Gidra

An awkwardly endearing brawling action picture from Serbia, Gidra stars Dragomir Stojanovic, better known as Gidra. Unwilling to let things like acting get in his way, the little man carries the picture with amazing athleticism and boundless enthusiasm. Unwilling to back down from any challenge, he was born to be a warrior!

Gidra is a wild little man who spends much of his time running or engaging in astonishing ab workouts. One of these exercises consists of having a training partner jump on his stomach while he yells "Harder! Harder!!" Another consists of lying on his stomach while he flops his entire body completely off the ground at an amazing rate, looking a little like a muscular fish flopping around out of water. These workouts are necessary because he engages half the people he meets in the movie in fist fights, and frequently displays his awesome toughness by allowing them to strike him in the abdomen as hard as they want.  I am certain that they were really hitting the man in quite a few of the scenes, too.

Gidra responds to attacks with a mixture of boxing and headbutts, including his patented running headbutt technique which must be seen to be believed.

After traveling to the big city to go to college (at which point Gidra seems to be in his forties), Gidra and his buddy take frequent time out to beat the crap out of anyone who they deem to be engaged in wrongdoing. They beat up local hoods and commandeer some of their stolen clothing, upgrading their look from "homeless bums" to "old dudes trying to look like Fonzie".

When Gidra's not beating people up or getting yelled at by his landlady, he spends some time smooth-talking a local highschool girl into dating him. He even brings her a rose for her 18th birthday, and they dance in the rain.  Young love! Sort of.

Unfortunately the lover's bliss cannot last.  The local gangs have been angered by Gidra's thug-stomping ways, and they challenge him to a fight. Never one to back down from a challenge, he proceeds to beat the hell out of their current toughman.  This only infuriates the gangs further and the situation spirals dangerously out of control. A veritable cornucopia of bareknuckle asskickery awaits the viewer who can find a copy of this movie.

Dubbed from what I assume was Serbian into English, as far as I know Gidra is only available on ratty old VHS tapes. Despite the completely generic and goofy script and horrible acting, there are some fun fight scenes (and LOTS of them), and Dragomir Stojanovic really is a sight to see both as a fighter and during the training sequences.  The man was a real fighter and proponent of boxing and martial arts in Serbia before his untimely death, and he's one of those physical performers that's just captivating to watch.