Schmollywood Babylon

The X From Outer Space (Kazui Nihonmatsu, 1967)

Everyone wanted in on the Godzilla and kaiju-craze, from Toei’s Gamera to Nikkatsu’s Gappa - but lets not forget Shôchiku’s The X From Outer Space, a kaiju which had eluded me for a number of years. It’s always been a favorite of my buddy Jocke, but I kinda wanted to wait until I could see it in perfect quality and in a legal way with good English subs. Finally Criterion, of all companies, released it in a wonderful box in 2012 - and two years later - I’m quite slow - I finally bought it, not just for The X From Outer space, but also for the other films in the box. I might get back to them later on this blog, cross your fingers.

To say this film delivers a competent, thought-through story is to claim Chuck Norris is an intelligent, charismatic and talented action star - not at all, of course. But where Chuck just feels like a child molester, The X From Outer Space feels like fucking Superman in comparison. Not sure why, but a gang of swinging Japanese hipsters is going on a trip to space, accidentally finds some slimy, strange alien spore - which they of course takes aboard. Like all not-so-smart scientists they bring this fucking thing back to earth where it starts to grow and finally becomes the super-corny space-chicken Guilala! And Guilala is fucking angry and hungry and just wanna eat some energy! What shall our heroes do? Take a drink and look hip to the sound of sixities jazz? Yes, of course, but also develop “Guilalaium”, something Guilala can’t resist - but also is highly dangerous for our new favorite gigant monster!

The script is a mess and most of the stuff that’s happening just happens without much explanation. Have you ever seen Ultraman or any similar Tokusatsu show? Those episodes is like Kaiju films compressed into 22 minute long short movies - and imagine one of those episodes drawn out to a feature length movie. That’s how to describe The X From Outer Space in a pretty accurate way. This is of course awesome, because when Guilala finally attacks - almost 50 minutes into the film - it never holds back and becomes one of the most spectacular, miniature-bashing Kaijus ever made. It never comes up in the quality of the Godzilla movies, or the second Gamera, but it looks gorgeous and delivers a couple of spectacular action sequences.

On of the best and coolest - maybe in the whole Kaiju history - is when Guilala is chasing a truck carrying Guilalaium, stomping right behind it, reaching out to try to grab the stuff. It looks terribly cool and the effects are awesome. Like an early version of the T-Rex chasing the jeep in Jurassic Park. There’s more interesting details like this, making the effects more alive and less detailed.

Guilala is a bit too contrived design-wise to be 100% effective (Godzilla and Gamera, to name two monsters, are very effective just because they’re so simple), but the suit and mechanics is well-made and less stiff than many other, more famous, monsters from the same time in Japan. High on cheese and entertainment, The X From Outer Space is a Kaiju well worth rediscovering!

Demeking (Kôtarô Terauchi, 2009)

When I was a kid most of my time outside was spent looking for treasures, solving mysteries, pretending to be somewhere else. I remember how I once found a big pile of coins hidden in the ground in front of my school - coins from the fifties, so they had no value. Another time we found a skeleton in the forrest and ran home to tell our parents. It was a deer of course. I lived close to a castle, so the grounds was filled with history, old rusty metal objects and maybe most important: stories, lots of them. One was about the secret tunnel leading from the castle to... I don't know where. Maybe some kind of escape route. Everyone knew about it but no one knew if it was real. It was a constant search for something else, something that could trigger our imagination.

Demeking is about the search for something. Whatever it may be. In a bit of a false advertising Demeking is sold as a Kaiju movie. And yeah, some parts of it is Kaiju, but it's mostly a coming-of-age story, set between 1970 and 1972 in Japan. Kohei Kiyasu is Kame, an older kid spending a lot of time with some younger boys, maybe because he doesn't have any other friends - or maybe because he's a bit naive and fits better with the younger guys. One day he and his little troupe of explorers meets Hachiya (Takeshi Nadagi), the local madman - or well, maybe not mad, but he's just not like everyone else. He talks about Demeking and how he will fight this... monster. One day he leaves the little town they're all living in and leaves a map and a letter to Kame and his friends. They go out on a treasure hunt and discover a prophecy, Hachiya's propechy. In 2019 a giant monster will attack earth, a huge snail called Demeking...

