Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967)

A nuclear test in the Middle East either awakens (creates?) Yongary, a giant reptilian monster OR generates earthquake with a mobile epicenter that travels to Korea where it awakens (creates?) the creature (Yongary's origins are unclear). Once in Korea, the fire-breathing kaiju proceeds to destroy cities, shrug off mankind's puny weapons, and drink fuel-oil to sustain itself. All the while, the beast is being observed by a young boy who becomes key in devising a successful strategy to destroy the colossus. Throw in a ridiculous gimmick like an 'itch ray', a monster who dances (or maybe it's the itch ray or the ammonia bath, that is unclear as well), horrible acting (admittedly, I was watching a dubbed version), an annoying child in a lead role, a disjointed and incoherent plot, and second-rate special effects, and you end up with this bottom-of-the-barrel Korean Godzilla knockoff. The titular monster, which looks a bit like an emaciated Godzilla with a glowing horn on its snout, both breathes fire (during which its tongue seems to disappear) and emits some kind of energy-beam from the aforementioned horn that is accurate and powerful enough to slice attacking fighter-jets in half. Despite this impressive weaponry, the scientist-hero takes his girlfriend, her friend and her little brother in the helicopter that is going hover above the behemoth and drizzle it with ammonia, which it does not like in the least. And the final insult to the viewer: if they have not suffered enough watching the film through to the climax, there is a tedious epilogue before the film mercifully fades to black. I have low expectations of, and high tolerances for, monster movies, but "Yongary, Monster from the Deep" is pretty awful. Apparently the original Korean version has been lost (although there seem to be undubbed versions on-line), so we may never know if it was as bad as the Western release I watched. For hard-core kaiju fans only (unless you can find the MST3K annotated version, which may appeal to a broader audience).

Well, I got to see North Korea's take on the giant monster genre with "Pulgarasi" a movie that was created literally because the country's leader kidnapped a director and now I see South Korea's take on it. I admit to being confused as to how this one is actually worse. I guess when you're being forced to do something, you have to work harder. This movie features a giant monster named Yongary attacking South Korea. The actual monster doesn't appear until a third into the movie, which is actually better than most giant monster movies. The thing is, it's very poorly done.It's mostly because we just get cheesy scene after cheesy scene of Yongary being attacked over and over. There are a few times where it seems to die, only for us to unfortunately find out it's just going to give us more movie. It's dumb how they try to make it sympathetic, but then admit they have to kill it. I can literally easily see the tube inside the monster's mouth where the fire comes out! That might have been a deliberate part of the monster as it looked too cheesy to even be fake. The models are ugly looking and sometimes the people really do appear to be as large as the actual monster. *1/2

Earthquakes in central Korea turn out to be the work of Yongary, a prehistoric gasoline-eating reptile that soon goes on a rampage through Seoul.Allegedly, there is no more Korean print of this film and what circulates today is an American television print. This means we are stuck with the American dialogue rather than the original, and the editing may be quite different. Thus, we are watching (and critiquing) a film not as it was ever intended to be seen.While much of what remains is amusing, it does tend to get boring. With Godzilla it never gets old, but with Yongary we can only see him smashing things for so long before it seems like the same old thing over and over. What other tricks do we have? None?

Yonggary (1967) is much like Gamera, a cash crop film, aping off the success of other pilfered monsters, better ones. The film opens with what I thought was a rather nice shot of space with rolling credits, followed by a fine cast of mediocre actors and a young boy in shorts, the evil omen for any giant monster movie fan of terrible things to come. The story and plot run through very worn out terrain, mysterious happenings somewhere, a loving couple, monster attack, and discovery of weapon to kill the monster. The film was geared to children, as most kaiju films of this time (late 60s), one would expect this in itself would diagnose Yonggary as terminally unwatchable, but the kid aspect is what to me kept it entertaining, Yonggary dancing, drinking, etc. were all bizarre enouph to keep a smile, bad editing also played it part. As for the action sequences, Yonggary's arrival and first rampage was well done, not very convincing mind you, but thats never really the point in these films, to look interesting and incite nostalgic inner child hollaring.Yonggary is by far one of the most forgettable Kaiju monsters to grace East Asian screens, his physical appearance is right down the middle neutral to anything that may catch attention; his skin color bland, his design simple and uninspired and his range of emotion nonexistent. However , despite all of this, I had fun watching it, unlike Gappa, pretension toward seriousness is out the window, thus making the inevitable moral lesson and speech at the end all the more bearable.One of the better, lesser kaiju films. 6/10