like to work for.
Charles Robert Carner, the movie informs, allegedly wrote the so-called "screenplay" for this ass-clencher of a cinematic experience. Nnnnngh. Unsurprisingly, Fred Weintraub produced this Fred Weintraub production, and Robert "I Put The Louse In" Clouse directed it. Now we know who to blame. I don't remember any of these names appearing on any other film, so that's a good sign that they didn't make it out of Destituteslavia alive.
We finally find out what that grey thing is as the movie decides to randomly cut between a guy doing gymnastic stuff on the bar and horses running in a swamp with a heartbeat sound in the background. Then they finally pick a scene to focus on, revealing a horde of horseback riders chasing after a sweaty, ill-kempt fellow in athletic costume while that sort of shitty Stock Villainous Music plays in the background. The music kind of sounds like Conan only lame, and for a second I thought it got stuck in my girlfriend's head, but it was actually her whistling the theme to some cop show. Unfortunately it has gotten stuck in my head.
About this time, a guy appears on screen in a wool vest with a saber strapped to his back, and we get a better look at our obvious villains. They're fucking ninjas. They're wearing black costumes with bright red sashes and they're bad guys in an '80s martial arts film, so they're clearly ninjas. If it weren't for the track pants, running shoes, and sweat-soaked gray t-shirt worn by the fleeing guy, I would assume this scene was from a shitty '80s fantasy movie. It's not.
Fleeing Guy gets to a huge crevasse filled with a roaring river (it sounds a bit like someone holding a microphone kinda close to a drinking fountain that is on) with some kind of cables strung across. He looks down to find... a ninja with a flag. What? Suddenly there's another fucking ninja with a flag behind him, along with a mob of other ninjas, and somehow, orange-pants-and-wool-vest is on the other side of the grotto. I don't know how or where the fuck all the ninjas came from.
Orange-pants-and-wool-vest is a dick, incidentally. He pulls out a bow and an arrow while Fleeing Guy is trying to cross the cables hand-over-hand. He also gives us Fleeing Guy's name - it's "Cabot!" So he's probably related to the hero somehow. (Spoiler: His dad.) OPAWV yells "C'mon Cabot!" with his teeth clenched (impressive that) and Cabot bum-slurs "I'm tryin' to schplain the game back off!" in reply. He is either playing the game or explaining the game, or someone explained the game to him. I don't know which. His teeth were clenched too tight to tell. OPAWV says "And joo beleefed the foool" at him and takes aim with his bow. Dramatic horn things start in on the soundtrack. He promptly shoots Cabot right in the gut with the bow from like two feet away - how the fuck did he get over there so fast? - and he screams and falls to his death. (Spoiler: Not actually to his death.) The movie cuts to a gymnast performing.
Now, here's one of my problems with this movie: inappropriate music. A gymnast is performing a very slow routine on the parallel bars, so the movie supplies a drum-heavy Conan-esque tune in the background. It's very dramatic music for a completely undramatic scene. He finishes his routine and the music goes nuts like he just won the Best Super Hero Prize. (Spoiler: He did not.)
The gymnast - okay, it's fucking Jonathan Cabot - is accosted by some ass in a suit. He's clearly from The Government (look, you can just tell in movies) and he has some kind of job for Cabot. After promising the mumbling Cabot that his training for... something... will make his Olympic training look like fingerpainting, he knocks on the window to gain the attention of some beefy guys outside doing something with wood. He gives them a pretty fruity wave and tells Cabot that these goons, among others, will oversee his super awesome training. I am positive that a montage is imminent. (Spoiler: Stunningly, no.)
Suit: "Any questions?"
Me: "Yes."
Cabot: "None." ~mullet~
Me: "What." ~seethe~
Cabot is shown a photo of a jovial hobo in the SILLIEST FUR HAT OF ALL TIME and is asked if he recognizes him. Apparently he is (judging from Cabot's goddamn mumbling) "the Cod of Par-me-stein," which is Cabotese for "that man is the King of Parmistan" which sounds like a cheese, not a country. Parmistan is a tiny country in the Hindu Kush range, which was hard to make out with Kurt's fucking nasal farblemumble. Part of the fun in this scene is figuring out who the fuck is talking.
Apparently Cabot (who knows a lot about tiny mountain nations in the Hindu Kush for a gymnast) doesn't know who Orange-Pants-And-Wool-Vest is. He's Commander Zamir, whose name is hard to understand when said by the mumbly fucks in this movie. Zamir kind of looks Ramón Rojo from Per un pugno di dollari actually. I don't think they're played by the same guy, but in this picture there's a resemblance.
Okay, they keep calling the king the "Colon" or something, I couldn't really make it out, and I don't know why Suit is asking Cabot who Zamir is like he doesn't know, then tells Cabot who is like he knew all along. What?
Zamir is a viper and Cabot's welfare is of no interest to him, which is something he and I have in common actually. Apparently the United States Gubment wants to put a Star Wars installation in Parmistan. It will save millions of lives or some shit, I didn't really pay all that much attention. In the wrong hands it will kill nations. I don't know how or why, and frankly it doesn't exist yet so I don't know why the latter is relevant.
The Kong? Is the ruler of Parmistan called the Kong? Apparently a radical group wants to open the borders of Parmistan and sell the satellite station (which I guess already exists somehow) to The Other Side. The Other Side is how you said "Godless Communists, Liars And Spies" in '80s action movies. Cabot asks why they don't send in the troops; I am distracted by Cabot's incredibly bloodless lips. Suit says that direct military action is out of style. The correct action is to send in a lone goon, I guess.
Anyone who enters Parmistan has to take part in The Game. The winner gets his life and one request. I assume they don't count the demand for a fucking explanation. Apparently no outsider has won their stupid ass Game in NINE HUNDRED YEARS. This is probably because no one has ever heard of fucking Parmistan, or its idiotic immigration standards. Actually, if we only allowed people into the country who basically won Ninja Warrior, we'd have a lot less trouble with terrorists. We'd also be hella inbred. So is Parmistan.
