gun kata en · NOUN
Etymology
Compound of gun + kata (“martial art movements”), from Japanese 型 (kata, “style, pattern”). Attested from, and possibly coined around 2003 for the film Equilibrium (see quotation below).
Meanings
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(uncountable) Synonym of gun fu (a style of balletic gunplay in action films)
I learn from Nick Nunziata at www.CHUD.com that the form of battle used in the movie is “Gun-Kata,” which is “a martial art completely based around guns.” I credit Nunziata because I think he may have invented this term.
2005, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2005, review of Equilibrium, page 208:
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(uncountable) A fictional martial art based on gun fu.
The early 21st century. The totalitarian state of Libria has been established following a third world war and is presided over by the ubiquitous video-image of ‘Father’. To maintain harmony, the populace are forced to self-medicate with the emotion-suppressant Prozium. Sense Offenders, who skip doses and secretly hoard artworks, are hunted down by an elite squad of Clerics, trained in the martial art Gun-Kata (which enables its practitioners to predict the path of bullets fired at them).
2003 April, Andy Richards, “Equilibrium”, in Sight and Sound, volume 13, page 35: