The Revenge of the 31 Days of Chese Day 4 - Yongary Monster of the Deep

In the history of Japanese film making the mid 60’s are known as the years of the “Monster Boom” In addition to Godzilla there were TV shows like Ultra Q and Ultra Man , X-the Unknown, and of course Gamera the Giant fire breathing turtle. For a moment there it seemed like every movie studio in Japan was making a giant monster film.

The success of such films did not go unnoticed elsewhere. Korea for example where they attempted to make their own Giant Monster film with less than optimal results i.e. 1967’s Yongary Monster of the deep.

We start with a wedding or actually we start with the bride and groom being driven off after the wedding. Because the budget is small there are only a few people waving them good bye – the Grooms mother, the bride’s father the Grooms sister and some scientist bloke ( I may not have the exact relations accurately but they aren’t very helpful in the film so let’s just let that slide). So all of the guests are going off to lunch except for the Dedicated Scientist (hereinafter DS) who has to do his research – it seems that the grooms sister has the hots for the DS who seems less than excited by that. So he bugs out. There is some mention of Icho who is somebody’s something.

Later we see the car driving along with our happy couple keeping well away from each other in the back seat when suddenly a light flashes on them, the bride and then the groom start scratching (this is actually something of a plot point which is well just weird) and then they bolt out of the car scratching like mad. The DS following along in a car stops and once he sees what’s happening knows who’s to blame

“Come out of there” he says – puzzling the newlyweds.

Emerging from the bushes is Icho – he’s a young boy dressed in a sport coat, bow tie and really really short shorts. It seems that as a special wedding present he stole an experimental light ray from the Lab of the DS a light ray that makes people itch (and how the hell did they find that out? Or was that the result they were looking for? The department of defense once spent money on research on a Ray that would turn people gay so an itch ray isn’t THAT absurd. The hell it isn’t. It’s just weird).

Upon discovering that Icho is being their itching the bride and groom along with the DS beat the child savagely with tire irons, then bind him with duct tape and toss him in the trunk with the idea that he will be meeting a very bad end as soon as they think of the right one.

No that doesn’t happen. Icho is this film’s Kenny. A Kenny is the name used to describe the annoying specially favored children that populate the later Japanese monster films. Kenny’s (named after the really annoying child Kenny in the first Gamera film) have a special bond with the monsters and can easily solve problems that the rest of the world puzzles at. They range from being mildly annoying to oh my god I so what this kid dead.

Icho is nearer the “I want this kid dead” end of the spectrum”.

At any rate they Icho and the DS drive off to the DS’s Lab – if anything the DS looks like he prefers the company of the young boy Icho to that of his sister, which is, in these times, pretty creepy. Unintended but creepy anyway.

We stitch to the honeymoon suite where the groom is dozing on a chair and the bride is just finishing changing into a nightgown that is if anything less come-hithering than the bridal dress she wore.

Then just as it seems they are about to well, you know, the phone rings. Well not the phone a walkie talkie that the groom hand brought along – it’s his boss (who is also the Bride’s dad it seems it’s a very small cast) and he is ordered (turns out he’s Korea’s astronaut or best astronaut - it’s not clear) and something is happening somewhere – the dubbing says the middle east but the big map is of China so it’s a little unclear what’s up. At any rate he’s ordered back to the base where he’s going to take off in two hours. He seems if anything relived.

So off he goes into space – there is a nuclear explosion an then – as often happens in these films – hell as always happens in these films something happens outside of what was expected – in this case there is some sort of earthquake but the epicenter is moving towards Korea! So the Army is mobilized! And somebody mentions that this reminds him of an old fable about the monster Yongary. I guess in Asia they have lots of legends about monsters – here in the us we’d be stuck for a name other “oh my god look at that!” so I guess it’s best that the monsters show up in Asia.