"You know your father," Suit says, "was hampered by a lack of knowledge about the Game." Evidently he was hampered by NOT KNOWING THEY WILL TRY TO FUCKING KILL YOU WITH ARROWS. Anyway, to inform him on the game they bring in some Asiatic Hottie who is the Princess Rubali of Parmistan. Rubali also sounds like a cheese.
Rubali is an evil cunt. She smiles at our idiot hero, then holds up a rope. She doesn't seem to speak English, so Cabot tries to communicate with her which ends in her tying his hands together, punching him in the dick, bouncing his head off a post, and then karate chopping him in the shoulder. Then she stalks off. "What she is saying is don't trust anyone," says Suit. Mean bitch.
Cue the montage. (Finally!) Unlike most montages, this one has no music! A bold direction to go in, and also, it means that it's gonna be a little bit longer before we have to hear the godawful musical stylings of What's His Name from Losebekistan.
Our hero goes through much training, including a Japanese guy forcing him to walk on his hands up a flight of stairs in tiny blue shorts, hacking wood while an Asian guy with a falcon talks about sounds (could be stair climbing guy) and getting his ass kicked by a huge black guy who knows karate. Highlights include the huge black guy riding on a huge white horse and telling the doggedly jogging gymnast that he has to "out-quick people" and the fact that I had to choke down a need to scream mindlessly at the repeated crotch shots of an inverted man in tiny blue shorts.
Sadly the music comes in when he stops sucking quite as hard and it blows even harder than before. Uuuugh. And this is just the first ten minutes? FUCK.
I need a break. Be right back. Unnnngh, my eyes.
...
Okay.
This goddamn movie. The montage shows us the Asian guy (there's only one I think) whirling around some kama sickles while blindfolded, producing a loud WHOOSH WHOOSH WHISH WHOOSH noise, Cabot finally knocking down the black guy with a stick, and Rubali's fun habit of randomly ambushing Cabot with knives. Mean bitch. Cabot bitches about the evil cunt in his house and that she never speaks (maybe she digs him?) and Suit suggests that he combine a delicate blend of gymnastics and martial arts. Blah. He manages to climb the stairs on his hands, flashing us his red tighties in the process (and an unholy crotch close up as well) and to celebrate, Japanese-san grabs him by the ankles and flails his legs for him. What?
The Princess by the way, has an interesting background: her mom is Indonesian. ...Yeah, that's her entire interesting history according to Suit. That's all he fucking says.
During a "conversation" with the non-speaking Princess, Cabot blends a falsetto voice, sarcasm and actual athletic prowess to mock Rubali. He plays both parts in an imagined civil discourse with her, but rather than just turn to the side or whatever, he performs twisting acrobatic backflips to turn his back on her, then face her, then turn his back on her, and so on. He does this like six times. Nimble little bastard. (By they way, he looks fairly tall in this movie. Do not be fooled. He's 5'5".)
Wait, now they're fucking kissing? Why? Where did that come from? SHE PULLS KNIVES ON YOU, NEVER SPEAKS, AND PUNCHED YOU IN THE DICK FOR NO REAL REASON. Plus she's from Parmistan where they are fucking insane and murderous. What are you doing?
She breaks off the kiss by pulling a switchblade on him. They keep making out though and she throws her switchblade, sticking it in his wall for no reason. Fuck this movie.
Anyway, he's going to some border town on the Caspian Sea, the name of which I can't make out from their GODDAMN MUMBLING, and meet some Colonel Mackal (guessing here) at the salt mine which I guess is his base of operations for Operation: We're Sending A Gymnast We Just Trained To Be A Ninja Instead Of A Special Forces Team. Of course, most of Suit's speech is somewhat wasted on Cabot who is making cow-eyes at the Princess because they OBVIOUSLY JUST FUCKED.
Karabal on the Caspian Sea is the destination by the way. I only know because they put text on the screen to that effect later.
Anyway, Cabot trusts Princess Punchadick Hasaknife to rub his shoulders later which is dumb but nothing else important happens for awhile, I don't think. This part of the film is hard to pay attention to. My brain keeps sliding right off it like it was coated with Teflon. Now for some reason I'm hungry.
More terrible music and adequate acting follows. They call Mackal "the Stork" because... I dunno. The Princess STILL DOESN'T FUCKING TALK. I guess it's because her mother is from Indonesia.
Some salt is shown in ways that is neither interesting nor needed. It doesn't look like a salt mine. It looks like a bunch of guys using hoes to scoop a gigantic mound of white stuff, kind of like snow. I've been in a salt mine. This is not what it looks like. Salt is a goddamn rock.
Rubali's outfit is kind of cool looking at this point. ...I'm fifteen minutes into this movie. GOD DAMN IT.
"As you know, no firearms of any type are allowed in Parmistan." Uh. "Come with a gun, and they'll cut your head off, heheheh." I'd like to interrupt the Stork for a moment to ask why you don't just shoot these people? Also, apparently the handaxe provided for our gymnast/ninja is made of a "modern alloy" that allows a slender man in his forties to cleave through what I think they want us to believe is a bar of steel, like it was soft cheese. Uh, sure. They also provided him with a knife which shoots blades up to twenty feet with a spring-loaded action. The Princess shoots the wall with it for no real reason. THEN SHE FINALLY FUCKING SPEAKS. "Nice piece of work!" she says with approval. (No one comments on this. I assume she spoke in the bedroom.) The only way into Parmistan is by pack mule and then raft because it is a backwards ass country in the middle of nowhere. (You will never see that knife again, and the hatchet is not even carried by the hero at any point. Essentially, this scene is completely pointless. Fuck this movie.)
A nice stock shot of Istanbul (which is Constantinople) follows, then they go to an impossibly messy and crowded market which I guess sells uh... cloth... and is populated by amazingly stereotypical fez-wearing merchants. Uuuugh. This scene goes on too long. Rubali smiles a lot. Apparently getting her field plowed by a gymnast was enough to defrost her evil cunt, but frankly I'm not convinced that she isn't going to stab him in the nutsack later.
