Don't Get Me Another... Gymkata

Yakmalaaaa! Join us for GYMKATA (1985), a martial arts movie about a gymnast who plays a deadly game to secure a “Star Wars” earth station for the U.S.A.

It stars Olympic gymnast Kurt Thomas, and is directed by Robert Clouse (Enter the Dragon) from a screenplay by Charles Robert Carner (Blind Fury).

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
you
Hello and welcome to a special bonus episode of Get Me Another.
Usually, we are a podcast that explores movies that followed in the wake of blockbusterhits and attempted to replicate their success.

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But not today.
Today is the next in our series of Don't Get Me Another bonus episodes.
My name is Chris Ayanakone and with me are my co-hosts Rob Lemorgas.
Chris, this episode is gonna make the rest of the podcast look like finger painting.

(00:44):
It is true.
You're right.
You're right.
And Justin Bieber
Chris, I do need to let you know that Get Me Another has been placed in Marmistan for theUS Star Wars Defense Program.
Home of the chicken parm, it must be.
What the?
We need to update it from Star Wars to Golden Dome now.

(01:06):
right?
That's what the new one is.
believe of all the fucking things to reboot, they're rebooting Star Wars.
It's the Force Awakens of military industrial complex.
Jar Jar Trump.
Oh, good God.
So in our Don't Get Me Another bonus episodes, rather than talking about a blockbuster orthe movies that followed it, we discuss a film that may have missed the mark in terms of

(01:36):
commercial success.
A movie that might have been a trendsetter if things had gone a little differently.
So today, we'll be discussing a film celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
Originally released in 1985, this is...
Don't get me another Jim Cotta!

(01:56):
His name?
Kurt Thomas.
His title?
Three-time world gymnastics champion.
His assignment?
A secret mission for the United States government.
His only weapon?
Himself.
And that's all he needs.

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Combine the discipline, the timing, and the power of gymnastics with the explosive forceof karate.
And a new, all-powerful martial art is born.
Gymkhata.
Kirk Thomas becomes Jonathan Cabot.
oh He must penetrate a mountain fortress to compete in an ancient savage ritual.

(02:47):
They call it
the game.
But nobody wins.
And nobody lives.
Until now.
When gymnastics and karate are fused, the combustion becomes an explosion and a new kindof martial arts superhero is born.

(03:11):
Jim Cotter.
uh
you
So now all of us here at Get Me Another are old enough to have first-hand knowledge of the1980s, but for those out there who might not, let me assure you that two of the coolest

(03:35):
things in 1985 were martial arts and gymnastics.
Martial arts and the films about martial arts.
I'm sorry, we're breaking.
Martial arts and the films about them had been gaining popularity in America since the1973 release of the Bruce Lee classic, Enter the Dragon.

(04:01):
And in 1984, the karate kid brought martial arts to an even wider audience, maybe itswidest audience yet.
the entire valley
entire San Fernando Valley.
It hit the whole valley.
Yes.
Hey, I live right around the corner from the South Sea apartment complex.

(04:22):
Lucky
But also, also big, in 1984, the Summer Olympics were in Los Angeles and it saw the U.S.
Gymnastics team win five gold medals, including one for the men's team all aroundcompetition and Mary Lou Retton's inspiring performance in the women's individual all

(04:42):
around.
So naturally, in 1985, Hollywood put martial arts and gymnastics together in Gym Kata.
And guys,
Do these two great tastes taste great together?
No.

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Jibkata is loosely based on a 1957 novel entitled The Terrible Game by Dan Tyler Moore whowas a real-life American intelligence officer who worked for the OSS during World War II.
The novel tells the story of Jonathan Burr who parachutes into the land of Buranulke whereoutsiders are forced to play a terrible game called Ot.

(05:30):
as he attempts to establish an, I quote, atomic howitzer base in the country.
The novel was optioned by producer Jack H.
Harris in 1960 as a vehicle for Rock Hudson.
And the project changed hands a number of times over the next 20 years, some versionstitled The Terrible Game of Aught and some simply The Terrible Game.

(05:55):
until the project landed with producer Fred Weintraub in 1982 as a Golden Harvestproduction starring Christopher Atkins of the Blue Lagoon.
That makes so much sense because in some ways this feels like it should be a doublefeature with another golden harvest movie.
What I'm talking about.

(06:15):
Honestly, feels right at home as a triple bill with high road to China and mega force.
It's right in between and it feels like one of Golden Harvest's American productions.
except not at the same standard because it's not a Golden Harvest movie, right?
Right.
You do you do feel it.

(06:35):
You do feel it.
By 1984, Golden Harvest was out and the film was retitled Jim Cotta.
Instead of Christopher Atkins, the star of Jim Cotta would ultimately be Kurt Thomas.
Now, a word about Kurt Thomas, because this guy was the real deal in terms of gymnastics.
He was a 13-time All-American.

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He won gold, silver, and bronze medals at the Pan-American Games.
He was the first American man
to win a gold medal at the World Championships in 1978.
The following year, he dominated the World Championships with six medals, a record thathas only been equaled since by Simone Biles.

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This guy has three gymnastics moves named for him.
And unfortunately, Thomas missed his chance at Olympic gold when the Soviet Union invadedAfghanistan in 1979.
prompting the US boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
All of that said, Jim Carter was his first acting role.

(07:38):
Yeah.
And I'm shocked.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's, I mean, clearly they were trying, they wanted to replicate what had hadhappened with Bruce Lee and that, you know, they brought in director Robert Klaus who did
enter the dragon to basically build this vehicle around Kurt Thomas.

(08:00):
But whereas Bruce Lee has just, it just incredible charisma and screen presence.
Kurt Thomas, he's great at the physical stuff.
My God, he could do things that would literally kill me.
Like I would die trying to do some of these things.
But man, he's just not an actor, my goodness.

(08:21):
He's a charisma vacuum.
Yeah, like he sucks in charisma for other people who might have it.
It's amazing.
It's honestly, it's quite a feat.
So the film is built to showcase his gymnastic skills, which again, unquestionable, butthe movie attempts to combine those skills with martial arts.
So hence we have Gymkhana, which I will admit sounds like it could be a real thing.

(08:49):
Like that sounds real.
Like, Gymkhana, that could be a
When I was watching and researching and stuff, I thought wasn't there a fragrance calledJim Cotta But there wasn't what I was thinking of is Jim Canna G Y K H A N A which is a

(09:11):
fresh and energetic light yet deep and complex perfume
That might have been a description of the movie itself.
I mean, it's not, but-
been complex.
think that this episode Chris could probably be about four minutes long.
It can't because there's there's there is some strange and deep stuff where it's buried atthe core of this of this other I have I have thoughts on it.

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Lead the way,
You
Whenever I say Jim Cotta, I think I just say it very quickly.
It makes it sound like it's like Gabe Cotta's brother.
Like he was on a guest spot on Welcome Back Cotta.
here's Jim Cotta.
Mr.
Cotta, Mr.
Cotta.
It's a word that you would think is said a million times.

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No, no, no.
word Jim Cata explained.
know what it is.
I know what it is.
It's the, it's the art of going to small villages and planting actual gymnastics, gymequipment there, and then covering it with filth, but leaving it in the middle of town.

(10:21):
It's throughout this film, he encounters actual like I don't even know what they're calledlike a.
with the handles on it and everything.
Yeah.
So someone went there and very thoughtfully planted all the things this guy's comfortablewith in these foreign land.
It's like Spider-Man in New York City.

(10:43):
You need all the skyscrapers to make web powers better.
Like Spider-Man could not save Los Angeles.
He's very down town, like he's got a very narrow, know.
uh Kurt Thomas plays Jonathan Cabot, a gymnastics champion whose father was a secret agentand went missing inside the country of Parmistan, a nation in the Hindu Kush mountains.

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Now, by ancient tradition, all outsiders who enter Parmistan must play the game, which isbasically an outdoor
deadly version of the president's physical fitness challenge that we all had to do inschool.
Yeah, but with a lot more bow and arrow.
So much bow and arrow.
my God.
Honestly, Parmistan sounds like a country that might exist if Italy had colonized CentralAsia.

(11:38):
Yeah, so parmistan would be located next to Reggiano in your
It's
In reality, the movie was shot in Cold War era Yugoslavia, which is going to give it itsown...
It's got its own flavor, I will say that.
In addition to Thomas, the film stars Tetschi Abagiani, Richard Norton, Edward Bell, andBuck Cartellian.

