Director: Paul Leder and Starring Joanna Kerns, Rod Arrants, Nak-hun Lee and Yeon-jeong Woo.
Without a doubt this is one of the worst Korean movies ever made and a major rip-off of Dino De Laurentiis version of the 1930s monster movie. Now King Kong's Korean brother A*P*E this Kaiju flick by an Korean/American
production really does give us an inside to how bad Korean Kaiju films are I couldn't really get throw the remake of Yonggary noir the original who was Godzilla's Korean brother. But me being a fan of Rip-offs this movie is bad yes but it's better than the 1976 version of King Kong which was just boring, this movie had some reason and was better to view and not get bored.
So after finding a 36ft gorilla they capture and take it back to America but it escapes and swims off the coast of Korea, so after having this epic battle with a shark, it start to destroy the city of Seoul then it comes across an American actress. So I need to say anymore? Just think of King Kong.
I am not sure why I enjoyed this movie despite everything being flawed easily and so many noticeable mistakes which just makes the movie Z-grade like any film by Ed-wood. But I bought this on DVD a few months ago and finally watched it and the big Plus was that my DVD was in 3D!
When A*P*E first came out the movie was shown in 3D, something that the 70s version of king Kong didn't have. And the DVDs from my country have 3D glasses and the film negatives have been improved the overall picture quality to a professional standard.
50% for story: It's amazingly bad but not un-watchable it has a million entertaining fight scenes ranging from Great White Sharks, To Rubber Snakes and A*P*E stomping on Koreans, as well as it destroying cities. But the main negative is that the movie has unneeded sub-plots and some scenes but still, not boring.
My personal Favourite scene is where A*P*E flips of the military with his middle figure.
30% for acting: The American Cast are okay BUT OMG THE KOREANS DON'T KNOW WHAT THERE DOING. There are scenes with Koreans Fleeing in terror but they can be seen smiling or just powerwalking it. So they drag down the Americans with them. The Dubbing is horrible you can see their voices aren't moving with their Lips and hear the Eco's from the recording room.
50% for characters: They Rip-off King Kong easy and you can see it obversly but A*P*E was my favourite despite how unconvincing he looks. But overall he makes up for that 50%.
20% for special effects: There terrible and amazingly unconvincing even a 5 year old could see the horrible minutes and effects. In a matter of fact A*P*E changes size in nearly every scene. Anyone can say how bad the suit is and you can even see the actor's t-shirt throw some holes in the ape suit.
The trailer says that you are going to see the most epic battle ever with an Ape and Shark. When you see it in the film they are fighting in a Low water Tank filled with Murky water to hide the fact they are standing on concrete. The shark is SO FAKE.
Still awesome to watch even though there terrible.
80% for 3D effects: They are cool I won't deny that, and things do come out of the screen so that's a plus to this low budget knock-off. I would say that's the only reason anyone would buy the DVD.
50% for everything else: Well I good soundtrack at least, but overall everything is horrid but cool.
So despite it being bad I enjoyed it don't be put off by the 50%. It's bad but still epic and better then the 1970s Kong.
Keiko's score 59-100
November 29, 2010