Then a random guy in a turban wanders up and says to Cabot "You are Americans?" Cabot answers in the affirmative, so the fat fucker suddenly smacks him in the gob and says, amazingly, "Yahnkiz! Gome!" They restrain Cabot from beating this guy's ass for some reason while the little bastard flees into the crowd, pleased with himself for having punched an American and not been bombed into the Stone Age, which in this country was last week.
"There's just a little anti-American sentiment going around," says Tan Suit, and then a fucking arrow hits him right in the lung. What?
Cabot sprints off after the archer who somehow shot around a corner through a crowd, and gets into a short brawl with a few guys, using the maximum number of unnecessary gymnastic moves for the scene. There is really no reason for him to do flips and round-offs and shit, except that the movie has a goddamn gimmick to appease. He returns to his companions, only to find the market is suddenly COMPLETELY FUCKING EMPTY, and the arrowed guy is dripping red NyQuil from his middle finger, and Beard (the other guy they were with) has been murdered to death and left with the amazing Steel Slicing Modern Alloy Handaxe. I don't know if it's the same axe but it is the same prop. Rubali is gone.
And that's another ten minutes of stupid fucking movie. Time for another break.
...
After asking the Stork repeatedly where Rubali is, he finally gets the gawky bastard to spill the beans and tell him where she is. This is one of the few scenes in which one sees how short our hero actually is.
He goes to the place she's at, but is confounded by a rickety locked door and is pursued by Goons In Ugly Hats, who he bravely runs away from. Finding a random metal bar across a narrow alley, he quickly ascends and kicks all of his pursuers in the face with his spinning gymnastics skills. He also punts a random civilian on a bike in the lip, so, you know, he's a dick. However, I think the random civilian might have been played by Yankee Go Home, but I'm not sure.
The movie's first gun appears, a folding stock AK-47 sitting on a desk while the Princess is interrogated. Incidentally, Rubali can kick a lot of ass of her own when she gets the opportunity, but it's not even 30 minutes this movie. She may develop Female Crisis Syndrome later in the film. Several guns follow, along with general villainous ineptitude in their use. So does a kind of stupid fight, and two of the most hilarious stock screams ever as Cabot more or less gymkatas a couple assholes to their second story demise. Cabot and Rubali heroically flee into the streets of Not Cairo. At one point, gunfire from a M3A1 "grease gun" submachine gun throws sparks off a wooden pallet and what appears to be a grayish paper bag. Interesting paper products they have in Not Istanbul. Must be similar technology to the On Demand Superhuman Strength Modern Alloy. After ducking and dodging the goons through the streets, with plenty of opportunities to stand in front of convenient glass bottles so that they can be exploded by gunfire, one goon is killed by the police (what?!) and the others wreck their ride in a typically hilarious car-flipping '80s fashion.
Returning to the Stork, they are greeted with a pistol handed with excellent gun safety (finger on the trigger, damn near shoved in Cabot's gut at the door) but are quickly let in. There's some semi-intelligible conversation indicating that Cabot is suspicious since the goons at the mansion were on alert (he walked up and rattled the fucking door twice - cos that's not going to get anyone's attention) and the gear hasn't been packed. Stork whips out a gun, announcing that he thinks this is a shame. It turns out to be one too, since Suit hoses him down with the same AK47 prop that jammed at the bad guy hangout. He shoots a few other guys that run in, and announces they'll be leaving in the morning. When he arrived, how he knew what was going on, or how he got into the salt mine is not discussed at any point.
For those keeping track, gymkata has resulted in the deaths of two bad guys thus far. Most have been shot. Only one by the hero. Huh.
In the morning, the World's Loudest Train of Mules CLIP-CLOP-CLATTER-CLOP-FUCKING-CLOPs their way down the river, and then our hero and Rubali go white water rafting into the mountain nation of Parmistan, which still sounds like a cheese. They recycle the same clip of them going over a specific hydraulic a few times, and sped up to boot. They fast-forward this clip to just shy of Keystone Kops territory, in fact. Yeesh.
Nigh unto thirty minutes into the film, the goddamn ninjas show up again, on horseback. The music starts up the cheesy Bad Guys Comin' leitmotif. With thirty minutes of my life gone, I'm going to go take an antacid real quick.
...
Well, I don't feel much better but then again, this goddamn movie isn't over yet. By the way, most people attempting to do something sneaky - like, say, gain entry into a dangerous country where one is forced at arrow-point to participate in psychotic footraces - one typically attempts to wear some kind of camouflage. Not Cabot. He wears a bright fucking red sweater and has been wearing it since he arrived in Not Constantinople Either, with a bright orange life preserver over that in his bright orange raft. I guess stealth was not a priority until they landed, when he actually strips the sweater off in favor of a black long sleeve shirt under it. Guess it's cold on the Caspian Sea.
The ninjas attack once they've landed, one marching forward to try and puncture the raft with his knife. A fight ensues which is like... twelve on one or something, I'm not going to try and count how many identical hooded bad guys are on the damn screen at once. The flips and tumbles of this insane marriage of martial arts and sports seems to serve something of a purpose: it confuses the fuck out of people you're fighting. He actually kicks the shit out of them, except for ninja who is standing around apparently tending to the horses. I think he is the one who walks up behind Cabot in mid-kung-fuing and hits him over the head with a bat. The screen actually goes black at the instant of impact.
Cabot wakes up in some dire-ass looking castle, being nursed to health by a character I call Mannish Thing. Essentially a dog-ugly woman with black circles drawn around her eyes and her teeth blacked out, she attempts to tend to touch Cabot repeatedly while staring at him with the wild-eyed, massive grinned insouciance that only an IQ in the 40-50 range can provide. However, Cabot's questioning is answered by a guy he's apparently too stupid to recognize as fucking Commander Zamir, adviser to the Kon- OH. They're saying Khan! The king is a khan! Fuck, that means I have to make a Star Trek II joke at some point, I guess.
Apparently the Khan will be explaining the fucking Game to our headachey hero. I guess that's who Clench-Teeth Cabot was talking about earlier in the movie - the Khan explained the Game to him. In other words we may ACTUALLY GET TO THE GODDAMN GAME AT SOME POINT IN THIS FUCKING MOVIE.