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Gymkhana was written by Charles Robert Carter, who also wrote 1989's Blind Fury.
An amazing movie.
Amazing movie and directed by Robert Klaus, who directed Bruce Lee's breakthrough movie,Enter the Dragon, 12 years earlier.
He also directed the first attempt to introduce Jackie Chan to American audiences.
1980s, the big brawl.

(12:25):
And we open this movie with this extended shot of a high bar, like just a static shot of ahybrid, which honestly, if you didn't know what the premise of the movie was, you might
not even guess.
It's just like this bar going across the screen as the
credits roll by and we don't even see any gymnastics action until the credits are over.

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And the music is very ominous.
It's very ominous.
I don't know why static credits have become a thing for me lately.
I'm like, put something up there.
Like, don't just like, especially when you have him, you want to establish he's a gymnastand what he can do.
Have that while the credits are coming up.
So we have this static action.
And then after the credits are over, we have Kurt Thomas as Jonathan Cabot doing theseamazing gymnastic routines.

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And they cut with between scenes of Kurt on the high bar.
and these shots of galloping horses and the horses are galloping and we cut to men beingchased by a group of riders on horseback.
I should say, appears to be chased because we never see the guy and the horseman in thesame shot.
I think that this movie, it wastes no time.
If there's something that can be said of Jim Cotta, it's that it is immediately outside ofthat opening credit sequence.

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is just like pedal to the floor from that point forward.
There is no, and it almost catches you off guard because we're so accustomed to getting toknow characters and I don't know, some kind of setup of some sort at the beginning.
this one is like pow, right off the bat.
establishing the world of the characters before that world is going to change.

(14:03):
And you get some, some artistry here in the beginning.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it.
It's, it's, it winds up all being so crazy, but you, because when you talk about those,scenes of the gymnastics action, it's in a black void.
So you are getting this black void of some pretty incredible moves and things.

(14:24):
And then in the beginning, when you're doing that cross cut that you were talking about,it's almost like flashes before then you.
truly cross cutting between them.
And I'm like, the opening of this movie, I'm like getting, I'm getting graduation day.
I'm getting a hundred with the riders tracking down mixed with Lenny reef installsOlympia.

(14:46):
And my mind is like getting blown with all of this, dude.
No, this movie has got something to it, but then it's got a lot of others.
It's so weird.
this movie fascinates me.
I've been thinking about it for days.
So we eventually do go to like these men on horseback chasing this dude.
And the horsemen are all dressed in like black with hoods, except for the leader who willcome to know as Zemir who has, and you guys must have known I was going to go for it, the

(15:17):
most amazing blow dried hair.
Hahaha
It's incredible.
And so the guy that chasing hands up on like this gorge, it's like a rope.
It's like a rope bridge, but it's not really a bridge.
It's just like a rope to like, like climb across over this gorge.
And sure enough, Zamir and his men are on the other side and Zamir, this guy, his fashion,he's got these red pants.

(15:41):
The fashion in this movie definitely takes a page from treasure of the four crowns.
it is just bright.
primary colors on good guys and bad guys.
So there's an exchange and the guy on the the on life about basically saying, know, hey,I'm playing the game.
You can't do this.
Zemir, you know, he's like, I don't care.

(16:02):
Shoots the guy almost point blank with an arrow and the dude falls off.
There's so much so many arrow hits in this movie.
I don't know if I've ever seen a movie with that many arrow hits and they're amazingbecause some of them come out of no
And I think though 90 % of them take place on this rope bridge.

(16:23):
ah
great stuff on this rope bridge.
They set up where the guys oh who's hanging from the rope is kind of looking down below soyou can see how far the water is and then the rocks and he looks over and he sees the, you
know, um, he's about to get shot with the arrow.
And I thought, and then he just gets shot.
thought, are they setting this up later for our smart hero to take a dive in and then swimaway, which is a common trope.

(16:49):
Sure.
But that doesn't happen.
I, you feel the budget.
And I think in some of these areas like this, this is, this isn't a mega force budget.
This isn't.
no.
motorcycle that you can you can fly into the air.
No, no, no, it's not.
No, but it's you know, it's, you know, they made that Yugoslavian dollar go far, like asmuch as they could.

(17:15):
So like, Colonel, the guy is Colonel Cabot, he is the father of John Cabot, who we saw inthe high bar.
And, and here we see he's he's, you know, he's he's doing these, okay, gymnastic featsthat are kind of incredible.
He completes the routine and ends my god in a
perfect freeze frame like with his arms in the air as he's like coming down for theperfect landing and they they hold that freeze frame a while.

(17:41):
was just going to say that.
Yeah.
They're really letting the audience absorb that moment.
Yeah, and then he's off to the locker room, pretty girl tries to follow him, but like adude who looks a lot like David Burnie runs Interference, I don't know if you guys
remember that actor, and what's funny is a guy runs Interference to this girl who's likefollowing him, does she know him?

(18:04):
Is she a girlfriend?
Is she a gymnastics groupie?
Here's the thing guys, we'll never know.
Like because it's never followed up on, we're just cutting to this wooden house, like thisgreat looking wood house in the woods.
And we have Cabot talking to this guy, this government agent named Paley, who's tellingthem all about the mission.
This woods location and where the training is going to take place.

(18:28):
All of it.
This is like an adult's idea of an adult male.
guess maybe this is like a fun summer camp that's about to happen for him.
Honestly, I love that house.
That house looks great.
Like all natural wood and this is where like we're learning about what's going to happen.
But like, here's the thing.

(18:49):
I've, and I'm sure all of you have heard the screenwriting axiom that you should get intoa scene early, you should get into a scene late and get out early.
I almost had it reversed.
You get into a scene late and get out early.
But here it feels like we've gotten into a scene so late that everything's alreadyhappened.
Yeah.
Like, he's already agreed to go on the mission.

(19:10):
We never see like the approach from from Paley, the decision making process.
It's all already done.
I'm like, what's going on?
It's, it's, it's emissions like this, you know, showing what, what do you cut?
What do you show?
Right.
Right.
Where I think this is something that happens quite a bit in this movie where bits thatwould normally be in a U S film aren't.

(19:38):
Yes.
It is disorienting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not that you can't catch up because Chris knew what happened.
He just said it right.
Right.
But it does take up.
part of your brain space.
as you're trying to fill in those gaps.
Yeah, like, like there's a good kind of make your audience do some work and there's a lessgood kind of make your audience do work.

(20:02):
And I think at times this, this unfortunately crosses in there.
The other notable thing about this exposition scene, and I know that this is just anothershowing of how I think low budget this must've been because this director knew what they
were doing, but you've, you've got your camera crew and editing and all that.
There are multiple closeups in this exposition scene that are out of focus.

(20:24):
Did you notice this?
I did notice.
I did notice they were out of focus.
I also noticed that we have like, there's a one point in this scene where he's got a,like, Jonathan is holding a photograph in a frame of his, him and his dad, like before his
dad got, got lost in Parmistan.
And there's like, he's, he's looking at the picture and sort of smiling and kind ofreminiscing about like times with his dad.

(20:49):
And then you see the reflect, you see the reverse shot of the picture.
and his reflection in the glass of the frame and he just looks absolutely like dead-eyedscowling.
And then you cut back to the first shot and he's smiling again.
I'm like, oh, that doesn't all quite work.
They took that from something else.

(21:10):
That was my impression.
I mean, it feels like, that's the that's the version of that shot that, you know, was infocus and looked good.
And you can see the reflection well.
And they were like, but it doesn't match like that doesn't use it.
You have to use it.
uh Jonathan is going to have two months to train his mind and toughen his body for thismission.

(21:32):
It's going to make his Olympic training look like finger painting.
In the midst of this.
he's yeah, the finger paint thing.
This is not just like go have a mission, prove that you're a great gymnast.
This is they're talking about nuclear attack.
And that no outsider has won the game in more than 900 years.

(21:55):
pressure.
years.
His father had apparently failed in the game historically here.
So he's a legacy guy being brought in and two months of this and then, and then at onepoint he's the
The guys like, and these guys out here will take care of you.
And they cut to a shot of these guys outside.
Just like rough housing in the woods by this wooden thing.

(22:19):
And they're like hitting each other with logs or something like that.
These guys will take care of you.
Okay.
Here we go.
Nuclear war.
We're going to do something.
where we get the briefing about Parmistan.
Now, Parmistan is ruled by the Khan, who, guys, looks a lot like Mel Brooks.
I'm just saying.
Yeah.

