a_chinn From the producer and director of Bruce Lee's seminal martial arts film "Enter the Dragon" comes this martial arts low-point that decided a deadly combination of gymnastics and karate was the formula for a brilliant new action film. US Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas travels to a mysterious fictional European country to complete in a deadly tournament that's a mix of Han's martial arts tournament in "Enter the Dragon" and the plot from "The Most Dangerous Game." Overall, this film is a mess, but it's so awful that's it's absolutely hilarious. The way Thomas manages to find high bars and pommel horses in the most unexpected of places is comic gold. Only watch this film for ironic camp value and look somewhere else if you want good fight sequences. Kung-fu film mainstay Richard Norton also appears as the lead henchman.

wes-connors Handsome, muscular Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas (as Jonathan Cabot) does a routine on the high bar. Meanwhile, a man dressed like he's escaped from a modern hospital runs from horsemen who appear to be from medieval times. The running man is hit by an arrow while Mr. Thomas does a routine on the parallel bars. Believe it or not, the modern Thomas exists in the same time period as the characters in the chase scene. The story takes place in the present, but it moves to a faraway land. Thomas is recruited to go to this "Most Dangerous Game" land and win a contest. He is given an extraordinarily beautiful female partner, Tetchie Agbayani (as Princess Rubali). Thomas flips for her and everyone else..."Gymkata" is meant to combine Thomas's "Gymnastics" with "Karate" as a martial arts sub-genre movie. Thomas and his co-star are very attractive. The emphasis is on action, but the story is very weak. Most of the story involves Thomas being given contrived situations in which to show off his gymnastic feats...The most absurd sequence occurs after the first hour...Thomas is in what appears to be a crumbling old village. Mysterious clocked figures appear in windows and doorways. One male beckons Thomas and shows his firm, naked buttocks. Thomas declines the encounter, which may have been telegraphed by the gymnast's coolness, in an earlier scene, toward a fawning gay attendant. Thomas makes his way to a town center, finds a pummel horse and begins gymnastically taking down people. The crumbling town citizens look like they wandered in from a film hybrid directed by the love child of Frederico Fellini and George Romano. For these approximately 20 minutes, "Gymkata" director Robert Clouse makes this otherwise boring film quite visually arresting...******* Gymkata (5/3/1985) Robert Clouse ~ Kurt Thomas (the bizarre, approximately 20-mintute old town section) **** Gymkata (5/3/1985) Robert Clouse ~ Kurt Thomas, Tetchie Agbayani, Richard Norton, Edward Bell (whole film)

jessegehrig Did you know you can combine gymnastics with karate? Yeah you can totally do this, you would be surprised what stuff you can combine, like you can combine ammonia and chlorine then breathe deep! This movie is about biological organisms on an alien world who must find a cure for something, or this movie is about an Olympic gymnast who must learn karate to compete in a martial arts fun-run so as to win that fun-run thus assuring the United States of America lucrative real estate for the building of future I.C.B.M. launch silos, y'know cause that sounds patriotic and normal. There is a bad-guy in this movie he wears a vest and no shirt, yeah, on purpose, and it looks cold at the location where this movie was filmed. A Slavic country I suspect.

FlashCallahan Seeing as this movie was released around the same time as American ninja and the ninja was a big thing at this point in cinema life (much like zombies now), I thought Gymkata maybe some random, throwaway movie that would pass ninety minutes easily.It starts of quite good, like some Hard Target style film. There are some ninjas standing around not doing much, and Richard Norton has a lovely mullet, and that's about as good as the film gets.Yes, the main guy may be a fantastic gymnast, but he cannot act, and some of his line deliveries are laughable, on the verge of parody.Whatever the film was about, I really lost interest after the scene where he kept doing back flips to impress some pseudo princess who has to marry Richard Norton. The fight scenes are lethargic, which is odd considering it's integrated with gymnastics, and at one point, there is a village and everyone appears to be literally mental.Dull, and not even worth it for the camp, eighties factor.