Cabot gives in to Mannish Thing's need to pet him or whatever and I closed my eyes for a second. Buzz, your girlfriend - woof!
So we cut to the Khan of Hobos explaining the various stages of the Game to the group of athletes who for whatever reason have traveled all the way to this dirt poor backward medieval country to fight for the right to live and to get one wish granted. These people are seriously living in their own filth here. Other than the missile satellite laser mission thing, what the fuck could they possibly have you'd want? Er, I guess money. There's gotta be an easier way to make a living than this.
The ninjas-with-flags are explained as judges who will show the way if the guys running get lost. Of special note on this course is two things:
1. The Village of the Damned. This is where the notion that these people live in absolute squalor arises, but I don't see much else to recommend this country.
2. The gorge where Clench-Teeth got took the fuck out (Spoiler: He didn't actually.) is the second obstacle. In other words, he sucked.
Oh yeah, if you try to skip an obstacle you will be instantly killed. I assume by orbital strike.
Oh God, the royal hat. What the fuck is that thing on his head. Anyway, three convicted criminals are allowed to play The Game to avoid being executed. The people think this is fucking awesome. The majority of the people of Parmistan have no goddamn teeth so you know, simple pleasures and all that. Once the players take off, the CHILDREN OF PARIMSTAN may join the hunt. I assume this means the various maimed, toothless, psychotic freaks in the crowd. Delightful. Also, Zamir says "be silence" instead of "be silent."
The armed crowd swarms after the criminals and then players ride out on horseback, so this seems to be off to a fair start.
Klan ninjas on foot and on horseback pursue the criminals through a cornfield. You can guess how this ends. The first to die is staggering and begging the mounted players for help then is promptly skewered in the back with a monk's spade (that's a polearm) and left to rot. Criminals 2 & 3 make it to the rope climb and start up. Two is shot in the back with an arrow because he didn't climb fast enough to get out of this piece of shit movie. However, Zamir orders the archer shot with an arrow too for breaking the rules. Fair's fair and all that. What a bloody awful little country.
Criminal 3 makes it to the gorge and starts scrambling across, with a ninja in pursuit. For whatever reason the players have to follow along on horseback and watch for instructional purposes. At this point I started wishing the fucking movie would end already.
Criminal 3 buys it when a ninja manages to sit upright on a rope and fire his goddamn bow and arrow while hanging in midair. This results in a really, really fake looking arrow injury - with the arrow very clearly just sticking out of C3's shirt - and then he plummets (or rather, a dummy plummets) to the bottom of the grotto in fast motion accompanied by a chillingly stupid scream. When he lands it makes a KERTHUD noise that sounds like it came from a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. Terrific.
Well, after watching that senseless little bit of homicide, they go back and rejoin the pre-Game banquet. I'd rather not speak about it too much. The people of Parmistan are fucking hideous.
There's a scene where ninjas on horseback fight with butterfly nets. I don't fucking know why, okay?
I think Jackie Chan puts on an appearance in this scene doing jump kicks against cymbals. I wish I were making that up but it really looks like him. I could be wrong. I was somewhat distracted by the fear that watching this movie with my laptop in my actual lap would give me testicular cancer. Rupali reappears, sitting next to Zamir who is showing off his pecs in his 1970s Player bathrobe, unlike the weird Gay Jedi robe they gave Cabot.
To my complete joy, the Khan talks some fucking more about how awesome it is that these poor bastards will most likely be shot with arrows tomorrow. Then they engage in the national cheer of "YATMAH!" which I assume is like "Yahtzee" and translates from Parmistanish as "fuckin' right, mate!" Cabot asks the Kong about his father, who was apparently a colonel. The Khan tells him that he was a superb athlete and totally belonged at the winner's banquet, except that he didn't win. This means he died. (Spoiler: No he didn't.)
Please remember that the superb athlete made it to the second obstacle, and that this game is about murdering people, just so as we're clear about how fucked up this country is.
Blah blah blah, applause. Cabot learns from a more astute competitor that Parmistan sends all of their criminally insane people to one fucking village. They are "a bunch of goddamn cannibals." Cabot seems to find this awesome. We'll look into their apparent insanity shortly.
Also: you can't fucking intimidate people by biting into an apple really enthusiastically.
The Khan likes to stand up and randomly say that he would like to do things. He announces the wedding of the Princess tomorrow following the Game. If you haven't guessed in the last two seconds that she's marrying Zamir, you probably aren't paying attention whenever I say that this movie is a piece of '80s flotsam. The Khan points it out for us anyway. This movie never ends.
The Khan, incidentally, is a jovial fucking idiot, and the howling mob of inbred retards that he leads would cheer if he stood up and said "I would like to shove Zamir's head into my asshole! Wabba wabba wabba wabba!" Just keep that in mind for later.
I'll finish this review later on, I can't take a fourth viewing of this piece of shit right now. It's exhausting. With my computer malfunctioning, it's already taken me like ten hours to do this much.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
you haven't beaten me yet, gymkata, you sorry ass motherfucker
Nnnngh. Hi kids. It's joiless, back in action and mad enough to chew nails. Chew them, swallow them, and excrete them as fucking gold ingots. Wait a second... I need some nails!
Anyway. You might be wondering - why has joiless suddenly reappeared like the Ghost of Comedy Past, packing mad heat and flexing his pecs like he's a handsome boy? Why, to do a movie review/rehash/commentary of course! YOU DIDN'T SEE THAT ONE COMING, DID YOU, MOTHERFUCKER.
The film that we'll be discussing is a cinematic gem from the '80s called GYMKATA. That's gym, as in gymnastics, followed by kata, as in practicing for martial arts. You put the two together and you know what you have? A goddamn mess, if this movie is any indication.
A Fred Weintraub production, GYMKATA stars an actual gymnast - Kurt Thomas - as a gymnast named Jonathan Cabot. Weintraub means "wine grape" in German. It was filmed in Yugoslavia and it basically shows, since this is Yugoslavia circa 1985. Yeeesh.