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But his second in command, his advisor is Zamir.
And Zamir, who has the great hair, is a viper.
And your welfare is of no interest to him.
Who's this?
I don't know his name is Amir.
He intends to overthrow the Khan and sell the country to the other side And he's a viperand your welfare is of no interest to him

(23:05):
We're interested in Parmystan for one reason, and that's location.
A Star Wars satellite station inside Parmystan could monitor all the other satellitesaround the world.
It would be the ultimate early warning system in case of nuclear attack.
Now, in our hands, such a system could save millions of lives.
But in the wrong hands.

(23:27):
It could destroy our entire nation.
Exactly.
Now the Khan is being challenged inside his country by a radical group.
They'd like to open the borders and sell the satellite station to the other side.
Why don't we send in the troops?
Direct military action is out of style, my friend.
Finesse.
But there is one chance for one man.

(23:50):
Anyone who enters Parmystan must play the game.
If he wins, he's allowed his life and one request.
And if he loses?
Look, how do we know somebody else hasn't already gone in there and won the game?
No outsider has won the game in over 900 years.

(24:13):
it sound like he's just kind of apathetic rather than like outwardly trying to kill you.
Like it's just, and he spends most of this movie trying to kill Jonathan for a good chunkof it.
Zemir by the way is played by Australian martial artists, stuntman and actor RichardNorton, who's had a long, long career ranging from the Octagon and Twinkle Twinkle Lucky

(24:34):
stars to Furiosa.
And he was also the bodyguard for like the Rolling Stones and Fleetwood Mac and Abba andDavid Bowie.
Wow.
There's a lot of talk about the other side rather than just saying the Soviets.
So, but the goal is to place a Star Wars satellite tracking station in parmistan thatcould monitor all the satellites around the world as an early warning nuclear detection

(24:58):
system.
Guys, how?
Gymnastics!
It's a globe!
Like the earth is round!
How would it monitor satellites on the other side of the globe?
I'm not an engineer.
You need to consider the fact that once you've done the high bar and once you've riddenone of those dumb horse, not I shouldn't say dumb, one of those horse things with the

(25:20):
handles on it.
The pommel horse.
The pommel horse.
Anything is possible guys.
Anything is possible.
just satellites just more satellites I just
Shh.
Chris, you just gotta, you just gotta accept it,
Like, honestly, it only works if the people who made this movie were literally flatearthers.

(25:41):
Like, this is the most Reagan era Cold War plot imaginable.
Like, it actually is predicated on a working Star Wars defense system.
Like, that's amazing.
Like, Jonathan is like, why not send in the troops?
Well, direct military action is out of style.
Since when?
What America are you living in?

(26:03):
Yeah.
America historically didn't send the army in anywhere in the 80s.
We would have occupied parmistan.
We would have had, it would have been, oh my God, it would have been an airstrip.
So yeah, if you win the game, you get your life, you get to live and you get one request.

(26:27):
So presumably John is going to ask for the Star Wars satellite tracking station, butnobody has won the game in 900 years.
based diplomacy.
Honestly, sounds perfectly Reagan.
Oh, and to help them, Paley has brought along the Khan's daughter, Princess Ribali.

(26:50):
And he says, you know, the problem before is previously no one, they didn't know muchabout the game and she can help.
But guys, there's one problem.
She doesn't speak at all for the first like quarter, like third of this movie.
But she is an expert of the game is what they say.
And then she ties a rope around him, his wrist, and then she punches him in the nuts.

(27:14):
Yeah.
And then, then give him a big, like, like a Ric Flair chop.
And I'm like, well, if she is so efficient at this stuff and all of this world dominationis all based on this, why don't you.
Yeah.
Why don't they her do it?
Because she clearly is capable and she's already mastered it.
The answer is right there.

(27:35):
It only works for a foreigner coming into the country.
Does he look like his daughter?
Well, they explain that when David Bertie is talking and he's like, well, she's got a veryinteresting background.
Her mother was Indonesian.

(27:56):
Like that's the interesting back.
I'm like, that's basically cause she looks nothing like the guy playing the car.
absolutely nothing.
So, but he's got a train now and, and, you know, he's got these two, he's got the twotrainers.
You know, so he can, he can learn gym kata, which is never said, the word is never said.

(28:16):
It's a subtle blend of the martial arts of the East and the fighting skills of the West.
And he's got, he's got two trades, he's got a black guy and an Asian guy.
No names are ever given for these dudes.
Not even in the credits.
It's, literally in the credits, just Eastern trainer and Western trainer.
And the Asian trainer, he does this really impressive demonstration of skill with like apair of comma.

(28:41):
Like a martial arts weapon that's kind of like a bill hook.
Awesome to watch.
Jarlan never repeats it.
never learns how to use
And it goes on for a very long time.
Very long time.
This demonstration.
there's a guy, there's, has a, well, we meet this gentleman when he's sitting there in thewoods and he's got a hawk on his arm.

(29:01):
Yes.
Which never comes into play.
It's not like the hawk eventually saves the day.
That's like Chekhov's hawk.
No.
He's like, and when he is sitting there with the hawk, he's kind of filling.
Jonathan in on what's, what's going on with the training.
Like you're going to do this, you're going to do that.
And then, then there's this little montage of Jonathan fighting the other guy with thesebig sticks.

(29:25):
Yeah.
Big sticks.
And then we get the whole display of, of might from our guy, from Hawkman with his knivesthat he whips around real quick.
And it kind of reminded me of people who drive around with really loud mufflers on theircars.
Right.
And I always think to myself like, why?
Why do you need that?
Can you imagine driving every day with that kind of sound just omnipresent the entiretime?

(29:49):
What a pain in the ass thing.
But what they want is to be paid attention to ultimately.
So absolutely they're going to run that engine and they're going to drive as far as theyneed to drive with it.
Annoying everybody all the way.
And this guy is doing that, but with knives.
So you can just imagine him and his fucking hawk.
showing up to dinner party somewhere sometime and they're like, Oh, Ricky's here.

(30:11):
Hey, Ricky.
And he was like, he starts spinning his knives around and for a good five minutes,everyone just sits in dumb, like, awe silence, wondering what he's doing because it's
serving absolutely no purpose.
And by the way, why does he have a hawk?
Well, it's just, it doesn't get you.
It's just a decorative hawk.

(30:34):
But Jonathan does spend a lot of time walking up the staircase on his hands.
Which never comes into play.
are two scenes of him mastering this.
uh
it's- He's walking up the stairs on his hands and it's impressive that Kurt Thomas coulddo that, but why?
I was hoping it would be a Friday the 13th part three thing.

(30:57):
right.
down the hallway in his hands.
So I'm like, okay, the guy has a hawk, could easily attack this guy's nuts.
The guy has two knives that he loves to swing around, could easily cut him or something.
There's no training element to this other than, man, cool stunt.
Exactly!
And the princess, by the way, just spends the whole time watching from the window and kindof smiling and then periodically pulling a knife on Jonathan.

(31:25):
I love that little fight flirting sequence that they have.
I mean, there's many of them.
She throws the knife in the wall.
The one where he like finally catches her hand with a baton and then she pulls the knifeout of the handle and is like, could have, she makes a face that I can't believe I'm going
to say these words, a face that is the universal symbol for I could have knifed you.

(31:51):
And he kind of makes an oopsie face.
Like you could have knifed me.
And yes, an NHS.
And then they kiss and you know, they, get together and you know, it's, he also does thething where he does the back flips.
he does like, uh, does both sides of the.

(32:12):
And then like talking in the fake girl voice carrying both sides of the car and I'm justlike
How do I impress this girl?
I know how back flips and he does one and she's like, and then he does another and she'slike, make love to me.
And then they kiss and then at the final briefing, he and the princess just stare at eachother all googly eyed while Paley is telling them about their journey to Carabal in the

(32:34):
Caspian Sea, where they'll meet Colonel Mackle, also known as the stork at the salt mine.
Yes, he is he is known as the store
and the salt mines and he'll provide them equipment.
And I think this is the part where, well, my notes here in all caps, right at this verymoment that we're talking about say, this is all happening so quickly.

(33:00):
It is!
We're like 15 minutes into the movie!
oh
yeah.
So it's, it's, it's a moving folks.
It's a moving.
And here's the thing.
he says, Paley says, you know, you'll meet him at the salt mines.
And this is like a perfect encapsulation of this movie because Jonathan kind of questionshim.
like, you know, salt mining kind of looks like quizzically.

(33:22):
And Paley responds, you'll see, you know, as if to imply, okay, this is, you know, it'ssomething that you just have to see it.
But when they get there, the salt mine is just a salt mine.
Like, if it's just a salt mine, why not just say that?
No, it's not even a salt mine.

(33:43):
It's a pile, a massive pile of salt that men are sort of hacking at with shovels.
That salt has already been mined.
It's true.
And it's, and it's right there.
It reminds me of empire.
ants.
Have you guys seen the bird eye Gordon movie empire?
The ants with Joan Collins?
my God, we need to do that at some point.
I don't know what it would be.
Get me another of, but it get me another as something.

(34:06):
And Joan Collins is in a going nuts fighting gigantic ants and it's shot with.
It's edited with split screen stuff.
So they filmed real ants in super high close up definition, whatever.
And then they have them kind of like lurching toward the people on the other side of theframe that are poking boat oars in their direction that disappear when they hit mid
screen.

(34:26):
And so do the ants legs.
And it's absolutely amazing.
But anyway, part of the story in that is that this town is feeding these ants, this sugar.
I think it's sugar, if I remember correctly.
And there's a huge room just like this one.
with a huge pile of sugar, just like this one.
And it's already been done.

(34:47):
Like how much more of this do you need?
Because it's a warehouse full of what these things are craving.
How much more of that could you possibly need in here?
They walk by it and it's just a couple of dudes with shovels hacking away the pile ofstuff.
mean, maybe the stork is the guy who's responsible for keeping Carabelle on the CaspianSea's streets, you know, moving when the snow comes.

(35:08):
So, you know, he's got all that salt ready for winter.
But like the fact that like John kind of looks at it just like, well, you'll see, asopposed to just saying, yeah, this dude lives in a salt mine or salt warehouse, it's a
salt warehouse.
Like, why is it made to be a thing?
And then it's not.

(35:30):
And oh and hey we walked right by something here that after we are done with the theswitchblade Kissing in the meeting and all that stuff.
We next see Jonathan on a boat
Well he's journeying to Carabelle on the Caspian Sea!
He is, he is.
And that's when we meet the stork and the comment is made.

(35:51):
Well, I'm just wanting that.
This is all courtesy of the American taxpayers.
A very Reagan era comment to be made.
Tax is all your fault.
So the American taxpayers foot in the bill.
This is your man in Carable on the sea.
Of course, the American taxpayers, this is we want, know, this is intelligence.

(36:12):
Like what is, what do you want?
m
And this is, and this is the James Bond.
Here are your weapons for this film scene.
It's the cube ranch scene.
Absolutely.
Which include a hatchet, apparently that can cut through things, and a knife where theblade shoots out and will kill a man at 20 feet.

(36:33):
Yeah, which is, you'd see that in a James Bond movie where it's like, oh, that ends up inlike M's like wall painting or something like that.
But like, A, in a James Bond movie, when James Bond gets a gadget, he usually gets to useit during the movie.
We're never going to see this knife again.
Or the hawk.
But despite all this technology, he's informed that they're going to travel by mule.

(37:00):
Yeah, they're going by pack fuel.
That's how you gotta go.
But more so, the fact that, so the knife shoots out and like sticks in the wall and theprincess who hasn't said a blessed word in this whole movie so far observes fine piece of
work.
And nobody even is remotely surprised that she just talked.

(37:22):
Yeah.
Like, it's not for anything profound, it's not to express her feelings for Jonathan, it'snot even for a punchline, it's just to observe that this knife was cool, and she'll talk
from here on out, but now I don't know why she wasn't talking for the first twentyminutes!
Well, that was pretty salt.
She takes a while to warm up.
Yeah.
it takes a while to warp up.

(37:43):
She was blinded by the pace of this movie too.
She's like, my god, what is happening here?
And finally they had a day off and she came back and then she had lines.
Yeah, they had to date, they, you know, it a late script edition.
and I want to mention that, for, his trip to Carraball on the Caspian sea, Jonathan istaking a page out of the JT striker fashion playbook.

(38:04):
He wears a bright red sweater under a white members only style jacket.
It is amazing.
Yeah, well, he's wearing like corporate casual What do they call it khaki pants?
Yeah, pretty pretty much the whole movie I mean the wardrobe department was sleeping onthis guy
except for when he actually goes to play the game, which is outdoors and in like, yo,dirty terrain.

(38:30):
What does he wear?
He wears white pants.
Yeah, of course.
He does not believe in camouflage at all
Pants are done, pal.
Like they're not, they're not, you know, I don't care how good your dry cleaner is.
Those pants aren't coming back from the game.
Like it's just not happening.
When you can Jim Cotta, you let them see you coming, man.

(38:52):
You don't, you're not going to dress to hide or for subterfuge.
be a wimp.
No.
So as you mentioned, they're going to take a pack mule to get in, to go into, into, toParmistan.
But the night before, did they decide, you know, you got a journey ahead of us.
Let's rest.
Let's, you know, let's, let's, let's gather our strength.

(39:14):
No, they go to check out the nightlife of Carabal on the Caspian sea with, two guardsgoing with them.
So they, they go and they're walking through this bizarre, they're looking at rugs andlamps.
They're having a grand old time.
and some guy comes up and asks Jonathan if he's American.
Jonathan, who's supposed to be keeping a low profile, answers yes.

(39:37):
And then the guy throws a drink on him and says, Yankee, go home.
This is a good lesson for right now in the world.
is a good buddy of mine.
Shane went on vacation.
I don't remember where he went.
Germany, I think it was in France or something, a few, like a month ago.
And he was messaging them while he was there.
And he's like, it is so awful being American anywhere.

(39:58):
He said, it's just so embarrassing.
I can tell that everyone's giving us the evil eye everywhere that we go.
So this is a good lesson for world travelers in 2025, as much as it was.
a good lesson back in 1980.
In 1985 in Carrabell on the Caspian.
But the best thing is, the guy, he throws the drink on him and then one of the guards,he's with two guards, one of the guards chalks it up to, there's just a little

(40:26):
anti-American sentiment going around.
And as the words pass from his lips, an arrow comes out of nowhere and hits this guardsquare in the chest and kills him and it is
It is literally a jaw-dropping moment because there's no warning!
And you're just like, and then you stop and think about it you're like, wait a minute, howdo you not see a dude standing in front of him with a bow and arrow?

(40:55):
Yeah, the angle's not like from above.
the arrows is like he's standing right in front of it.
It's just like out of nowhere.
And it's it's is the most it's again, it's it's if we had if this was a YouTube show, I'dput the clip on because it's just incredible.
And so that Jonathan takes off after the unseen Archer and he goes around according gets afight with like five or six guys taking it out with he's using his gym kata skills and

(41:22):
this fight.
This fight's amazing because it is
It is at the same time, absolutely incredible and totally absurd.
Because Kurt Toms can genuinely do these amazing flips and kicks.
He runs up a wall, but it's also just like bonkers.

(41:43):
he's just, he's flinging his body through the air at these guys and knocking them.
Like it's not like, he's just kicking them.
Sometimes he's kicking them.
But sometimes he's just throwing his whole body at them.
And it's it is amazing and insane at the same time.
And throughout this film, whenever there's a gang of people attacking someone, plays, goesby that old playbook of like one guy attacks while everyone else is like standing there

(42:12):
kind of like an MPG character in a video game, just their arms kind of move in, they'restanding watching.
yeah, it's just wait your turn and then you get up there and then you take your swing atthe guy.
And that happens throughout this whole film.
Throughout the movie.
Throughout the movie.
And it's just like, apparently there's no firearms allowed in Parmistan.
So like they're, okay, I get it.

(42:33):
But like here they're in, there's plenty of guns in Carabao and the Caspian Sea, butnobody just says, oh, you're gonna, I'm just gonna shoot you.
Not yet.
He goes around the corner, he finds like the other American guard, cause he had two, likesitting in a chair dead with like a hatchet.

(42:54):
buried the hatchet, in his chest is very bloody.
Princess Ribali is nowhere to be found.
And then, so like, he's just like, he goes back to the stork and he tells him like, youknow, he's like, oh, she's gone.
And the stork tells him they have the most confusing conversation.

(43:16):
They grab her ballie.
I know, I heard.
Come in.
Come in.
It's obvious that Zamir knows every move we're making.
Hundreds of miles away and he still reaches us.
uh
Not for long, because I'll kill him.
Where's Rebali?

