A*P*E (1976)

This is a great bad movie and many of the scenes are hilarious. If you'd enjoy watching a 60-sec slow-motion scene where a guy in a gorilla costume wrestles an obviously dead shark, thrashing it around and pretending to be in the throes of death, look no further. This whole movie is full of great scenes like that, and if it weren't for an overly drawn out love story subplot, "A.P.E." would be a 5-star unintentional comedy. You get a little bit of everything in this South Korean flick: "Godzilla"-style miniature sets, toy model animals and people, remote control helicopters, firework explosions, and of course, a guy in a gorilla suit. The plot is not important, really, and the film gets right down to brass tacks after about 2-min of backstory. Just know that there is a 35-ft tall ape, and he is going to rampage Korea. Throw in an American actress (Joanna Kerns, of "Growing Pains" fame), her reporter boyfriend, and a pair of Army officers bent on killing the beast, and you have "A.P.E." The direction and editing are sometimes stunningly inept, resulting in several great "WTF moments," including my favorite when a character is hanging off the outside door of a moving jeep, for seemingly no reason. Anyhow, I could go on forever with this one. As far as bad movies go, "A.P.E." is a definite keeper. You are going to get laughs out of this one.

This film begins with an obvious toy boat being destroyed by a guy in a cheap gorilla suit--the sort you'd rent for just a few dollars at a costume shop. Then, he proceeds to destroy a bunch of buildings that look even cheaper and sillier than those found in the Japanese giant monster films from Toho Studios! Most of the time, he moves about in super-slow motion and does a whole lot of nothing. And, as he does not much at all, you hear circus-like music. This time, however, the movie is a bit different, as the extras are all Korean AND their command of English is amazingly bad--so bad that it's rather funny to hear some of them stumble over even the simplest words.Sadly, however, as the movie progresses, you learn that the cheap sets and guy in the gorilla suit and Koreans who can't speak English are the BEST aspects of the film!! That's because the acting is abysmal, the editing was done by a chimp, many scenes featuring screaming Korean peasants went on too long, the music highly inappropriate as well as annoying and the dialog is among the worst I've ever heard. Believe me, Ed Wood couldn't have made a gorilla film any worse than this (including his own BRIDE AND THE MONSTER).There are unnecessary subplots involving a rather bland-looking actress and her boyfriend as well as a Colonel who is a total idiot (and needs a good haircut to even remotely look military) and curses CONSTANTLY--possibly more than any character in the 1970s. Aside from these stupid subplots, the rest of the film is essentially KING KONG but set in a Korea that is chock-full of crappy sets.Overall, there really is nothing to recommend this film--unless you really need to see a guy in a gorilla suit flipping off the army (I kid you not--this REALLY happened in the movie). It's so bad, that it's a film almost exclusively for bad movie fans. It's also a great film for Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange or Dino De Laurentiis to watch so that they can see that by comparison, the poor 1976 KING KONG film is like a Merchant-Ivory production! However, I do NOT recommend that Kim Jong-Il see the film--he might be tempted to nuke South Korea, since they were responsible for this atrocity of a movie!

It's not because of the plot. It's not because of the special effects. It's not because of the acting. It's not because of anything you can imagine. This movie goes beyond your imagination and your mind capabilities. It's worth seeing it just for the sake of it. Don't take it too seriously, don't panic after 5 minutes of footage and give it a chance. Please, be gentle and open minded. It is probably one of the most exhilarating, fresh and funny movies I've ever seen ( and I've seen a lot of crap). To be honest, even though I love Bergman (for example), not everybody is ready to watch his films and prefers very "light " movies like this masterpiece. Believe it or not. A*P*E* rocks!!!!!

Mind you the "rubber shark" many reviewers mention isn't rubber at all...It's real! Only it's...obviously dead. A dead baby shark they must have bought at the local Korean fish market or something. Watching an extra, in a fake-looking ape suit, pretending to wrestle with a dead baby shark pretty much sums up the production values in this film. See it so you can't believe it! The movie's American ads actually stated "not to be confused with King Kong", but in some countries it was released as "The return King Kong". What also cracked me up was that the ape has apparently no vocal cords of any sort : he does not make a sound during the whole movie! The credits also thank the US military for their cooperation. How come all the tanks, etc, look like toys? Is this actually anti-American propaganda, aiming to pretend that the US have the crappiest army ever seen? Mind-numbing.