I honestly thing Demeking is a brilliant drama, a very touching and sometimes arty story about growing up, about dreams and wishes. It's simple in it's storytelling, the characters are on the surface very uncomplicated and the visual style of the film is very traditional. What makes it so powerful is how it triggers the imagination, it really never give any clear answers and the ending is as open as it can be. But wow, that what really gets my brain working. I want to having something to think about afterwards - sometimes it's frustrating, but here it's just very humane, very poetic. Combined with fine acting and intelligent dialogue, Demeking is a fantastic little movie. I say little, because it never pretends to be something else. Well, except when the marketing comes around. But I would blame that on the distributors. 

Sure, there's a huge monster attack in this film. The monster Demeking is so awesome. But it's not what it seems, so be prepared. But still, after all is said and done... maybe our characters are on to something anyway? It might just be the imagination of a couple of dreamy guys who's grown up with Tokusatus shows on TV and Godzilla and Gamera in cinema. But on the other hand, it might not be that at all. I'm not gonna write anything more, but I just want you to understand that this is not a monster movie. This is a childhood drama. And I'm so damn curious how these characters turned out as adults. 

That is maybe the true power of Demeking, the characters continues to live on outside the movie, outside the Manga it's based upon. That's magic, my friends. That's true movie magic. 

Godzilla 2000 (Takao Okawara, 1999)

So fifteen years later it was time again, Godzilla 2000 entered the scene as yet another reboot, more or less ignoring the movies in-between the 1954 flick and this one. Toho didn't plan to restart their franchise so fast, but after the bad reception of Roland Emmerich horrendous American Godzilla from 1998 Toho fastforwarded their 2004 planned 50 year tribute to Godzilla and gave us one of the better, and more serious, part in the series so far.

Once again Toho takes everything up a notch or two already the start - yet another fishing boat, but this time in the jaws of Godzilla, which is cleverly filmed at the beginning, so the big G becomes a suprise, is destroyed and this of coure starts Godzilla’s new mayhem-filled walk over the Japanese landscapes. This time we follow a man, Shinoda, and his family who traces Godzilla - and he belongs to a small network of geeks who’s very interested in monsters. Imagine tornado chasers, but huge motherfucking monster chasers instead. Godzilla is awake again, but not necessary just to fuck around with the humans, but to protect them against the giant stone who has appeared in the sea outside Japan! The stone is, of course, an giant alien monster named Orga and he really wanna fuck things up!

First lets talk about the visuals. Toho have gone out of their mind to make this Godzilla the most alive movie ever in the series, and with that I mean advanced and quite realistic combinations of Godzilla - as usual a man in suit - in real environments, often with the camera moving around (like from a helicopter) or just panning around. Even if the effects might hold up today it still looks awesome. I have a lot of favorite shots, but the one where Godzilla walks in the distance behind a moving car, with the sundown in the background is breathtaking. So is the elegant miniatures, the best I’ve seen since the early sixties.

Compared to Godzilla 1984, the monster herself is a lot more lizard-like, but still feels more human - probably because she’s able to move more than some earlier version I’ve seen. But don’t worry, Godzilla is still a violent monster and completely destroys a lot of valuable property either by body strength or with her deadly ray of blue fire. The opponent, Orga, have several different looks - the stone, a UFO, a CG squid-esque thing and finally the real rubber monster, which looks terribly cool - like Rancor on steroids!

Godzilla 2000 might not break any new ground, but it goes back to the roots once again and delivers a spectacular adventure with thrilling special effects, mass destruction and rubber monsters galore. The ending is wonderfully doomed, one of those endings that gives you goosebumps. This is another favorite of mine, hidden in-between the storywise more absurd movies before and after. Add to this a powerful score, rich and close to Hollywood-esque - but still with a dash of that Japanse march-style Ifukube made so popular!

Now I need to find a version with Japanese language and English subs! I’ve only seen this fucker dubbed to English! THAT’S a damn scandal!