(43:37):
in the walled city of Karabakh, but you will never get her out.
Tamerlane has her at the fortified mansion of his.
It's all in your briefing package.
That's a terrorist training camp.
Tamerlane is Amir's man.
You're going into Burma's down alone.

(43:59):
Just be ready for two of us, Colonel.
So he learns where she is, but I still don't understand the logic.
They're talking about characters I don't think we've met or even heard referred to.
It is the most confusing expositional conversation I've
This whole thing is where I wrote down that it's the action movie equivalent of a giallofilm.
I am so lost at this point.

(44:21):
I have no idea what anyone's doing.
I mean, I know he's going to do gymnastics to try and get a Star Wars, but aside fromthat, it's the street level.
have no clue.
None.
How does the stork know all this?
Who are they talking about?
I have no idea.
But John, he goes to like this villa where the princess is being held in the city.

(44:46):
And before he can get inside, he's like a bunch of henchmen come out and start chasinghim.
Like he doesn't even get inside yet.
And then, amazing, amazing, he runs down this narrow alley where there happens to be ahigh bar suspended between the two buildings and he leaps up.
I just start swinging around and kicking anybody who comes nearby.

(45:07):
And you know, mean, don't get in his range or you're done, but why didn't somebody justtake a gun and shoot him off the high bar from outside kicking range?
That moment is absolutely reminiscent of this Gamera film.
And I can't remember which one it's Gamera versus the creature with a knife head.
And there's a meme that's been, that's born of this, where Gamera hits one of these highbars and just starts swinging around.

(45:35):
You can tell it's a miniature that's just like, woo, woo, woo.
And it goes, and it keeps going.
It's almost like a comedy beat.
That's absolutely not.
And that's exactly what happens here.
I'm like, camera and all caps.
My wife and I watched all the the Gamera films last year and they are a delight.
This is also, we've had enough fighting in the movie by this point that I uh have fallenin love with the Foley work, particularly in the action sequences.

(46:04):
mean, it's, it's, if you like action movies of the era and, know, an old martial artsmovies, this will have every Foley effect that you want.
Every sound effect.
It's, uh it's just wonderful, wonderful work to the sound crew on this one.
I once had, this is about two years ago, I was tasked with the impossible mission to syncsound on this martial arts film for a distributor.

(46:29):
And the original, so they've had a longer cut of the film, but it had no audio.
it, it, it had whatever language audio on it.
So I had to pull the audio from the, like the known version of this movie, the shorterversion of the movie, and then spread it out.
So it covered the scenes throughout this longer cut of it.

(46:54):
And what that became was the most nightmarish symphony of pshh.
Puh, kuh.
Shing, and I had to match every little shing and puh and kuh, the entire front to back onthis thing.
And it took me weeks of full days trying to line this thing up.
And it was, I'm like, I'm never ever doing this again.

(47:17):
I'm never touching this kind of assignment again.
Amazing, amazing.
oh, the button on the high bar scene is the best.
Basically, if you come in range, he's gonna kick you in the face.
And then some random bicyclist shows up and he kicks that guy in the face too.
It's just like, sorry, sorry.

(47:37):
Like it's fantastic.
It's fantastic.
So he storms the house.
He fights off a one-eyed dude wielding an ax with a.
fire extinguisher, that's a great moment.
Cause the guy punches the axe of the fire extinguisher and all the stuff starts shootingout.
And then, you know, like then, then the guns come out.
They all have like, you know, machine guns and everything.

(47:58):
And, you know, he throws a body through the, through the door.
So the guy shoots the body.
It's, you know, it's amazing.
And, and then, you know, he rescues the princess and then they get outside and there'sanother chase through the alleys of Carabelle on the Caspian sea, which goes on forever.
And there are a lot of mustaches in this film.

(48:20):
I think they cast based on the stash.
yeah.
you definitely know you're, you're even the con has got a, has got a, has got a stash.
And they go back to the salt mine or salt warehouse and then Mackle just shows up andpulls a gun on them because he's a bad guy.
And, and it looks like they're about to get killed when Paley shows up and classiceighties American style fashion and just machine guns all the remaining bad guys so they

(48:47):
can go to parmistan.
I'm like, why didn't you do this yourself to begin with?
Why even go through the.
stork.
So they journey by pack mule and then later whitewater raft to parmistan, which seems likeit's a long journey
Just the two of them and they're clearly on some kind of like booked adventure becauseit's a it's in very good shape this raft and they have all the necessary safety equipment

(49:09):
on in the thing it just looks like it's a vacation video that they cut into this.
Yeah, no.
And then, and then they arrive, they kind of pull up on shore, presumably in Parmistan.
And they're greeted by all these guys in black hoods who I realized, you know what theylooked like?
They looked like the Zodiac killer in that one scene in Zodiac where he kills the, likeattacks the people by the lake and he's wearing the.

(49:35):
Of course it's based on like a real, you know, eyewitness description, but like that, theyall look like the Zodiac, they're all dressed like the Zodiac killer.
And these guys show up and Jonathan immediately starts fighting them.
What I started to think of, why?
Like, did this fight need to happen?
Like, is entering Parmistan itself forbidden?

(49:56):
Or is it just, oh, if you enter, you have to play the game?
Well, remember trust no one they established that early on well, yeah, early rules.
They're like trust no one Yeah, and this is just again I you know not to harp oneverything all the time But so they've established that the game and they want to play the
game which they know is dangerous Right in order to achieve their aims of Star Wars, youknow

(50:21):
of establishing a Star Wars station in Parmas.
But it's unclear if the the mule and the raft is just is are these the only routes in oris them trying to sneak in and if if it's not that why aren't they just going in and
saying please capture me and force me to play the game since that's what they want alsothey have a member of their party

(50:45):
So I
don't understand.
it, you know, anyway, not to harp on at all, but it is just the one illustration in thismoment of just it, the mood, it's very unclear what's happening.
And that's just like one instance of why, you know, when the fights happen, it's fun.

(51:06):
Yeah, the fights are great, but I'm like, yeah, do they have to?
is, I am confused about this game.
Earlier, there's a moment when he's after he after the two guys get killed when they'reshopping, then he heads back to Mackle's place.
Yeah.
The stork and he's driving a car.

(51:27):
Jonathan is driving a car.
yeah.
Like, where did he get a car?
It's never established that that cars are even there, let alone that he had access to one.
But he just the shot is him pulling up and getting out and walking up to the door andknocking on it.
And my notes are like a car.
for people who haven't seen Jim Cotta, this is not a nitpick.

(51:48):
We've been in this area and there have just been zero signs of, of modern life in thatway.
It looks like this narrow medieval kind of town where the streets were built for walkingand maybe a horse.
And there are no cars anywhere.
No car
Yeah.
So where he gets his car, I don't know.

(52:11):
But like he gets knocked out by the Zodiac killers and he wakes up in the Khan's palaceand he wakes up and there's this woman caressing his face.
Now, she's got a cloth on his forehead, but that's just kind of there, but she's literallyrunning her hands.

(52:34):
stroking his face and then he opens his eyes he looks at her and she's basically got noteeth.
Well, she has black paint smeared all over her teeth.
you can't see him and she's not talking.
He keeps telling her to stop.
And then we have Zemir in all his blow dried glory waiting for him.
And he tells that the woman actually has no tongue, so she can't speak.
She's got no tongue.

(52:55):
But yeah, it's the black.
I don't know if did she have black or was that just the actress?
I don't know.
It looked like there was just like the, you know, the no tooth crap they put on your teethin movies.
looked like that was just caked all over her teeth.
She had makeup to make her look like she had very sunken eyes, but it was clearly makeup.
I was thinking at this point, I hope I get to see some miniatures in this film.

(53:18):
I hope there's a model eh that I could enjoy learning the topography of this mission.
And lo and behold, we are escorted into the next room.
You have to travel by donkey, but when you get there, boy, they've got it all.
got it all, including a miniature.
a miniature that looks like something I would have aspired to make in grade school, but Iwas never great with arts and crafts.

(53:42):
Like it's something that my wife would have been able to make in grade school because shewas really good at that.
I am terrible at that and I'm still to this day not really allowed to use glue.
Well, I for one, I'm glad because you wouldn't be doing this podcast with us.
You would be making models for the CIA or some other clandestine internationalorganization.
I mean, this model.
you did have those skills.

(54:03):
Doesn't that make you wonder guys, like if this game is really about your wits and yourability to survive and all of that, why would there be all of this explanation of every
step of the route?
And we're about to get more.
An actual in-person walkthrough is about to happen.
It's like how?
How is this any kind of survival trek when you're going to know the whole thing from frontto back before you even start?

