"There are many sounds around us, each is slightly different. So small as to go un-noticed by the person who is unaware. Do not hear the wood split. Hear the only sound of axe, cutting air. Read the air itself. It has much say to you." - trainer
"Death becomes you." - Zamir
"I know, but the games are tomorrow. Put your hardware back in your pants." - Cabot
My buddy Raf gave me a copy of this flick to review over a year ago I think. Its been sitting in my bag just waiting, patiently getting ready to BLOW MY MIND. A movie with a plot that's very close to the same idea as ENTER THE DRAGON, we have real life olympic gold medalist in gymnastics Kurt Thomas playing Jonathan Cabot- a dude who invents a "new way to fight" against some baddies after being hired by the government to hook them up. This movie is pure shit, but pure enjoyment. I laughed out loud so many times with my pop watching this. Now, I love a good ninja movie, but this really isn't good or a ninja movie, but what it is, is bad and awesome. Set in the very racist sounding made up country of Parmistan, I bring to you GYMKATA!!!
The film actually starts out with Jonathan Cabot's dad Colonel Cabot running from some men on horseback. This footage is interspersed with images of Jonathan doing his gymnastics on the bar thing. It shows his dad being run down by this mustachioed creep named Zamir. When Col Cabot tries to cross this ravine by rope, Zamir shoots him with an arrow and Cabot falls seemingly to his death. Next scene we have J Cabot winning some medal and then being whisked off by some suit. The suit is from the SIA (special intelligence agency). They want him to go in and win this "game" in this crazy country called Parmistan ran by this king with a super hot daughter. If he wins, they win a favor, and the favor they'll ask is to build a "Star Wars"/ "HAARP" type facility in there to fuck over the Russians. This was some heavy shit in the 80s. So they bring in 3 trainers, an eastern trainer, a western guy, and the princess herself. Very quickly Johnathan falls for the princess. She is a bitch to him for about 10 minutes, then they bang.
One of the funniest things in the movie is the SIA dude sees that Cabot isn't paying him any attention & is only making eyes at the princess. So the dude asks him, "Cabot, do you even know the city you're going to?", to which he replies, "yes, we're going to Carabal, on the Caspian Sea." The very next scene shows a port city from the water and a caption comes up at the bottom that reads: CARABAL, ON THE CASPIAN SEA. Hahaha! It didn't say: Carabal, Parmistan, or Turkmenistan, or wherever, it just repeated him. I absolutely CAN'T tell if this was meant to be funny or is just unintentionally hilarious. Just now, rereading what I wrote, it doesn't seem very funny, but you haven't seen it, so fuck you. Anyway, he goes to meet the contact, the princess is kidnapped, he rescues her and realizes that the contact is double-crossing him but the SIA guy jumps out and blasts the bad guys and saves the day.
So they finally make it to Parmistan & Jonathan is knocked out by some DEVO ninjas. They are ninjas with what looks like red DEVO hats (energy domes) on. He wakes up, is introduced to Zamir, has dinner, watches some inmates attempt the game only to die, has dinner with the other contestants, and then sneaks out to meet the princess after it is revealed that she is to marry Zamir at the conclusion of the game. Zamir is getting hot, he and Cabot have some very heated scenes together where the tension is thick. While out with the princess, Cabot learns that Zamir is trying to overthrow her father and if no one wins he'll sell the land or whatever to the US's enemy (Russia).
So the game starts, and Cabot's hero Thorg is playing too, but Thorg doesn't give a shit about Cabot and trips him at the start of the race. Already behind, shit gets even more dire for Cabot when Zamir defies the king and splits to give chase and kill Cabot before the king says he can leave. This finally makes the king suspicious and makes the princess plead for her father to realize that Zamir is bad and he's been duped. Cabot makes it through the cornfields, up the mountain, across the ravine and then further than anyone else. The only other contestant to not be killed is his Asian(?) buddy and Thorg. Thorg jumps out and tries to kill him, but one of the ninjas shoots an arrow through his chest. Cabot goes to the next part: a city of insane people. This scene lasts a good ten minutes of him just running from crazy people and Thorg making a return. The crazies kill Thorg, and they almost get Cabot, he starts tripping, but at the last minute a ninja helps him climb out. The ninja turns out to be ****************SPOILER ALERT************** his dad! So then 2 minutes later Zamir shoots another arrow through Col Cabot's back!!! That dude has NO LUCK! So then Jonathan takes off, ending up fighting a last battle with Zamir. He uses a special technique called GYMKATA to kick Zamir's ass. Then he rushes home to bang his princess. End of story? Not quite! In the prologue caption, we learn that in 1985 the US is the first country to install a HAARP system that probably controls most humans, the weather, satellite spying systems, probably causes cancer and basically everything that Tesla said it would do. So basically Jonathan Cabot helped screw up the world. But at least he screwed it up in the best way possible. The American way. Viva GYMKATA!!!!
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