Godzilla (Koji Hashimoto,1984)

Godzilla is back, in this first reboot of the series, after the fantastic - but ultimately an economic failure - The Terror of MechaGodzilla (also the last movie directed by master Ishiro Honda) and this time every form of cheese and family fun is deleted. Conceived partly on a treatment by producer Tomoyuki Tanaka as a direct sequel to the 1954 classic, more or less ignoring all the strangeness between then. In the tradition of the original movie an American edit was made of this one also, once again starring Raymond Burr inserted into the story. Bizarre. I haven’t seen that version, but considering how bad the first movie became with inserts… ah, fuck that. The big G is back and it’s a great, great time he’s giving us.

It even begins in a similar way, a fishing vessel (or something…) gets in trouble at the sea when something attacks them. Later Goro (Ken Tanaka) finds the ship and gets attacked by a giant louse! Of course something is on the loose and its of course Godzilla! One survivor from the ship swears to take revenge on our favorite giant monster! From the beginning everything is kept under-cover, but when a Russian sub is destroyed the whole suddenly understands that Godzilla is back and the cold war is put on hold until this problem can be resolved...but is that even possible?

Like the first movie this one is very serious, gone is the camp and goofiness. This is a low-key (except the giant louse) monster movie with the same kind of anti-war and anti-nuclear message like it was in the beginning. It’s also a lot more subtle when it comes to the action. Godzilla of course stomps cities, but it’s a bit more slow-moving, he’s working his way forward through each city in a similarity to the 1976 King Kong, a bit laid back, more classic, seventies quality cinema. This is also the first G-movie since the first where Godzilla is alone, he doesn’t fight another monster - which also makes it less action-oriented and more into a monster-thriller.

Godzilla herself is also more streamlined in the face and body, standing sometimes like a big Golem, looking out over the destruction. She's back to the primitive, animalistic level - less anthropomorphic. 

One thing which connects it to the Ishiro Honda’s original classic i the darkness. Much of the action is set in the evening/night, and interiors is often filled with shadows and well, more contrast. This helps a lot in the detailed miniature scenes, which becomes more haunting and doomed. The miniatures yeah, always one of the reasons why you watch a kaiju movie, they’re excellent here, they feel heavy, but is far as detailed as the ones from the early sixties, which are pure insanity in the form of details (there’s a scene where Rodan lands in something that looks like a big train station, which is is stunning!). I also notice with adding a small monitor inside the window of the miniature skyscraper to make it look in real time that our heroes are inside, looking out. I think James Used something like that in either Aliens or The Abyss. Clever.

Godzilla (1984) began as a thought from producer Tomoyuki Tanaka. Godzilla had a few years earlier become hip and cool again, probably from a mix of nostalgia and irony, generating money for Toho. His original plan was to bring back both director Ishiro Honda and composer Akira Ifukube, but both decline. According to legend Ifukube opposed making Godzilla bigger - from 50 meters to 80 - and said “I don’t make music for 80 meter monsters” as a response. Not sure about that, it’s even not that witty or funny. And this Godzilla feels very modern. There’s nothing ironic or kitsch with it, it’s just what I imagine the new movie, the one directed by Gareth Edwards, will be: humourless, serious and spectacular in that mighty, mammoth way we love seeing buildings be torn apart. I love how the city landscape gets more and more post-apocalyptic for each battle scene, echoing of old-school disaster films and Japanese melodrama. 

An underrated - more should see it - monster movie which deserves a lot more praise than it has gotten over the years. There's a scene towards the end, a dozen men stands watching a giant screen. In front of them a monster is dying. The men are in their 40-50's, and they're almost crying. I think this scene is a reference to the audience who Toho want to make nostalgic, those who saw the first movies as young men and now they their own kids to see them. It's like the audience is watching itself, drenched in positive nostalgia. It's almost poetic.

Godzilla, 60 years and counting, will never die. Believe me.

Killer Ants (Carolyn Banks, 2009)

Carolyn Banks is a 70+ lady who makes movies in Texas, which by itself is awesome. The problem is that she completely lacks talent. 

Invicta is now called Killer Ants, because no one would buy a movie called Invicta - what the hell is that by the way? Yeah, it's something ant-related. So the distributor just retitled the movie Killer Ants and made spectacular artwork with a chick being attacked by giant ants. Just look at it!

Doesn't that look fun? It's not.

You can't blame Carolyn Banks and her team of actors for that, of course, but you can blame them for doing something completely lacking of talent. And even worse, there's not even an ounce of ambition or enthusiasm! Imagine the worst kind of community theater acting, but add a little bit more scene chewing and a no charisma whatsoever. Oh, and the main baddie looks like he haven't slept for around 15 years OR he thinks he's the fat dude in all those Buster Keaton shorts from the roaring 20s. 

The worst thing is of course that the killer ant part of Killer Ants is more or less nothing at all. It's more a rural drama about a young couple who can't have children (because she's taking pills in secret) and - I think - the guy meets a new girls and there's the non-sleeping guy being some ant-scientist-ish being doing something for some reason never fully explored. So there's no awesome scenes of ants attack, not cheesy but fun special effects and really nothing at all to be enjoyed by. The most insane scene is the thrilling final where the young couple is tied together in a desolate place, left alone to be eaten by ants - they discuss how to save themselves, and finally they manage to break her glasses and cut the ropes with the glass. This is alright, if it wasn't for them being able to just walk away from the place. Yes, they're not tied to anything else but themselves! But it doesn't stop there. Finally they're on their way from the killer ants and walks slowly through the forest. WITHOUT ANY STRESS. Suddenly they starts discussing how to escape the ants, the MILLIONS of killer ants...

...so instead of just running - or walking a bit faster - they lay down on the ground and decides to not move, to be completely still. Because the huge amount of ants won't bite them and just walk over them. You have to understand that there's no ants around at all. So they lay down and... FIFTY FUCKING ANTS, TINY TINY ONES, comes walking over them. It takes like ten seconds and then they're safe again.

The movie ends with the queen ant biting the baddie in the eye and he screams, very loud: "THE EYE! THE FIRE ANT LOVE THE EYE!!!"

The end.

You know me. I never tell you to not watch a movie, but if you feel for watching a flick where nothing is happening and it looks like a homemade porn movie, this is the movie for you. Go ahead. Don't blame your upcoming bipolar disorder on me. 

Curse of the Black Widow (Dan Curtis, 1977)

Curse of the Black Widow, a TV-movie directed by Dan Curtis, holds a special place in the hell my heart really is. I saw the tape, or more the box, standing in the video store for so many years and I desperately wanted to see it! That never happen, and maybe ten years ago I found it on betamax - but I didn't have one of those players, and it's until now - on a bootleg from Modcinema - I finally had the pleasure to see it. Dan Curtis usually delivers quite low-key, not so cheesy TV-movies, but here we have a movie packed with that partically brand of delicatessen plus a bunch of actors who take themself very seriously. 

A combination like that is awesome.

Just look at Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell, which might be the cheesiest TV-movie. It's extra enjoyable because the actors play the story straight. No tounge in cheek, no ironic glances in the camera. This is the real deal and it's silly as Satan's uncle Bob (don't ask). 

Something is killing men, and the traces leads to a giant spider. Yes, that's true! A big damn spider! Tough cop Vic Morrow is investigating the case, but it's more the future Dario Argento-star Anthony Franciosa who takes the lead in this dance with spider webs. Can the killer be a woman? But how can there be traces of spider venom? The intrigue is getting thicker and the cheese more juicy, and soon we'll get a closer look at this terrible curse...of the Black Widow!

TV-movies are sure special, especially American one's from the seventies. But they're often smart and uses their low budget in intelligent ways. Can't say that about Curse of the Black Widow who manages to be surprisingly non-subtle both regarding the acting, the effects and the story itself. It feels more like a long episode of Kolchak, which of course isn't a bad thing. Also added to this basic creature feature/murder story is a classic TV-style mystery, right out from any episod of Columbo or Cannon. In that way it's pretty standard. 

The twist ending is as absurd as you can expect, with both inspiration from De Palma and something right out from a fifities horror/monster movie, in severl different ways. This is awesome, and it's packed with rubber-style monster mayhem - not that spectacular maybe, we're still talking about a TV-movie here, but enough fun to entertain met at least. Another fine thing is the cast, which is surprisingly spectacular considering the silliness of the movie. Vic Morrow, H.B. Haggerty and Sid Caesar have more cameo-like parts, but Franciosa is a very competent lead. 

It's - as usual - a pity it never got a good remastered release. It's cozy and creepy (wouldn't surprise me if the scared the shit out of some kids at the time - just wait for the twisted ending, with lots of spider web...) and better than it should be. The script is so-so, but the actors and director makes it all work in the end. 

Sorry, this was one incoherent reviews. Or what to call it. Never again. Time to quit this and move on in life. Or something. 

Kongsploitation: Goliathon (Meng Hua Ho, 1977)

More known as The Mighty Peking Man, I kinda prefer the Goliathon. I mean, Peking has nothing to do with the story ("Colossus of Congo" is even worse, a titled used in parts of Europe)! Goliathon is a damn fine monster-name, which invokes both Godzilla and Gorilla and just sounding very cool. I've always felt confused while watching it. No, I'm not feeling straight vibes just becaues there's a half-naked women in more or less every scene! It's more because it's so damn cool, but still have the most boring first part every in a movie! EVER! 

It sounds fine. Somewhere in the Indian Himalayas a giant ape lives. His best friend is a stunning blonde, Russian actress Evelyn Kraft - with hardly any clothes on - and they live happily together close to where Evelyn once crashed together with her parents and now is a female Tarzan of some kind. But a couple of Hong Kongnese adventurers have heard about the ape and travels there, captures it and the adventure can being... no, not yet. Because first Evelyn and Danny Lee must fall in love and endless scenes of nothingness. Which goes on forever. In eternity. 

And then the ape is caught, delivered to Hong Kong and the fun can begin!

It feels terrible to say this, but that first half... with the romance... I mean, it shouldn't be there. It should be deleted, destroyed. Movies like this should not be allowed to be boring! But once you get through that, it turns into a helluva fun movie. The special effects, for example, is more or less up there with the Godzilla-films. At least the miniatures, which was supervised with people from Toho. So it's not surprising it looks so good! The monster-suit... it looks okay, but quite freaky. The face looks a bit too human to feel comfortable to look at. It's not a cute ape, like yesterday's King Kong! 

At least there's a lot of action. Buildings and bridges destroyed by angry ape, people running like they starred in a Japanese kaiju movie from the monster... and Evelyn's nipples have  a tendency to escape from their nest when you least expect it. At least when she's running. And she does that a lot.

This time I also watched it with the original language, which I guess is Cantonese or something. It hardly makes the film more serious, but it's easier to accept the craziness than when watching the infamous English version released in the US on DVD, under the Mighty Peking Man title. Maybe the English helped the first half a little bit, because of the cheesy dialogue - but I doubt I'll ever see that version again. Goliathon is just a lot more closer to what the original intention with the movie was suppose to be. 

Not counting the boring parts, Goliathon is a fun, fun, fun rip on the Dino De Laurentiis King Kong from the year before. When it's monster action it's really good monster action. The miniatures look fine and for you dykes and straight men out there, I guess Evelyn can be to some help while watching it!

Kongsploitation: Shikari (Mohammed Hussain, 1963)

One of my many goals in life is to collect every single King Kong-related ever made. It can be official Kong's or just good old rip-off's from all over the world. I haven't succeeded yet, but I'm getting damn close. Here we have Shikari, a 1963-hit that manages to combines King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, Dr Cyclops and the atmosphere of the old poverty row cinema but in colour and with lots of singing and dancing. Shikari means big game hunter, and this is also the central theme of the movie: to catch King Kong!

 

A greedy circus owner decides to go to some faraway country (Singapore is mentioned, but I'm not sure that's where they're going) to catch King Kong. They actually use that name, until they're there and the natives instead calls the big ape for Ottangu. They meet up with their guide, a famous hunter with - as usual - a beautiful daughter, who lives in the jungle. They find a totally destroyed village and our heroes wants to get the police and doctors there, but the greedy circus owner shoots the messenger and wants to catch Ottangu first! Some scenes in the print is missing, but a while later they're discovering that the famous Dr Cyclops has a secret lab in the jungle. It's he who created the big ape and now he's - in the name of peace - continuing the experiments. He can shrink people, transform to gorillas or just throw them down in his snake pit! What will happen to the good part of the circus crew? Will they survive... or will the wrath of Ottangu punish them?!?!?!?

 

Shikari, who clocks in at 130 minutes, could be a considered a bit talky for an un-experienced viewer of Bollywood cinema, but the fact is that it doesn't feel boring at all. There's a lot of musical numbers, but they are easy on the eyes and never too long. The biggest charm is the shameless atmosphere of matinee. It's just a very unpretentious movie. The bad guys are bad and the good guys are good. The monsters are monsters and it has jungle, hut-destruction, a very uncalled for ice-skating number and all the men are a bit to chubby to action heroes. Just the way I want my Bollywood-adventure.

 

It's hard not to dig the fine combination between not less than three of Ernest B. Schoedsack's classics. The mad doctor in Shikari even calls himself Dr Cyclops. Shikari more feels like a homage to Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper than a simple rip-off or a "Bollywood remake". Like Spielberg and Lucas did with the Indiana Jones franchise, this movie is rooted in the nostalgia of older American adventure movies.

 

King Kong, or Ottangu himself is a fun creature. One of the more creepier giant apes out there. Mostly because the actor inside the suit choose use a very spastic, weird, almost zombie/monster-style of moving around. There's not smooth movements here, and it just looks wicked! Like Ottangu is a fucked-up robot-ape! The bad thing is that there's only one destruction scenes, when Ottangu attacks a village in the end. This is well-made and looks cool, but it would have been nice with more ape-action. As a bonus, under Dr Cyclops lair, we also meet a very odd monster. It's some kind of mutant, played by a man in suit, who's gigantic and chained to the wall. Pity we didn't see him fight with Ottangu!

 

Shikari is a fun adventure-romp that entertained me. Don't be fooled by the monsterless cover, this is way more cool than you might think. 

 

This review was published earlier on Ninja Dixon.

Kongsploitation: Banglar King Kong (Iftekar Jahan, 2010)

Finally the legendary - the obscure - the awful - the amazing... Banglar King Kong! I'm proud to say that I think I've seen every King Kong movie, every rip-off and every similar movie made (except The Asylum's King of Kong Island, but I need to watch it soon!). The original King Kong was one of the first movies I ever saw and it still haunts me since I was 4-5 years old and it was aired on Swedish television. Because I have a smart and cool mother she let me see it and since then I've been obsessed with monsters, big apes and miniature destruction. Thank you mom.

But back to Banglar King Kong. You all now the story and I have no intention to tell you what everyone already knows: female scream queen, boat, island, big ape, hero (with a nose that literary becomes invisible because of the bad picture quality of the movie), mad director, show in big city, ape climbing up skyscraper and falls down. This version is an interesting combination between the 1933 and 1976 version, the best of both shows so to say. Even if I have nothing against the message-heavy seventies version it's nice to see that they just aimed for simple (and I mean Simple with a capital S) entertainment and lots of silliness instead of going the more serious root.

Actually, if you turn of the colour on your TV - and the sound - this would look like a real silent movie, complete with unsteady and light-sensitive cinematography and actors doing their best to be as far away as possible from acting in a realistic way. Prepare for a lot of scene-chewing and dramatic poses and rolling eyes!

The effects ranges from bad to terrible with a crappy ape-suit (according to the filmmakers purchased from the US, so we can once again blame that country for all the horrible things in the world!) and very, very, very simple blue screen effects and miniatures that's so primitive I'm not sure I would like to call them miniatures - maybe just "cardboard boxes with holes in them"? It's interesting to see that it actually works and the sole reason for that is that the effects are crappy all the way, every single one of them - except those few shots that are actually stolen directly from the 1976 version, and they fit in anyway.

