After the King Kong re-make came out in 1976, it started a small craze for giant gorilla movies. There are many such rip-offs, and this is one of them. Like most of the other movies, this one is "bad". This movie is extremely lame, pathetic, and just plain stupid. And yet, those are it's good points. Essentially this is one of the funniest pieces of camp I have ever seen!

An earthquake that occurs in India during the 60's stirs up a giant sub-human ape-like thingy-ma-bob known as the "Peking Man". This 10 story tall creature trashes a local village. Years latter, somebody heard about this and so sent an expedition to go find it so it can be put on display and make money (of course). Well, after the killer heard of elephants, the quicksand, the leg-eating tiger, the guy obsessed with euthanasia, and the extra-slippery cliff, all but one person decides to give up and leave. Left alone in the jungle, Johnny (that’s what they call him) goes and finds, of course, the Peking Man! He also finds a particular scantily-clad blond-haired blue-eyed woman named Samantha who apparently was raised by the Peking Man ever since she was a little plane crash victim. They of course fall in love (after Johnny sucks some cobra venom out of a very peculiar place), and Johnny persuades her to bring the Peking Man to civilization. Once they get to Hong Kong, the soap opera begins. Johnny meets his old girlfriend (who cheated on him with his brother), falls in love again, Samantha sees this, runs off, practically gets raped by an evil promoter type guy, and is saved by the Peking Man (as in getting the guy "squished"). Well, the Peking Man runs amuck in the city, destroying large chunks of the model landscape, and climbs the highest building (well duh!). The military, led by an apparently ruthless and obsessed British guy, eventually invokes a tragic end as the Peking Man is shot, blown up, set on fire, and blasted off the building to fall to his doom.

First of all, this movie is blip'n hilarious! It's so bad, so lame, and so campy, that it's funny! It has to be seen to believed! Now the plot as a whole is actually fairly good. It's quite like a soap opera, and it gets pretty dramatic and tragic in the end. Even though the plot has enough glue to hold it together, the overall presentation is really, really bad. The dubbing sucks, the "special" effects are absolutely pathetic, the Peking Man looks like a costume rental, and everybody runs around and does things no person, sane or not, would do! The model work is actually quite good, but all the other effects are quite silly, especially when the little "Barbie Dolls" get chucked off a fake cliff. The Peking Man's facial features aren't to bad, but whenever he comes on screen I can practically smell the mothballs. The surprisingly good human plot also has some surprising scenes in it. In all actuality it would not take much to make this a porn movie. The only thing missing is the signature scenes. Despite not technically being pornographic (and actually being PG-13), it does seem as if Samantha's animal skin bikini "slips" every once in a while! Speaking of which, I forgot to mention all those happy-go-lucky scenes when the happy couple plays around with the fun-loving jungle animals (who appear to be tranquilized).

The movie starts out being laugh-out-load pathetic, and it stays lame throughout the entire flick. The only reason the ending doesn't seem as lame is because it wraps up so dramatically. Because the plot is fairly good, and there seems to be effort put into the model buildings, and because it's so dang bad it's good, this movie appears very close to a five star rating. The only reason it got knocked down a half a star is because of one thing: IT'S A BLANTANT RIP-OFF OF "KING KONG"! Heck, they even stole parts of the movie scene for scene! There is also a tad of "Tarzan" chucked in for good measure. Originality issues aside, this hear is a great movie. It combines a good plot with a bad presentation. It truly is one of the best "bad" movies around.

Good plot.

Good model effects.

So bad, lame, corny, ludicrous, and campy that it's laugh-out-load hilarious!

Peking Man vs. Toy Trucks full of Rocks. Winner: Peking Man.

Man, that bikini looks like it could… slip…

Is being bad really bad?

Rip-off of "King Kong" (1976)

Rip-off of "Tarzan" and "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle"

There are some "bad" parts that are bad in a slightly not-so-funny way.

I'm not sure if it's bad or good, but there definitely is SOMETHING about the way she climbs trees…

Credits