Cheap Gymkata (Video) (Robert Clouse) Price

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Customer Reviews of Gymkata

Unintentionally hysterical
Kurt Thomas as a gymnast turned lethal martial artist? Only in Hollywood! The idea only works if every time Thomas gets into a fight there just happens to be a piece of gymnastic equipment nearby (parallel bars, pommel horse, etc.) and of course the bad guys attack one at a time, but I guess that's just a martial arts movie tradition. The acting is brutal, the plot could've been thought up by a ten year-old, and there's a village of insane killers. Put it all together and it all adds up to a hilarious movie.

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Gymkata- 80's Cult Classic
GYMKATA starring gymnast Kurt is not the best action-adventure film, and Kurt Thomas isn't the greatest actor in the world, but the last half hour of the film is worth its weight in gold. A small third world nation, Parmistan, teetering on the edge of going towards communism, stages an athletic contest to see which country would best represent their presence there. Kurt Thomas as Jonathan Cabot is chosen to represent the U.S. in the contest. It is a deadly obstacle course in which in which the natural elements as well as human intervention are the obstacles. Kurt Thomas' athletic gymnastic abilities are the highpoint of the film in which gymnastics and martial arts are fused together as a form of self defense ...hence the name "gymkata". The style is reminiscent of comic book super hero fighting and Kurt Thomas pulls it off convincingly. The film is a little slow in te beginning trying to establish the characters, the situation in Parmistan, as well as a tiny romance between the Jonathan Cabot (Thomas) and Princess Rubali (Tetchie Agbayani). However, the meat of the film is when the deadly contest/obstacle course starts. The climax and best part of the film is at the end of the obstacle course athletes must go through a strange village filled with violent, psychopathic peasants bent on killing any stranger who comes through the village. They swarm towards their prey like zombies with pitchforks, hatchets, and other farm handtools. This is when Kurt Thomas turns on his gymkata fighting skills and it is a very tense and exciting piece of film making. Overall, an entertaining film made at the time when martial arts films were at a decline.

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Classic Crud
When I was growing up, it seemed like every other movie on cable television was either called Iron Eagle or Gymkata. I had no use for Iron Eagle. Sorry. Gymkata, however, was a altogether different story. I must have seen this movie a few hundred times between grades 10-12--generally at three in the morning, stumbling in, stumbling out--less of a choice, more of a compromise. As if the pay channels didn't milk the Gymkata cash cow dry, local stations decided to make it their duty to keep it in heavy rotation on a weekly basis. The only movie that came close in its domination of b-string broadcasting was the 1972 classic, Gargoyles. But I digress. Gymkata is about a martial artist (Kurt Thomas) who loses his military papa (Eric Lawson). He goes to a small fictional nation that encompasses every cliché relating to villains from the 1980's. There's intrigue, a great feast, and more intrigue. There's an exotic princess who, to this day, still looks pretty good. The best part of the movie is the game of death--mostly because there isn't a great deal of dialog. As other reviews have mentioned, the asylum/village has some classic moments (the cackling woman comes to mind). Long story short, an olympic wannabe offers up a textbook example of why his acting career went nowhere. Of course, who am I to judge? I have yet to make a single movie about ninjas or good cops gone bad.

One last question: Why isn't this movie on DVD?