Have you ever seen anyone ‘ski’ two kayaks down a rapid?

In the Alps we ski on the snow in winter, then recycle it for kayaking when it melts in spring. Why not combine the two?

Willy Bognor is famous in the skiing world both his brilliantly ridiculous and outlandish videos and his plainly ridiculous and outlandish ‘fashion’ creations.

This is one of the kayak scenes from his 1990 masterpiece (ed. hmmm) ‘Fire, Ice and Dynamite,’ a surreal feature length German action sports film starring none other than Roger Moore! This isn’t your standard kayaking though; this is kayaking taken to extreme levels of brilliance/insanity, from paragliding into the river, to skiing down it with a boat strapped to each foot! Then of course there’s the inevitable guy bowling downstream in a beer barrel!

FIRE ICE & DYNAMITE KAYAKING

Willy Bogner’s style of filming always includes a healthy dose of pop-slapstick humor, but what most people don’t realize is just how technically difficult these “silly” action scenes can be. This scene from Bogner’s 1990 Fire, Ice and Dynamite features Simon Shepherd, playing ‘Alexander’ in the film, on a wild ride proving once and for all that he can not ski.

This segment of the film was shot in Valle Verzasca in the Alps, in the Swiss (but officially Italian speaking) canton Ticino. To this day Ticino remains one of Europe’s best and most popular whitewater kayaking destinations, filled to the brim with steep granite bedrock creeking (interestingly it’s also where the bunny jump scene in the Bond film Goldeneye was shot).

As with most of Bognor’s filming slapstick comedy is a key theme, but in reality shooting scenes like this requires a very high level of skill and planning! Even now the Verzasca River is considered is considered ‘full on,’ but back in 1990 this was really pushing the limits!