(54:27):
oh
Right, well yeah, we have the Khan who is going to explain the game.
The change is a three mile run across the swamp to the second obstacle, a 200 foot ropeclimb.
From there, it is but a half mile to the gorge.
The fourth part is to enter the river that will lead you dead or alive to the high forest.

(54:51):
If successful, you will enter the village of the dam.
Surviving this, there is the final five mile run through the swamp again.
It is not all at great risk.
It is also a test of endurance, as you will see.
And remember, instinct must carry you as well.

(55:12):
This is obvious here, but on land itself, might be easy to get lost.
I'm taking the wrong turn.
There will be judges to show the way.
There can be no mistakes.
Anyone trying to avoid an obstacle will be instantly killed.
First of all, you have Jonathan and a bunch of other competitors, from theoretically fromdifferent nations.
Like, although, you know, it's like they're all kind of white European, Eastern Europeanlooking guys and one Asian guy.

(55:38):
Like that's really, but, they're supposed to represent, but here's the thing.
And this is where it gets back to if you're willing to play the game is entering parmistanfine.
Cause all these people are here and they all seem to be like,
here to play.
It's not like, we accidentally stumbled into parmistan.
shit, we have to play the game.
They're all here to do that.

(55:59):
They all knew the time to show up is the game held at regular intervals.
Do they just like if Jonathan showed up a week later, would they just do it again?
Like how does this system work?
I need to know.
to compare it to Enter the Dragon, which is in some ways literally the same setup.
In Enter the Dragon, it is super clear that crazy guy

(56:24):
Han has this tournament on his island like every four years or something, or two years,whatever it is.
And this is the chance to go in and infiltrate and you have to fight while you're lookingfor clues and stuff on the island, you know?
And it's, it's not that, you know, you, we, we're not asking for much here.

(56:45):
No!
As just to mention, they do run kind of like a test run the day before with prisoners fromthe Parmistan Correctional System.
And like this is not the main event.
It's like a preview to test the course and to show the audience, of course, what is goingto happen.
And the future contestants get to see this too.
That's what I'm saying.

(57:06):
Yeah, they they get to peacefully traverse the whole thing, learning all that was goingto, and it's not even just here's the rope bridge you go across.
Here's the whatever it includes all the attacks.
Yeah.
It's like, and first of all, all the extras in this scene, I was looking at their facesand you're just like, man, life in Cold War era Yugoslavia must've been tough because you

(57:32):
could see it on these people's faces.
My goodness.
And then, then Jonathan starts asking about another potential player named Thorc, whoJonathan is like a fan of?
Cause like, it's like, he talks about him.
Like he's got a poster of Thor on his wall at home.
And again, it seems like the game is not some big secret.

(57:54):
There's like players who are expected to show up.
like, I just genuinely don't understand the logistics.
So the pregame starts and there's like the guys, the three, like three or four prisoners,there's a bunch of guys on horseback following them.
the horses go out through the, like the town square and holy shit.

(58:14):
Did you guys see that one of the horses very clearly knocked an extra right over?
my God.
It's like the horse just collides with this extra and it's clearly not intentional.
It's like, dude, I hope that guy was okay.
Gymkhana!
So the prisoners, race through the swamp, which looks more like a cornfield.

(58:38):
There's guys in black hoods chasing the prisoners with spears.
And then there's also guys in black hoods, like directing traffic.
With the flag.
Yeah.
So they are stationed all along this course and their whole job is just to wave a flag inthe direction you're supposed to go next.
Right.
I love them.

(58:59):
They're my favorite.
I want a figure of that.
One of those guys.
Honestly, I want to Jim Cotta, I want to Jim Cotta game playset and action figure line.
Honestly, I want to add this to the list of cause we talked about this.
yeah.
From the same people who brought you a hog mountain playset from treasure of the fourcrowns.

(59:20):
But I also want to do my theme park where instead of the lands being based on like reallypopular movie franchises, the lands are based on like things that didn't take off.
So it's like, oh, over here is Krull world.
And over here is like, you know, you're the hunter from the future land.
I want to have, I want to have Parmistan as one of the worlds in my theme park of failed.

(59:45):
We are going to sell so many toy glaives to people.
Kids are going to love the glaive.
We have to make a disclaimer.
We take no responsibility for fingers coming off because there's just no, it's no way tocatch it.
It's no way to catch it.
So, so the, the, the black hood guy, they're like the refs.
I would think you would dress the refs different from the guys who are hunting you.

(01:00:08):
Like, I feel like that would be a thing.
Like have one of them in like red, like have the refs in red.
Cause they're not trying to hide or anything.
Oh yeah.
Well, we get to the rope climb.
There's this rope climb of this cliff and one of the prisoners is climbing up the rope andis shot with an arrow by one of the pursuers.
And then immediately, Zamir orders the pursuer to be killed.

(01:00:32):
And it's like, and then he explains something like how he wasn't allowed, the guy was uhin between zones and wasn't allowed to be killed until he reached the next zone.
And I'm just like, I don't understand this game at all.
Especially because earlier ah the first guy who got shot off the rope ah way like earlyearly, I think in the beginning of the movie.

(01:00:55):
Yeah, Zamir very specifically is like, and you believe the word.
Come here.
Yeah, Zamir doesn't care about the rules and which we also know because in about 30 moreseconds of this movie, he is that do something in between zones that yeah.
I don't even understand when does Zemur care about the rules or not, let alone what therules are.

(01:01:22):
Exactly.
Exactly.
And there's one final prisoner left.
He's going over the rope bridge in the gorge, like over the gorge.
And there's another guy.
Here's what I don't get.
You could shoot a guy.
It's not that big of a gorge.
Like it's not that wide of a gorge.
You have a bow and arrow.
You could shoot the guy while he's on the rope thing.

(01:01:44):
But instead, and it's an amazing, it looks amazing.
The guy in black climbs out on the rope.
himself, he's holding on to the rope thing with his legs while he shoots the guy with anarrow at like point blank range.
And the prisoner like drops into the gorge.
I'm like, it's amazing, but I don't understand it.

(01:02:06):
If I'm not mistaken, this is the part he's not just holding on like dangling.
He is holding on with his legs, sitting on top of the rope.
Like it's a seat.
It's amazing.
Amazing this is a quality.
Yeah, but I have no idea like honestly, that's the whole movie It's an amazing feat ofphysicality, but I have no idea what's going on

(01:02:27):
think everyone in this movie, the kids today say, it's all a flex, Chris.
just...
Kill you in a way that's gonna rub your face in it.
Like, I can sit on a rope and still take you out.
Yeah.
an arrow.
So like now they've killed all the prisoners.
So they're going back.
They have the banquet.
There's the big banquet, which feels it's like the ren fair version of the banquet fromenter the dragon, which is clearly the model they're following.

(01:02:54):
And it's just, it's so bizarre.
Like there's, there's the entertainment is like, there's a guy putting needles through hischeeks.
There's kick cymbals.
Yeah.
I would like hard to leave
to welcomed all to my country and wish you great success in the game tomorrow.

(01:03:17):
You are all men of courage and skill.
You've already shown that by surviving the difficult journey into this country.
Yak mala!

(01:03:37):
He came here to play the game.
What happened to him?
Your father was a superb competitor.
He would have belonged at this table of champions tonight.
But he was not victorious.
Let us all wish his son good fortune.

(01:04:00):
And Jonathan asks the Khan about his father and is told that he didn't survive the game,which honestly feels like something you would have already inferred.
You know, like wouldn't you, he's not, well, he didn't win.
So, well, there you go.
And then we learn that the princess is going to marry Zameer immediately after the gamethe next day.
And the princess, she is clearly not thrilled with this.

(01:04:22):
Like she pulls her hand away when Zameer tries to hold it.
And it's like, it's a thing.
It's a whole thing.
And naturally, what does Jonathan do after that announcement?
He spends the next five minutes eye fucking the princess while Zamir just sits there atthe table and watches.
I'm like, and Zamir gets pissed off.
I'm like, dude, this guy has been nothing but nice to you.

(01:04:45):
I mean, he's shot other people with arrows, but like, you know, he's waiting in yourbedroom when you wake up, you know, he's, he, he had that tongueless lady stroke in his
face.
Like he's just, you know, like, why do you have to be like that?
You may-
points.
Here's been nothing but a gracious host, even though he doesn't quite care about yourwelfare.