The film opens with some very ominous music sort of played on an organ or a synthesizer or maybe a cello. It's very bass-heavy and menacing. There's a static shot of some kind of gray line while words materialize around it. I found myself eagerly awaiting the SKILL of gymnastics combined with the KILL of karate. No, I did not make that up. That is from the fucking movie posters because some idiot actually released this thing in theaters.
Okay, it's definitely a synthesizer. It noodles on for a bit while we look at the gray bar thing and try to figure out what it is. The music was composed and conducted by Alfi Kabiljo, and I have no idea who that is, nor do I want to know. Since this movie was directed, filmed and produced in Elbonia, the music sort of warbles and grumbles and threatens to be mostly horrible for the duration of this film. It delivers on this threat, trust me.
One of my favorite parts about this movie is the production designer's name. Veljko DESPOTOVIC. I can only imagine what this guy is like to work for.
Charles Robert Carner, the movie informs, allegedly wrote the so-called "screenplay" for this ass-clencher of a cinematic experience. Nnnnngh. Unsurprisingly, Fred Weintraub produced this Fred Weintraub production, and Robert "I Put The Louse In" Clouse directed it. Now we know who to blame. I don't remember any of these names appearing on any other film, so that's a good sign that they didn't make it out of Destituteslavia alive.
We finally find out what that grey thing is as the movie decides to randomly cut between a guy doing gymnastic stuff on the bar and horses running in a swamp with a heartbeat sound in the background. Then they finally pick a scene to focus on, revealing a horde of horseback riders chasing after a sweaty, ill-kempt fellow in athletic costume while that sort of shitty Stock Villainous Music plays in the background. The music kind of sounds like Conan only lame, and for a second I thought it got stuck in my girlfriend's head, but it was actually her whistling the theme to some cop show. Unfortunately it has gotten stuck in my head.
About this time, a guy appears on screen in a wool vest with a saber strapped to his back, and we get a better look at our obvious villains. They're fucking ninjas. They're wearing black costumes with bright red sashes and they're bad guys in an '80s martial arts film, so they're clearly ninjas. If it weren't for the track pants, running shoes, and sweat-soaked gray t-shirt worn by the fleeing guy, I would assume this scene was from a shitty '80s fantasy movie. It's not.
Fleeing Guy gets to a huge crevasse filled with a roaring river (it sounds a bit like someone holding a microphone kinda close to a drinking fountain that is on) with some kind of cables strung across. He looks down to find... a ninja with a flag. What? Suddenly there's another fucking ninja with a flag behind him, along with a mob of other ninjas, and somehow, orange-pants-and-wool-vest is on the other side of the grotto. I don't know how or where the fuck all the ninjas came from.
Orange-pants-and-wool-vest is a dick, incidentally. He pulls out a bow and an arrow while Fleeing Guy is trying to cross the cables hand-over-hand. He also gives us Fleeing Guy's name - it's "Cabot!" So he's probably related to the hero somehow. (Spoiler: His dad.) OPAWV yells "C'mon Cabot!" with his teeth clenched (impressive that) and Cabot bum-slurs "I'm tryin' to schplain the game back off!" in reply. He is either playing the game or explaining the game, or someone explained the game to him. I don't know which. His teeth were clenched too tight to tell. OPAWV says "And joo beleefed the foool" at him and takes aim with his bow. Dramatic horn things start in on the soundtrack. He promptly shoots Cabot right in the gut with the bow from like two feet away - how the fuck did he get over there so fast? - and he screams and falls to his death. (Spoiler: Not actually to his death.) The movie cuts to a gymnast performing.
Now, here's one of my problems with this movie: inappropriate music. A gymnast is performing a very slow routine on the parallel bars, so the movie supplies a drum-heavy Conan-esque tune in the background. It's very dramatic music for a completely undramatic scene. He finishes his routine and the music goes nuts like he just won the Best Super Hero Prize. (Spoiler: He did not.)
The gymnast - okay, it's fucking Jonathan Cabot - is accosted by some ass in a suit. He's clearly from The Government (look, you can just tell in movies) and he has some kind of job for Cabot. After promising the mumbling Cabot that his training for... something... will make his Olympic training look like fingerpainting, he knocks on the window to gain the attention of some beefy guys outside doing something with wood. He gives them a pretty fruity wave and tells Cabot that these goons, among others, will oversee his super awesome training. I am positive that a montage is imminent. (Spoiler: Stunningly, no.)
Suit: "Any questions?"
Me: "Yes."
Cabot: "None." ~mullet~
Me: "What." ~seethe~
Cabot is shown a photo of a jovial hobo in the SILLIEST FUR HAT OF ALL TIME and is asked if he recognizes him. Apparently he is (judging from Cabot's goddamn mumbling) "the Cod of Par-me-stein," which is Cabotese for "that man is the King of Parmistan" which sounds like a cheese, not a country. Parmistan is a tiny country in the Hindu Kush range, which was hard to make out with Kurt's fucking nasal farblemumble. Part of the fun in this scene is figuring out who the fuck is talking.
Apparently Cabot (who knows a lot about tiny mountain nations in the Hindu Kush for a gymnast) doesn't know who Orange-Pants-And-Wool-Vest is. He's Commander Zamir, whose name is hard to understand when said by the mumbly fucks in this movie. Zamir kind of looks Ramón Rojo from Per un pugno di dollari actually. I don't think they're played by the same guy, but in this picture there's a resemblance.
Okay, they keep calling the king the "Colon" or something, I couldn't really make it out, and I don't know why Suit is asking Cabot who Zamir is like he doesn't know, then tells Cabot who is like he knew all along. What?
Zamir is a viper and Cabot's welfare is of no interest to him, which is something he and I have in common actually. Apparently the United States Gubment wants to put a Star Wars installation in Parmistan. It will save millions of lives or some shit, I didn't really pay all that much attention. In the wrong hands it will kill nations. I don't know how or why, and frankly it doesn't exist yet so I don't know why the latter is relevant.
