Gymkata (1985)

It’s time to bring back the movies’ deadliest and fakest martial art.

“The Skill of Gymnastics! The Kill of Karate!”

The 1980s were a manly time for motion pictures; an age when movies about muscular men with speech impediments signaled an end to the agonizing introspection of the Post-Vietnam era. In the oeuvre of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, we saw the birth of a new breed of hero, a brawny man untroubled by malaise or moral relativism; a modern legend, with the physical strength and spiritual purity of a Hercules, and the accent of a shoemaking dwarf from the Black Forest.

And yet, for every Stallone or Schwarzenegger, there was also a Kurt Thomas, or a Barry (Megaforce) Bostwick: fey and elfin heroes who fiercely bitch-slapped their enemies on behalf of the American way. Judging by the action movies of the 1980s, it wasn’t only testosterone and body grease that brought down the Berlin Wall—it was dance belts and bilevel haircuts, too, as can be seen in the following, quintessentially ’80s action flick.

Gymkata (1985)
Directed by: Robert Clouse¹
Written by: Charles Robert Carner, Dan Tyler Moore (novel)

This movie was based on a book, The Terrible Game, and probably the filmmakers’ worst misstep was changing the title to Gymkata. Not to say that The Terrible Game isn’t a lousy title in itself, but we would have opted for a more modest adjustment, and called it simply, The Terrible Movie. (Actually, saying this cheeseball of a script was based on a novel is like saying that Count Chocula cereal is based on Le Fanu’s Carmilla.)

The Terrible Game is actually The Most Dangerous Game, as designed by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness. It requires the player to run around and climb a rope, and we’re told that only a select few people in the world can meet this grueling challenge: either world-class gymnasts, like American champion Kurt Thomas, or 11-year olds who’ve passed sixth grade gym.

The movie opens with an angry white man—Kurt’s dad, who’s apparently playing on the Terrible Game Senior Tour—attempting to cross the rope bridge at Camp Snoopy. Richard Norton (who we know is evil because he’s wearing Sonny Bono’s sheepskin vest from Wild on the Beach) shoots an arrow into Kurt’s dad, who falls to his death.

Cut to the United States, where the Olympic Games are being held in a high school auditorium. American champion Kurt Thomas dismounts the parallel bars, and is immediately recruited by the CIA to play The Game, which is held in Parmistan, a mountain kingdom ruled by “the Khan.” Kurt will be secretly trained by Princess Ruballi, the Khan’s daughter, and even though she spends the first half of the film attempting to do grievous harm to his groin (knee it, stab it, rope-burn it, etc.), Ruballi eventually becomes Kurt’s love interest, because she’s the only person in the film who’s shorter than he is.

I believe her performance.

I’m skeptical about his.

Kurt and the Princess white-water raft into Parmistan, where they’re promptly attacked by Himalayan ninjas who object to Kurt’s mullet. Dressed in black Dr. Dentons and black Ku Klux Klan hoods, topped off with those red plastic hats from Devo’s “Whip It!” video, they present a fearsome sight. Hopelessly outnumbered, Kurt unleashes the secret martial art of Gymkata, and manages to overcome his assailants using the deadly power of Mary Lou Retton’s compulsory floor routine from the ’84 Olympics.

Once in the capital, Kurt and the other competitors meet the Khan, who, judging by his toupee, is a charter member of The Davy Crockett Hair Club for Men, and who explains the rules of “The Game.” Basically, you run around and climb on various pieces of playground equipment until someone shoots you with an arrow. If Kurt wins, the U.S. will be allowed to build a “Star Wars” satellite tracking station in Parmistan. If Kurt loses, he will be executed in the traditional way: shot with an arrow while playing the “Smack the Mole” game at a Chuck E. Cheese.

The next morning, the Khan announces that Sheepskin will wed Princess Ruballi after the game, with a reception to follow at Medieval Times restaurant. The peasants respond by saying “Yock-mallah!” in unison, and listlessly waving some giant candy canes. Then the competitors are off and running.

Amazingly, Kurt makes it across the rope bridge without getting shot by an arrow, and enters “The Village of the Damned,” a planned community for the criminally insane. No one has ever escaped alive from this blood-soaked bedlam, and it is soon apparent why. In short order, Kurt is attacked by a man with a sickle, beaten to a pulp by a pack of Italian grandmothers, and mooned. Finally, the entire populace converges on Kurt, shrieking and waving various farm implements as they surround him in the village square. Fortunately, next to the communal well is the communal pommel horse. Leaping onto it, Kurt manages to kill the axe-wielding maniacs with a quick and deadly series of Magyar and Sivado cross-travel variations. The surviving villagers give Kurt a 9.2.

The crazed peasants chase Kurt into a blind alley, forcing him to climb a sheer wall, but he’s too much of a puss to reach the top. Surprisingly, one of the Himalayan ninjas reaches down and pulls Kurt to safety. He then peels off the black mask and reveals that he’s really…Kurt’s dad! It turns out that he wasn’t killed in the fall, just maimed. Their tearful reunion is interrupted when Sheepskin shoots Kurt’s dad with an arrow again. Springing into action, Kurt heroically jumps on a horse and rides away.

Sheepskin catches up to our fleeing hero and gives him a well-deserved thrashing. But Kurt cleverly goes into “rope-a-dope,” outlasting his opponent until they get to the page in the script where it says he wins. Sheepskin takes a dive, and Kurt proudly rides back into town with Dad, who’s been maimed some more, but is otherwise fine. Now, at last, everyone knows the truth: Sheepskin is a traitor, and Kurt’s dad is Rasputin.

Oh, and Kurt won The Game, all right. But if you ask me, he won ugly.

So what lessons about being a hero should you take from the film? Well, here are a few, courtesy of myth-master Joseph Campbell:

1. The mythic hero is an everyman who receives a call to adventure while living his everyday life. Gymnast Kurt was minding his own business, competing in the Olympics at the local high school, when the CIA asked him to go on a mission having profound national security implications. Likewise, someday you might be going about your daily routine (i.e., eating a Hungry Man dinner while watching a King of Queens rerun), and the CIA might ring the doorbell and ask you to defuse the atomic weapon housed over at Burt’s Feed ’n Seed. That’s how these things work.

2. As he proceeds on his journey, the hero will meet a mentor who will teach him what he needs to know to complete his quest. Kurt’s mentor was Princess Ruballi. Luke Skywalker’s was Yoda. The similarities are clear—Yoda was the only person in Star Wars shorter than Luke, and so their romance was also inevitable. The lesson you should take from this is: pick your mentor with care, since this relationship might get closer than you intend, and you could find your quest interrupted by a reach-around from a Muppet.

3. The hero will eventually reconcile with his father—even if his father is dead. So, if you suspect you’re a mythic hero and you have unfinished business with Dad, you should constantly be on the lookout for ghosts, zombies, and children or pets who might be your reincarnated progenitor. In the Western literary canon there are two principal works which scholars believe most fully realize this theme: Hamlet and My Mother the Car.

4. At his journey’s end, the hero obtains a boon for humanity. Gilgamesh brought an understanding of mortality to his people (thanks, Gil). Luke brought freedom to the Galaxy. Kurt got us a satellite-tracking base, a crappy electroplated trophy, and his own My Size member of Himalayan royalty.

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1. Clouse is fortunately better remembered by martial arts film fans for directing Enter the Dragon in 1973, while fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 may recall his work on the 1984 TV series The Master, riffed on the show as Master Ninja. And then he directed this thing. I mean, it’s a living, right?