(01:05:09):
He doesn't care about your wellbeing at all.
like, again, but even the way that said it's like, it makes it sound like he's just kindof, you know, you know, it's so, oh, and this is when Thorg shows up at the banquet.
He shows up at the banquet and Thorg is, this guy's a big guy.
This guy's got like muscles that he can't move his neck.

(01:05:30):
Like it's just, he's just, he's, he's a thick guy and, and, and Jonathan like tries to golike all fanboy on him and Thorg is having none of
None of it.
It's just like, oh.
And then, and then Zamir, cause you know, obviously he's felt his masculinity challenged,takes off his shirt and does a demonstration with psi to show how manly, like flipping it

(01:05:52):
around.
It's like, it's like the guy with the, the, the coma before, like it's just, it's ademonstration of martial arts prowess with no shirt.
Why does he take his shirt off?
You know, honestly, if I was in that kind of shape, I probably would
That's like Danny Elfman in concert at this point in his career.
The guy has lost his wardrobe completely.

(01:06:14):
Like he must show up naked and someone throws him a pair of shorts and he's like, allright.
And he goes out on stage, the rest of the show he's like 90 % naked.
It's terrifying.
Why Danny Elfman?
Why?
It's terrifying.
Elfman Gymkhana.
Then, know, Jonathan gets a nice quip.
He's like, you know, he's like, it's not over yet.
So put your hardware back in your pants.

(01:06:35):
Pfft, in your pants.
So that night is the night before the game.
Jonathan, like the tongueless lady is coming into the room to do more face stroking andJonathan puts this massive dagger to the tongueless lady's throat and demands to be taken
to the princess.

(01:06:56):
Now, all of this is done in silhouette.
It's like silhouette on like on a screen and he hands the dagger to the tongueless ladyand he tells her to tell the princess to meet him in the garden.
No!
She doesn't have a tongue!
How does- why would you choose the tongueless lady to deliver your message?

(01:07:21):
That's one of those Stephen Hawking things.
Oh, well, there you go.
That's sweet seed.
The technical hub that is Parma.
But like the princess meets him and you know, like they, they, they, he, he learns thatZamir is getting ready to take over the government and put down a movement among the young
people to join the 20th century.

(01:07:43):
These kids are known as the twenties.
Guess what kids you missed it.
20th century is over.
It's not going to happen.
And, and Rabaulay asks Jonathan to not play the game.
oh
Like he has a choice.
Like she has, just don't play.
I'm like, he's entered parmistan.
He's an outsider.
He's got no choice.
This is not like, this is not, you know, Daniel Aruzzo deciding not to fight in the AllValley.

(01:08:07):
Like he's, this is it.
And like a hundred people have attempted to murder him already.
And he's already kicked the ass of about...
well, all of them.
All of them except the guys who knocked him out when he first showed up in parmistan for afight that apparently didn't need to happen.
Right.
And if he doesn't fight...
President Reagan's not getting that star.

(01:08:28):
It's critical.
Critical to the security of the free world.
So the next day the game begins and, before they're even out of the town square, likeJonathan is running, like it's this, like the area, like there's a like little town square
and those all like cobblestones.
Jonathan just like trips and falls down and Thor just kicks them while he's down.

(01:08:51):
It's like, Ooh, and this is where he's got this white pants on.
And we follow the course like
that we saw the day before.
There's not really surprises because we've already been on the course.
And so like one of the competitors, like they're doing the rope climb and one of thecompetitors gets shot with an arrow.
Zemir decides he's going to kill Jonavan.
So he lights Jonavan's rope on fire.

(01:09:15):
the rope travel, like the fire travels up the rope, but Jonavan like scurries up.
He's too quick.
Instead of shooting him with an arrow or something, lighting the rope on fire is theslowest uh possible way to get to where you want to be.
it has to go all the way up.
And the other competitors, one guy takes a spear to the back, another guy gets axed, it'sjust he's getting across the rope bridge.

(01:09:39):
But my favorite moment of all is when Jonathan runs up to one of the refs and he kind ofruns past.
As soon as Jonathan is past, the ref just drops his arms.
Like he's had enough of this holding the flag shot.
Zemir tries to cut the rope bridge as John's crossing and you know, he's still like, butit's still attached to the other side.

(01:10:02):
So Jonathan, like he sort of swings down and, you know, he kind of catches against theside of the chasm and climbs up the side of the gorge in slow motion.
Again, you guys have arrows.
It's like 10 feet.
Like I could make that shot and I'm not, I'm not some great, I'm not an Olympic levelarcher, but I could do that.

(01:10:24):
I could shoot that guy.
Thorg kills one of the competitors and then like he has this face, you know, like he facesdown with Jonathan and just as like this Thorg is going to kick his ass because Thorg is a
big guy, Jonathan ducks out of the way.
One of the archers shoots an arrow, goes right into Thorg's chest.
This movie is all about surprise arrows to the chest.

(01:10:44):
So many arrows in this movie.
Yeah, I also I forgot to talk about this, but it happens here as well.
So this is also a movie where there is zero emotional reaction to the death of anybody.
Ever like when they were being shown the poor prisoners who had to just die in the examplegame or at any point along the way, there is no reaction to the death of anyone.

(01:11:14):
So.
Everybody's kind of just, yeah, it's like nonplussed about it.
like, I don't want to watch a guy die.
Like, I don't want to watch that.
I mean, you know, if I have to play the game, I guess I will, but like, I'm not going tobe happy about
mean, and here it's like they don't want to watch a guy die either, but they don't notwant to watch a guy.
Not what?
Just, just like.
It's just another thing that happens.

(01:11:35):
Well, here's the thing, guys.
So now it's all been fun and games up till now.
Like this is admittedly a very silly, I think entertaining movie, but in a kind of WTFsort of way.
But then at the one hour and five minute mark into Gymkhada, they rope adoped me becausewe enter this place.

(01:11:58):
The last stage of like the game course is the Village of the Crazies.
It's called the Village of the Crazies.
or the village of the damned.
And it's basically, we're told this is where, where Parmistan puts all of its insanepeople in basically an insane asylum that is like this walled city.
And you just throw them in there.
And honestly, first of all, Parmistan has more people in the village of the crazies thanthey do in the regular village.

(01:12:24):
But the village of the crazies, you enter this village and this movie turns on a fuckingdime because it is the most
accurate depiction of the experience of having a uh literal nightmare that I have everseen in a motion picture.

(01:12:44):
So does that mean that you have also in a dream fought with an Abraham Lincoln off brandon M-Stairs?
Anything could happen.
He goes to this narrow passage and the gate slam shut behind him and like everything isquiet except you can hear kind of one goat in the background and then like a baby crying

(01:13:07):
and then a dude laughing and the film starts to give you this succession of sounds andimages that are so unsettling you have no idea what's going to happen next and the
unreality of it.
absolutely replicates the experience of a nightmare.

(01:13:27):
Like a guy comes out of nowhere with a sickle?
You guys got a sickle and he's slicing at Jonathan and then Jonathan pushes him away andthe guy just starts screaming and he fucking cuts off his own hand at the wrist.
Yeah, that part was...
My hand is still gripped to the pipe!
Shocking dog licks his blood.

(01:13:49):
Yeah.
dog is licking a pool of blood in the street.
The pool of blood is coming from another competitor who has been staked to a door with aspear through his face.
People just come up and they kind of just touch Jonathan.
Some of them just stand there.
One guy drops out of nowhere and attacks him.

(01:14:09):
Thorg shows up again bleeding from the arrow wound.
He'll be walking by these narrow streets and just hands reach out.
Some of them grabbing him.
Some of them just
There's a guy dressed as a monk standing in front of a church door and as he turns aroundwe see the robe has no back.
He's just his ass is hanging out.

(01:14:30):
There's a guy with a mask on the back of his head so he looks like he's got two faces.
It's like it's the crazies that stabbed Thor to death in a pigsty and others stabbing him.
All you hear is the squealing of the pigs.
I'm like, I'm watching this and I'm having like
kind of like panic attack from the nightmarish, like, I'm just, like, what happened?

(01:14:55):
This was a silly little 80s action movie and now I'm like, I'm having to breathe into apaper bag.
I had to rewind the thing with the face because they linger on him after they fought.
They linger on my face and I'm like, what is that?
Because I missed it somehow when the guy first turned around and I'm like, what is thisHarry Potter bullshit?

