MIGHTY PEKING MAN (Hong Kong)
A review by Mark R. Leeper in bullet-list form
from the Toronto Internation Film Festival
CAPSULE: A wild jungle woman and an 11-story gorilla are discovered in Tibet and taken to Hong Kong where the gorilla escapes and causes havoc. This is a laughable 1977 rip off of KING KONG (1976), itself a rip-off. Production values are low and audiences seem to like the film mostly for derisive laughter. Rating: 2 (0 to 10), high -2 (-4 to +4)
- Directed by Ho Meng-Hua. - This film is provided to be a sort of laughing stock to finish the festival. - An earthquake uncovers an 11-story tall gorilla in the Himalayas. A hunter, chosen because he just broke up with his girl and is at loose ends, gets sent to find the ape and finds a sort of female Tarzan who controls the ape. - Evelyne Kraft is the jungle girl in a leather bikini that she is pasted into so she always looks on the verge of bouncing out of. - Gorilla actor has no idea how gorillas move and suit is terrible. Nice miniature effects, however. - Has almost a music video inside it of jungle girl playing with animals like Chi-chi the leopard. - Several places there is narrative that is nearly incoherent as if there are missing scenes and the viewer has to guess what happened in the interim. - Actual location shooting in Mysore. Ape shown badly matted behind temple. - Combining of images usually pretty bad. Incompetent matching of film stocks. - Stock footage frequently used. - Gorilla brought to Hong Kong by greedy entrepreneur who really abuses the ape before it escapes and tears things up real good.
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@lucent.com
Copyright 1998 Mark R. Leeper
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