The Kong? Is the ruler of Parmistan called the Kong? Apparently a radical group wants to open the borders of Parmistan and sell the satellite station (which I guess already exists somehow) to The Other Side. The Other Side is how you said "Godless Communists, Liars And Spies" in '80s action movies. Cabot asks why they don't send in the troops; I am distracted by Cabot's incredibly bloodless lips. Suit says that direct military action is out of style. The correct action is to send in a lone goon, I guess.
Anyone who enters Parmistan has to take part in The Game. The winner gets his life and one request. I assume they don't count the demand for a fucking explanation. Apparently no outsider has won their stupid ass Game in NINE HUNDRED YEARS. This is probably because no one has ever heard of fucking Parmistan, or its idiotic immigration standards. Actually, if we only allowed people into the country who basically won Ninja Warrior, we'd have a lot less trouble with terrorists. We'd also be hella inbred. So is Parmistan.
"You know your father," Suit says, "was hampered by a lack of knowledge about the Game." Evidently he was hampered by NOT KNOWING THEY WILL TRY TO FUCKING KILL YOU WITH ARROWS. Anyway, to inform him on the game they bring in some Asiatic Hottie who is the Princess Rubali of Parmistan. Rubali also sounds like a cheese.
Rubali is an evil cunt. She smiles at our idiot hero, then holds up a rope. She doesn't seem to speak English, so Cabot tries to communicate with her which ends in her tying his hands together, punching him in the dick, bouncing his head off a post, and then karate chopping him in the shoulder. Then she stalks off. "What she is saying is don't trust anyone," says Suit. Mean bitch.
Cue the montage. (Finally!) Unlike most montages, this one has no music! A bold direction to go in, and also, it means that it's gonna be a little bit longer before we have to hear the godawful musical stylings of What's His Name from Losebekistan.
Our hero goes through much training, including a Japanese guy forcing him to walk on his hands up a flight of stairs in tiny blue shorts, hacking wood while an Asian guy with a falcon talks about sounds (could be stair climbing guy) and getting his ass kicked by a huge black guy who knows karate. Highlights include the huge black guy riding on a huge white horse and telling the doggedly jogging gymnast that he has to "out-quick people" and the fact that I had to choke down a need to scream mindlessly at the repeated crotch shots of an inverted man in tiny blue shorts.
Sadly the music comes in when he stops sucking quite as hard and it blows even harder than before. Uuuugh. And this is just the first ten minutes? FUCK.
I need a break. Be right back. Unnnngh, my eyes.
...
Okay.
This goddamn movie. The montage shows us the Asian guy (there's only one I think) whirling around some kama sickles while blindfolded, producing a loud WHOOSH WHOOSH WHISH WHOOSH noise, Cabot finally knocking down the black guy with a stick, and Rubali's fun habit of randomly ambushing Cabot with knives. Mean bitch. Cabot bitches about the evil cunt in his house and that she never speaks (maybe she digs him?) and Suit suggests that he combine a delicate blend of gymnastics and martial arts. Blah. He manages to climb the stairs on his hands, flashing us his red tighties in the process (and an unholy crotch close up as well) and to celebrate, Japanese-san grabs him by the ankles and flails his legs for him. What?
The Princess by the way, has an interesting background: her mom is Indonesian. ...Yeah, that's her entire interesting history according to Suit. That's all he fucking says.
During a "conversation" with the non-speaking Princess, Cabot blends a falsetto voice, sarcasm and actual athletic prowess to mock Rubali. He plays both parts in an imagined civil discourse with her, but rather than just turn to the side or whatever, he performs twisting acrobatic backflips to turn his back on her, then face her, then turn his back on her, and so on. He does this like six times. Nimble little bastard. (By they way, he looks fairly tall in this movie. Do not be fooled. He's 5'5".)
Wait, now they're fucking kissing? Why? Where did that come from? SHE PULLS KNIVES ON YOU, NEVER SPEAKS, AND PUNCHED YOU IN THE DICK FOR NO REAL REASON. Plus she's from Parmistan where they are fucking insane and murderous. What are you doing?
She breaks off the kiss by pulling a switchblade on him. They keep making out though and she throws her switchblade, sticking it in his wall for no reason. Fuck this movie.
Anyway, he's going to some border town on the Caspian Sea, the name of which I can't make out from their GODDAMN MUMBLING, and meet some Colonel Mackal (guessing here) at the salt mine which I guess is his base of operations for Operation: We're Sending A Gymnast We Just Trained To Be A Ninja Instead Of A Special Forces Team. Of course, most of Suit's speech is somewhat wasted on Cabot who is making cow-eyes at the Princess because they OBVIOUSLY JUST FUCKED.
Karabal on the Caspian Sea is the destination by the way. I only know because they put text on the screen to that effect later.
Anyway, Cabot trusts Princess Punchadick Hasaknife to rub his shoulders later which is dumb but nothing else important happens for awhile, I don't think. This part of the film is hard to pay attention to. My brain keeps sliding right off it like it was coated with Teflon. Now for some reason I'm hungry.
More terrible music and adequate acting follows. They call Mackal "the Stork" because... I dunno. The Princess STILL DOESN'T FUCKING TALK. I guess it's because her mother is from Indonesia.
Some salt is shown in ways that is neither interesting nor needed. It doesn't look like a salt mine. It looks like a bunch of guys using hoes to scoop a gigantic mound of white stuff, kind of like snow. I've been in a salt mine. This is not what it looks like. Salt is a goddamn rock.
Rubali's outfit is kind of cool looking at this point. ...I'm fifteen minutes into this movie. GOD DAMN IT.
"As you know, no firearms of any type are allowed in Parmistan." Uh. "Come with a gun, and they'll cut your head off, heheheh." I'd like to interrupt the Stork for a moment to ask why you don't just shoot these people? Also, apparently the handaxe provided for our gymnast/ninja is made of a "modern alloy" that allows a slender man in his forties to cleave through what I think they want us to believe is a bar of steel, like it was soft cheese. Uh, sure. They also provided him with a knife which shoots blades up to twenty feet with a spring-loaded action. The Princess shoots the wall with it for no real reason. THEN SHE FINALLY FUCKING SPEAKS. "Nice piece of work!" she says with approval. (No one comments on this. I assume she spoke in the bedroom.) The only way into Parmistan is by pack mule and then raft because it is a backwards ass country in the middle of nowhere. (You will never see that knife again, and the hatchet is not even carried by the hero at any point. Essentially, this scene is completely pointless. Fuck this movie.)