(01:15:17):
This guy needs, because it's not even a deceptive, he's just standing in plain sight.
It's not like having a face on the back of your head is going to trick the guy into, whatis that going to
It looks, it looks like one of the weird like, like people with two faces out of like, uh,the movie Caligula, where you have all these weird freaks and mutants down in like the

(01:15:38):
cavern.
And it's just like, it's, I'm not even sure if he's supposed to be a dude with a mask onthe back of his head, or that's just a really bad like depiction of a dude who's supposed
to have a face growing out of the back of his head.
Either way, it's a nightmare.
And here's now, guys, here's what I learned about this sequence.

(01:16:01):
And this is mind blowing.
Not all the people in the village of the crazies were actors.
Many of them were real patients from a psychiatric hospital in Yugoslavia.
my goodness.
Apparently anybody who had physical contact with Kurt Thomas, they were professionals.
But the other people that you see, the faces, and these faces are haunting.

(01:16:28):
They were real psychiatric patients who were brought in to fill out as extras.
it's just, they were apparently compensated with a buffet and alcohol.
my God, that is, that is, I'm highly unethical.

(01:16:48):
Oh, highly, highly unethical.
It's just like this sequence.
Just it's just, and, you know, like the, the, the, this, this thing continues that like weget to the most sublime scene in the whole movie where the crazies are moving in on him.
And Jonathan retreats to like the center of town where these there's this well and there'stwo handles built into the well, like a pommel horse.

(01:17:16):
And man, he just goes on a Gymkhana tear.
He's swinging around.
He's kicking people left and right.
It's unhinged.
It's amazing to watch.
It's completely ridiculous.
And it's just like, I can't, I can't believe I'm seeing this.
then, yo, there's too many of them.
So he's running off.
So he's running.

(01:17:36):
And again, there's, he's running this.
He's being chased by dogs are on his heels.
Like, again, it is like a nightmare.
There's no logic.
Anything can happen.
It is absolutely terrifying.
He's climbing up to get this wall to get out and they're getting closer and closer.
And just so it looks like they have him, one of the referees in a black hood appears andpulls him to safety.

(01:17:59):
And guys, it's Jonathan's dad.
Yep.
He survived.
Dad!
My God!
I knew you'd get here, Jonathan.
I don't know what's real anymore.
It's true enough.
It was a nightmare in hell.
Come on, we can drop over the wall from here.

(01:18:21):
trained for two months.
So his father survived an arrow to the chest, a fall into the gorge, and has been hidingout for at least two months this whole time in Parma's dam.
But it's just like, we have this 12 or 13 minute sequence that is an absolute nightmare.
And then we pop back into the ridiculous movie, like where we were for the first 65minutes.

(01:18:43):
I've honestly never seen anything like it.
So the princess, she realizes that
her and the con are in the midst of a palace coup.
And, and, you know, the con doesn't want to believe it, but she's ready to fight.
And you know, she's ready to fight because she's got this black Emma Peel cat suit readyto go under the red dress she's been wearing all day.
Uh, and as quickly as Jonathan gets his dad back, Zamir shows up, puts an arrow in hisback, kills the dad about literally four minutes after the dad survived.

(01:19:15):
Welcome back.
Oh, you're dead.
Just enough.
to look at his son and say, Wayne Johnny.
Like it's been a roller coaster of a day for Jonathan.
We have the final chase on horseback between Jonathan and Zameer.
That's, you know, then the final fight where Jonathan gets to use Gymkhana one last time.

(01:19:36):
And again, the fights are awesome because Kurt Thomas is really great at the physicalstuff.
You know, and, and, uh, you know, he wins the fight.
He breaks Amir's neck with his legs.
The princess leads her father out of the palace, fighting off the guards dressed, youknow, dressed in a cat suit, putting down the coup.
And just as they're taking back their country, Jonathan shows up riding a horse.

(01:19:59):
The first winner of the game in 900 years.
And his dad is there.
His dad slumped back on the back of the horse behind him.
So maybe he's not dead.
He's kind of slumped over.
I gotta be honest, I wasn't sure whether the dad lived or died.
Got me either.
I, and my head cannon, he lived.
He's getting saved.

(01:20:20):
Yeah, sure.
And the princess runs up, she gets on the horse with Jonathan, and we freeze frame on thetwo of them, and we get this final caption.
My favorite.
The caption reads, in 1985, the first early warning Earth station was placed in Parmistanfor the US Star Wars defense program.

(01:20:44):
Guys, Jim Cotta won the Cold War in 1985!
with gymnastics.
with gymnastics and we get a credit sequence, multiple freeze frames over the credits.
Like they'll play a little bit of the movie and then freeze on an image.
And my God, Jim Cotter.
Oh, Jim Carter.

(01:21:05):
Yeah.
Jim Cotta was not a box office smash when it was released May 3rd, 1985.
It made a total of about 5.7 million, but apparently- It that much money?
It made that much money and apparently must have been a huge hit in the Philippinesbecause a couple of years later, they released a totally unrelated martial arts film.

(01:21:27):
Brian Trenchard Smith's Day of the Panther released under the title Jim Cotta II in thePhilippines.
Wow, that's great.
Makes me happy.
And in the Philippines, there was also a comedy film that carried the title, Gin Kata.
Oh, did people drink gin in it maybe?
So it must have been big enough in the Philippines that you do like a parody title.

(01:21:50):
my goodness.
It's like the, the Philippines, Zuckerman, Zuckerman making fun of Jim Cata.
I it.
I love it.
I mean, guys, I mean, just imagine if this movie had been big in the US, the wave ofgymnastics slash martial arts enthusiasm that would have swept the country.

(01:22:10):
I mean, we had had Gymkhana dojos springing up everywhere like parents got to go pick uptheir kids from Gymkhana practice.
Oh, all the while, a world protected by Ronald Reagan's
functioning Star Wars defense system.
So I do want to, ah you know, here, here at the end, looking back.

(01:22:32):
So we got high bar.
We got, um we got pommel horse.
Did we get rings?
I think we didn't get rain.
get rings.
I mean, you could say that anytime he was uh fighting a bunch of dudes, that's floorroutine.
Yeah, yeah.
Got floor routine.
And then there was nothing that quite was a vault.

(01:22:52):
I mean, he flipped.
He did flips, but.
He did flips when he was just like standing in place and would like spin 360 degrees.
Like, like that's amazing.
But no, we should have had a vault set.
He should have had to vault out of the village of the crazies.
It seems like you could have had, you know, something springy on the ground that he couldhave used, but...

(01:23:12):
And then his father, like the, and then the guy who was revealed to be his father showsup, like he's just barely gonna make his foot.
And then the father grabs him.
Obviously, you know, Robert Klaus hoped to replicate the success of Enter the Dragon, butit was not to be, uh, cause that movie is lightning in a bottle.
Honestly, I hope at some point, some one of those deluxe video boutique video labels picksthis movie up and gives it.

(01:23:39):
gives it the remastering and deluxe treatment.
I want to slip cover for Gymkhana.
It's amazing.
The mega force of martial arts movies deserves no less.
uh Anyway, that is probably the place to stop for today.
It has been Gymkhana, but we will be back in three weeks because on July 1st, the beacheswill be open.

(01:24:09):
for our first episode in our brand new series, Get Me Another Jaws.
Cannot wait.
Cannot wait.
I'm s-
So excited.
And we have an incredible lineup of movies.
We have guests.
We're going to see all manner of creatures attack from sharks to piranha to alligators tobears and many, many more.

(01:24:32):
I am so excited.
I know you guys are.
We hope you'll join us.
We are super excited about Get Me Into Their Jaws for that movie's 50th anniversary, whichis crazy.
and I, gentlemen, am getting into bikini shape.
I will be recording solely in a swimsuit this entire series.

(01:24:54):
We can't get that YouTube channel up and running fast enough.
Fast enough.
So the first episode of Get Me Another Jaws coming your way July 1st.
Guys, I think we're going to need a bigger podcast.
I think so.
Thank you all so much for listening.
Again, we are your hosts, Chris Iannicode, Rob LaMorgzis and Justin Bean.

(01:25:15):
If you've enjoyed our show, please consider subscribing and following us on Blue Sky,Instagram, threads and Twitter at Get Me Another Pod.
In addition, check out the Justin Beame Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts and youcan find Justin's book, Roadside Memories at JustinBeam.com or wherever books are sold.
And if you've liked the show, tell your friends about it, tell your enemies about it, tellall the folks in the Village of the Crazies about it, including both of that one guy's

(01:25:42):
faces.
And join us next time as we continue to explore what happens when Hollywood says, get meenough.
YAH oh