31 Days of Cheese: Day 29 – A*P*E

A*P*E.

Ouch.

To put it bluntly APE (I refuse to keep typing A*P*E – well except for that last time).

To put in bluntly APE sucks. In every possible way it sucks. Acting, Story, special effects, ape suit, editing, sound, soundtrack, use of stock footage, it all sucks.

APE sucks so bad it almost pulled my brain out of my head through my eye sockets as I was watching.

This 1976 Korean/American Attempt was released in an attempt to cash in on the giant ape movie craze caused by the release of the 1976 remake of King Kong. Don’t remember a 1976 craze for Giant Ape films. Don’t worry. There wasn’t one. The Kong remake didn’t do so well and this one utterly bombed.

The story is kind of simple – folks capture a 36 foot tall ape (they keep saying that like it was important, I don’t know why) which escapes a toy freighter, wrestles a dead shark in a pool and then makes landfall in Korea. APE runs amok, then finds a blonde American actress who is in Korea to make a film – I think the title of the film is “Blonde woman gets raped” because the two times we see her making the movie she is being attacked and molested – APE garbs her and takes off with her Fay Wray style. An US Army officer chain smokes and curses a lot. The Blonde’s wooden boyfriend (as in acting not actually made of wood) rescues Blonde from APE, APE finds blonde again after trashing more of Korea (he keeps doing that in the film). He is then killed.

Roll Credits.

It is utterly impossible to convey without you actually seeing this film (and don’t) just how shoddy and cheap the effects are. The ape suit looks like it was made of wool and bought at a used costume store. You see the line for the headpiece a lot. The buildings are just generic white blocks or grey blocks. There is a scene where APE, apparently to show it’s not all bad, steps over a cow. But it’s so obviously a plastic cow that you can’t even believe the filmmakers had the nerve to keep the shot in the film.

The action sequences don’t make sense. You keep going wait, that’s not right and then something blows up. But not in a fun way.

This might have been intended to be in 3-D as boulders (on very visible wires) fly towards you, as do flaming arrows and extra’s dressed as soldiers point rifles at the camera and shoot. (By the way you have to work the bolt of a bolt action rifle each time you shoot. Just for future reference.).

The most famous scene is where the ape flips the bird to the army after destroying a helicopter. Your mind goes, ‘no they didn’t. Oh yes they did. Aren’t you sorry you quit drinking now?”

For me, seeing this a second time, what I took away from it – other than a visceral dislike of anyone involved in the making of this film – was a great appreciation for Toho’s maniacal attention to detail in their giant monster films, it’s the level of detail that helps makes the difference between an enjoying a film or wishing you had never been born while suffering through it.

Anyway at the end, as the APE is being gunned down and the Army officer is smoking and saying “let’s see him dance for his organ grinder now” (Huh? What? ) the Blonde weeps on the wooden boyfriend’s shirt (I don’t have time to go into the horror of the 70’s fashions in the film), and asks “Why”

And instead of saying “because he’s killed something like 100-300 people in less than two days and while granted he may have a soft spot for blonde women that still leaves the rest of us in trouble if he’s anywhere nearby. ” what He says is “He was too big for a small world like ours.”

And with that last what the’ hell are you talking about moment’. I leave this film.

Enjoy with Kimchee.