A nice stock shot of Istanbul (which is Constantinople) follows, then they go to an impossibly messy and crowded market which I guess sells uh... cloth... and is populated by amazingly stereotypical fez-wearing merchants. Uuuugh. This scene goes on too long. Rubali smiles a lot. Apparently getting her field plowed by a gymnast was enough to defrost her evil cunt, but frankly I'm not convinced that she isn't going to stab him in the nutsack later.
Then a random guy in a turban wanders up and says to Cabot "You are Americans?" Cabot answers in the affirmative, so the fat fucker suddenly smacks him in the gob and says, amazingly, "Yahnkiz! Gome!" They restrain Cabot from beating this guy's ass for some reason while the little bastard flees into the crowd, pleased with himself for having punched an American and not been bombed into the Stone Age, which in this country was last week.
"There's just a little anti-American sentiment going around," says Tan Suit, and then a fucking arrow hits him right in the lung. What?
Cabot sprints off after the archer who somehow shot around a corner through a crowd, and gets into a short brawl with a few guys, using the maximum number of unnecessary gymnastic moves for the scene. There is really no reason for him to do flips and round-offs and shit, except that the movie has a goddamn gimmick to appease. He returns to his companions, only to find the market is suddenly COMPLETELY FUCKING EMPTY, and the arrowed guy is dripping red NyQuil from his middle finger, and Beard (the other guy they were with) has been murdered to death and left with the amazing Steel Slicing Modern Alloy Handaxe. I don't know if it's the same axe but it is the same prop. Rubali is gone.
And that's another ten minutes of stupid fucking movie. Time for another break.
...
After asking the Stork repeatedly where Rubali is, he finally gets the gawky bastard to spill the beans and tell him where she is. This is one of the few scenes in which one sees how short our hero actually is.
He goes to the place she's at, but is confounded by a rickety locked door and is pursued by Goons In Ugly Hats, who he bravely runs away from. Finding a random metal bar across a narrow alley, he quickly ascends and kicks all of his pursuers in the face with his spinning gymnastics skills. He also punts a random civilian on a bike in the lip, so, you know, he's a dick. However, I think the random civilian might have been played by Yankee Go Home, but I'm not sure.
The movie's first gun appears, a folding stock AK-47 sitting on a desk while the Princess is interrogated. Incidentally, Rubali can kick a lot of ass of her own when she gets the opportunity, but it's not even 30 minutes this movie. She may develop Female Crisis Syndrome later in the film. Several guns follow, along with general villainous ineptitude in their use. So does a kind of stupid fight, and two of the most hilarious stock screams ever as Cabot more or less gymkatas a couple assholes to their second story demise. Cabot and Rubali heroically flee into the streets of Not Cairo. At one point, gunfire from a M3A1 "grease gun" submachine gun throws sparks off a wooden pallet and what appears to be a grayish paper bag. Interesting paper products they have in Not Istanbul. Must be similar technology to the On Demand Superhuman Strength Modern Alloy. After ducking and dodging the goons through the streets, with plenty of opportunities to stand in front of convenient glass bottles so that they can be exploded by gunfire, one goon is killed by the police (what?!) and the others wreck their ride in a typically hilarious car-flipping '80s fashion.
Returning to the Stork, they are greeted with a pistol handed with excellent gun safety (finger on the trigger, damn near shoved in Cabot's gut at the door) but are quickly let in. There's some semi-intelligible conversation indicating that Cabot is suspicious since the goons at the mansion were on alert (he walked up and rattled the fucking door twice - cos that's not going to get anyone's attention) and the gear hasn't been packed. Stork whips out a gun, announcing that he thinks this is a shame. It turns out to be one too, since Suit hoses him down with the same AK47 prop that jammed at the bad guy hangout. He shoots a few other guys that run in, and announces they'll be leaving in the morning. When he arrived, how he knew what was going on, or how he got into the salt mine is not discussed at any point.
For those keeping track, gymkata has resulted in the deaths of two bad guys thus far. Most have been shot. Only one by the hero. Huh.
In the morning, the World's Loudest Train of Mules CLIP-CLOP-CLATTER-CLOP-FUCKING-CLOPs their way down the river, and then our hero and Rubali go white water rafting into the mountain nation of Parmistan, which still sounds like a cheese. They recycle the same clip of them going over a specific hydraulic a few times, and sped up to boot. They fast-forward this clip to just shy of Keystone Kops territory, in fact. Yeesh.
Nigh unto thirty minutes into the film, the goddamn ninjas show up again, on horseback. The music starts up the cheesy Bad Guys Comin' leitmotif. With thirty minutes of my life gone, I'm going to go take an antacid real quick.
...
Well, I don't feel much better but then again, this goddamn movie isn't over yet. By the way, most people attempting to do something sneaky - like, say, gain entry into a dangerous country where one is forced at arrow-point to participate in psychotic footraces - one typically attempts to wear some kind of camouflage. Not Cabot. He wears a bright fucking red sweater and has been wearing it since he arrived in Not Constantinople Either, with a bright orange life preserver over that in his bright orange raft. I guess stealth was not a priority until they landed, when he actually strips the sweater off in favor of a black long sleeve shirt under it. Guess it's cold on the Caspian Sea.
The ninjas attack once they've landed, one marching forward to try and puncture the raft with his knife. A fight ensues which is like... twelve on one or something, I'm not going to try and count how many identical hooded bad guys are on the damn screen at once. The flips and tumbles of this insane marriage of martial arts and sports seems to serve something of a purpose: it confuses the fuck out of people you're fighting. He actually kicks the shit out of them, except for ninja who is standing around apparently tending to the horses. I think he is the one who walks up behind Cabot in mid-kung-fuing and hits him over the head with a bat. The screen actually goes black at the instant of impact.
