In my
quest to see as many of the Giant Monster films as I could lay my hands on,
it was inevitable that I would land in Hong Kong and The Mighty Peking Man.
I have been avoiding this film for years because of many negative reviews
I have read. Like this is the worst film ever made. Embarrassing. Well, they
are all wrong. This is one of the great love stories of all time! Sure, between
a giant ape and a beautiful blonde but does that really matter. No man had
ever been so faithful to a woman as Ah Wang is to Ah Wei. It is a tale of
broken promises, foul deeds and paradise lost by civilized man. This was
a real change of pace for Shaw Brothers, likely influenced by the release
of King Kong in 1976. They take the basic premise of King Kong but add a
lovely twist by bringing in a Tarzan and Jane story - in which the genders
are reversed.
There is so much going on in this nutty
film - some of it ludicrously bad and yet delightfully loony. Director Ho
Meng-hua, famous for his kung fu and horror films, just throws it all in
here in a why the hell not philosophy. King Kong has Jessica Lange; we have
Evelyn Kraft in a tiny jungle bikini miraculously managing to keep her assets
safely tucked away running around Hong Kong. We have a snake bite sucked
out that is more erotic than anything seen on film up to that point. We have
a monster who is the good guy and the only good guy in the film. And then
of course there is the rampage - what we all came for - and it is 20-minutes
of Hong Kong being crushed with brilliant realistic models under foot and
people in their apartments looking out the window as they play mahjong. It
is wonderful and tragic.
Ku Feng has read about a giant ape in India
and thinks it is a great idea to capture it and bring it back to Hong Kong
to exhibit. Norman Tsui is with him. They ask an explorer with a broken heart
to join them. Danny Lee. He has just walked in on his girlfriend (Chen Ping)
in bed with his brother and going after an ape in the jungles of India sounds
like a great idea. And Shaw Brothers really goes out of the studio to India.
The jungle turns out not to be a very friendly place for Hong Kongers. There
is an elephant attack that wipes out an entire village, a killer tiger that
rips off a man's leg, quicksand that swallows another, a steep climb up the
mountain that takes another and worst of all, a flashback from Danny about
walking in on his brother who is banging his girlfriend. The low-life Ku
Feng decides enough is enough and sneaks out with all the men and goes back
to a lovely swimming pool and a few babes leaving Danny alone in the jungle.
So, all this and he hasn't even gotten to the Ape. He soon does in the best
way possible.
He is knocked out and comes to staring into
the lovely face of Evelyn Kraft. She was a Swiss actress and appeared in
two Shaw Films - this and Deadly Angels. She is astonishingly beautiful as
only a woman brought up in the jungle by a giant ape could be. Flawless.
Her parents were killed in a plane crash, but her father tossed her out the
window before it exploded. And who rescued her? Yes, the fifty-foot Mighty
Peking Man, known to his friends as Ah Wang and she calls herself Ah Wei.
They are the best of buddies, go everywhere together, laugh at the same things,
he picks her up in his hands and she rubs against him like a purring cat.
This is love of the best kind. All the animals
are her friends - the lions, the panthers, the elephants - except that damn
cobra but the leopard takes care of that. And then Man comes into paradise
and brings all the bad things that men do. And persuades her to come to Hong
Kong with him and oh, bring the ape. It will be fine. You will love the shopping.
That does not go well. I understand the criticisms of this - the film suddenly
turning into a corny glistening romance in the jungle as she teaches Danny
how to swing on vines and he teaches her . . . well you know - but that silliness
just adds to what a weird wonderful movie this is.
