I remember the first time I’d heard of Ariel Zeitoun and Julien Seri’s 2001 action adventure, Yamakasi, it was back when I was a recurring customer of the now defunct HKFlix website. It was definitely one of those titles that was always “Out Of Print” and/or “Out Of Stock,” and so I never got around to getting it while hoping one day that a legitimate U.S. distribution outlet would swoop in and save the day, and obviously, that never happened.
At any rate, it’s worth noting that the film came right during the advent of the internet where stunt performers, namely freerunners, would find themselves on opportune ground to get their stuff out into the world. Parkour eventually became a mainstream thing for a time in movies and television, and traceurs like David Belle, Cyril Raffaelli, and Sebastien Foucan would become more prolific, and hell, at one point prior if you were to tell me that Sam Witwicky would be doing parkour in the third Transformers movie back in 2011, I might’ve thought you were high…
Funny.
Anyways, such are the parts and pieces of the legacy of parkour sports and stunts in the years since actors Châu Belle, Williams Belle, and Yann Hnautra made headway with the film. Alas, the latest action comedy shortfilm from director Jean Adrieu is online as of last month in celebration of the trio, twenty years since the film’s release to honor their work as the freerunning founders of Art Du Déplacement (ADD), with the operators of the Bruges-based Simiiforme gym producing, and with none other than actor, stunt maestro and FCSyndicate favorite Kefi Abrikh (The Princess, Furie) joining the cast…
That’s 18 minutes of zany comedy coupled with sweeping action and parkour stunts from a line-up that clearly hasn’t missed a step over the years. Enjoy!