Cabot wakes up in some dire-ass looking castle, being nursed to health by a character I call Mannish Thing. Essentially a dog-ugly woman with black circles drawn around her eyes and her teeth blacked out, she attempts to tend to touch Cabot repeatedly while staring at him with the wild-eyed, massive grinned insouciance that only an IQ in the 40-50 range can provide. However, Cabot's questioning is answered by a guy he's apparently too stupid to recognize as fucking Commander Zamir, adviser to the Kon- OH. They're saying Khan! The king is a khan! Fuck, that means I have to make a Star Trek II joke at some point, I guess.
Apparently the Khan will be explaining the fucking Game to our headachey hero. I guess that's who Clench-Teeth Cabot was talking about earlier in the movie - the Khan explained the Game to him. In other words we may ACTUALLY GET TO THE GODDAMN GAME AT SOME POINT IN THIS FUCKING MOVIE.
Cabot gives in to Mannish Thing's need to pet him or whatever and I closed my eyes for a second. Buzz, your girlfriend - woof!
So we cut to the Khan of Hobos explaining the various stages of the Game to the group of athletes who for whatever reason have traveled all the way to this dirt poor backward medieval country to fight for the right to live and to get one wish granted. These people are seriously living in their own filth here. Other than the missile satellite laser mission thing, what the fuck could they possibly have you'd want? Er, I guess money. There's gotta be an easier way to make a living than this.
The ninjas-with-flags are explained as judges who will show the way if the guys running get lost. Of special note on this course is two things:
1. The Village of the Damned. This is where the notion that these people live in absolute squalor arises, but I don't see much else to recommend this country.
2. The gorge where Clench-Teeth got took the fuck out (Spoiler: He didn't actually.) is the second obstacle. In other words, he sucked.
Oh yeah, if you try to skip an obstacle you will be instantly killed. I assume by orbital strike.
Oh God, the royal hat. What the fuck is that thing on his head. Anyway, three convicted criminals are allowed to play The Game to avoid being executed. The people think this is fucking awesome. The majority of the people of Parmistan have no goddamn teeth so you know, simple pleasures and all that. Once the players take off, the CHILDREN OF PARIMSTAN may join the hunt. I assume this means the various maimed, toothless, psychotic freaks in the crowd. Delightful. Also, Zamir says "be silence" instead of "be silent."
The armed crowd swarms after the criminals and then players ride out on horseback, so this seems to be off to a fair start.
Klan ninjas on foot and on horseback pursue the criminals through a cornfield. You can guess how this ends. The first to die is staggering and begging the mounted players for help then is promptly skewered in the back with a monk's spade (that's a polearm) and left to rot. Criminals 2 & 3 make it to the rope climb and start up. Two is shot in the back with an arrow because he didn't climb fast enough to get out of this piece of shit movie. However, Zamir orders the archer shot with an arrow too for breaking the rules. Fair's fair and all that. What a bloody awful little country.
Criminal 3 makes it to the gorge and starts scrambling across, with a ninja in pursuit. For whatever reason the players have to follow along on horseback and watch for instructional purposes. At this point I started wishing the fucking movie would end already.
Criminal 3 buys it when a ninja manages to sit upright on a rope and fire his goddamn bow and arrow while hanging in midair. This results in a really, really fake looking arrow injury - with the arrow very clearly just sticking out of C3's shirt - and then he plummets (or rather, a dummy plummets) to the bottom of the grotto in fast motion accompanied by a chillingly stupid scream. When he lands it makes a KERTHUD noise that sounds like it came from a Wile E. Coyote cartoon. Terrific.
Well, after watching that senseless little bit of homicide, they go back and rejoin the pre-Game banquet. I'd rather not speak about it too much. The people of Parmistan are fucking hideous.
There's a scene where ninjas on horseback fight with butterfly nets. I don't fucking know why, okay?
I think Jackie Chan puts on an appearance in this scene doing jump kicks against cymbals. I wish I were making that up but it really looks like him. I could be wrong. I was somewhat distracted by the fear that watching this movie with my laptop in my actual lap would give me testicular cancer. Rupali reappears, sitting next to Zamir who is showing off his pecs in his 1970s Player bathrobe, unlike the weird Gay Jedi robe they gave Cabot.
To my complete joy, the Khan talks some fucking more about how awesome it is that these poor bastards will most likely be shot with arrows tomorrow. Then they engage in the national cheer of "YATMAH!" which I assume is like "Yahtzee" and translates from Parmistanish as "fuckin' right, mate!" Cabot asks the Kong about his father, who was apparently a colonel. The Khan tells him that he was a superb athlete and totally belonged at the winner's banquet, except that he didn't win. This means he died. (Spoiler: No he didn't.)
Please remember that the superb athlete made it to the second obstacle, and that this game is about murdering people, just so as we're clear about how fucked up this country is.
Blah blah blah, applause. Cabot learns from a more astute competitor that Parmistan sends all of their criminally insane people to one fucking village. They are "a bunch of goddamn cannibals." Cabot seems to find this awesome. We'll look into their apparent insanity shortly.
Also: you can't fucking intimidate people by biting into an apple really enthusiastically.
The Khan likes to stand up and randomly say that he would like to do things. He announces the wedding of the Princess tomorrow following the Game. If you haven't guessed in the last two seconds that she's marrying Zamir, you probably aren't paying attention whenever I say that this movie is a piece of '80s flotsam. The Khan points it out for us anyway. This movie never ends.
The Khan, incidentally, is a jovial fucking idiot, and the howling mob of inbred retards that he leads would cheer if he stood up and said "I would like to shove Zamir's head into my asshole! Wabba wabba wabba wabba!" Just keep that in mind for later.
I'll finish this review later on, I can't take a fourth viewing of this piece of shit right now. It's exhausting. With my computer malfunctioning, it's already taken me like ten hours to do this much.
Forget You Ever Saw Me,
you haven't beaten me yet, gymkata, you sorry ass motherfucker