I also need to come out from the closet and say that I prefer bad musical numbers before good ones, and Banglar King Kong has plenty of badly staged, moronic and tacky sing- and dance-numbers for the whole family. Often shot with a handheld camera, very few other dancers, simple choreography and even the most pointless supporting characters gets a chance to rap - or what ever they try to do. And I love it. I love Love LOVE it! I mean, if I can participate in one of these musicals number then they must be good!

Banglar King Kong is one of those movies that can be used to separate real cult movie fans from fake ones. The fake ones are those who only have seen (brilliant) movies like The Evil Dead, Halloween, Re-Animator, Hellraiser, Dawn of the Dead etc and claims to be fans of subversive, original, odd, exploitative cinema. But they can't even get through a movie like an unsubbed monster-mash like Banglar King Kong or a three hour slasher-epic with kung fu fights from India. They're too lazy and therefore they just belong to those mainstream "cult movie fans" who happily share specific scenes on Facebook from Banglar King Kong but never dares to the watch the whole movie.

I might be making fun of some movies here, but remember one thing: if I didn't love them I wouldn't watch them. What's the point of watching (and writing about) movies you dislike or even hate? I love primitive movies because I'm tired if big, smart productions. Along the way a lot of love and passion disappears it seems.

Banglar King Kong IS incompetent and extremely silly but it has a lot of trashy love to share with us all. I wish it was easier to find, but with the stolen footage, music and story I guess it will never get a proper release outside Bangladesh - or even inside the country.

If you want to see a lot of cool screenshots (and read a superior review), head over to Tars Tarkas for an impressive piece of in-depth analysis of Banglar King Kong!

This review was published earlier on Ninja Dixon.

Kongsploitation: A*P*E (Paul Leder, 1976)

I once had a good friend, a pen pal you can call it, from South Korea. He's a slightly famous poet, at least so famous he can survive on his writing. One of the first things I asked him was if he'd seen Yongary (he had, and he hated it), if he had seen Wangmagwi (no) and if he ever heard of a American-South Korean co-production called A*P*E. He never heard of it and was extremely surprised to even learn something like that existed. Paul Leder, the father of Hollywood blockbuster director Mimi Leder, was a prolific exploitation director during the 70's and 80's and A*P*E (which stands for "Attacking Primate Monster") was meant both as a spoof and a cash-in on Dino De Laurentiis King Kong. There's even a movie director called Dino in Leder's film. To add to the exploitation vibe it was also shot in 3D.

Now, this is a very ambitious project which obviously never was meant to leave the script stage, but thanks to South Korean investors and the enthusiasm of Leder it went ahead... and it's a completely, wonderful disaster! Like Goliathon it spends a little bit too much time on pointless melodrama and love affairs, but this time it's faster into absurdity and very cheap miniatures in a story that goes like this (kinda): Dino is shooting a drama in South Korea. He brings his star there, Marilyn Baker (Joanna Kerns) and everything goes well...until the giant ape that escapes from a boat (and battles an enormous shark!) in the beginning of the movie stomps closer to Seoul to create mayhem and scare children. The military, including the Americans, doesn't believe in the ape from the beginning but soon they need to battle this terrible, awful, horrible ape suit with everything the got!

This is stupid. It's very stupid. It's close to mentally challenged. It's also very entertaining and just watching the effects - none of them are good - embarress themselves in front of the camera is a beautiful thing to behold. The ape suit - or maybe more the person inside the suit - is extremely uconvincing and does a remarkably bad job imitating a primate. Also watch out for one of the seamen in the beginning - he's probably THE worst actor ever. Not kidding. 

What makes A*P*E fun is how it rarely stops to think. The drama is washed away by retared dialogue and lame attempts at comedy, the directing his highly questionable. Or maybe it's more the editing? It's hard to say, because everything is so sloppily executed. Now it seems like I'm hating it, yeah? The Evil A*P*E Hater? No, that's not just true. I love this flick. It's "special", but it's obviously made with some kind of misdirected passion and hardly any budget at all. To be fair, there's a couple of miniature scenes that look okay-ish, probably because they was shot in sunlight and not in studio, which adds to the realism. 

Come to think of it, Mimi Leder's Deep Impact is just like Paul Leder's A*P*E but with a tidal wave instead of a big ape. That's a fact according to me and you have nothing to say about it.