Well soon the epicenter is in Korea and then it is revealed that the epicenter is indeed Yongary! Who is pretty lame as man in a suit monsters go. The way it opens and closes its jaw is especially unconvincing.

Anyway, Yongary goes off on a rampage through the streets of somewhere in Korea – it’s not exactly stated where which is a problem with this films – monster films since they are dealing with the utterly fantastic get some pull by linking to real life places – King Kong climbed the Empire State Building in New York not some generic tall building in some city somewhere – which is where Yongary does his thing – including the fire breathing bit which when he does it you can see the nozzle in the beasts mouth. This is a very cheaply done film.

Yongary melts tanks and then destroys buildings. It’s not very well done, it’s when you see stuff like this that you really learn to appreciate toho’s insane level of attention to detail when building their sets – the paintings on the walls of the set were works of art – the buildings had internal structures to make sure they collapsed realistically, they made the little trees by freaking hand. You don’t get much of that here the background is some sort of dull grey cloud thing that never changes which causes jarring moments as we cut to the human cast in bright sunlight and then back to the monster in the dark twilight.

At some point the monster stops his rampage and goes to eat. In his case gasoline and fuel oil – well how else does he fuel the flame breath. Icho – who in the manner of Kennys everywhere – has wandered always by himself to get a close view of the monster – he sees it eat and then he sees that after it blows a storage tank up the resulting cloud bothers him – in fact he starts to scratch himself – Yongary is the only monster to do this as far as I know.

After some toing an frowing Icho shows up at the DS’s lab and explains what he saw – the DS then drags Icho where the officials are gathered (Monster movies have a lot of scenes of people in meetings, part of the form I suppose) and Icho’s testimony is enough to make the government grant the DS permission to use a chemical agent on the beast – they will keep trying to blow it up with missiles but well best to consider all options when dealing with a big big monster.

The chemical is mixed and the helicopter is provided and off they go and damn if it doesn’t work. Yongary starts scratching himself and then falls to the ground and is still. Everybody is happy. Except Icho.

Later that night Icho – taking once again the itching ray (the DS apparently never considered locking the damn thing up or taking the battery out of it or just taking it apart so Icho wouldn’t get his hands on it) and for some reason uses it to revive Yongary. Yep massive damage god knows how many dead but this kid wants the beast alive.

And then in one of the silliest moments in monster movie history Yongary starts dancing and then so does Icho because Yongary is alive! And hundreds more people will die! Yay! Well not yay! Maybe made more sense in the original Korean version (apparently now lost forever) but I’m not counting on it.

At this point security personal see that the monster is awake and that Icho is dancing. They savagely beat Icho to a bloody pulp and leave him there for the monster to finish off. No that didn’t happen. They risk their lives to save the kid and the monster is off on another rampage.

Finally the DS finds the exact chemical compound that will finish Yongary off for good – so he, the astronaut, the astronaut’s wife, The girl with the hots for the DS and Icho take off in a helicopter and just after Yongary uses an previously unknown beam power to slice up what’s left of the Korean Air Force start dumping chemicals on Yongary.

And the it works the beast begins to flail about (scratching as well) in obvious distress – he manages to take out a bridge or two as well which seems somewhat bad planning but we’ll let that go. We cut from scenes of the monster dying to the interior of the copter when the women are cooing about how wonderful this is that the formula worked back to the monster who finally after several long minutes of twitching in agony collapses near a river and apparently starts bleeding from his anus – well that’s what it looks like – trust me.

In the copter the DS is about to pour more chemical onto the beast ensuring its demise and that fish will never live in this river again. Icho asks “do we have to kill him?” at which point the DS grabs the child and flings him out of the helicopter. No he just gently tells the boy Yes and finishes the beast off.

The last scene is outside some building where everybody who was in the film gathers to I guess get medals or something. What ends up is that Icho hogs the spotlight and talks about how Yongary really didn’t mean to do what he did – and about the dancing. At which point the assembled press and survivors of the attack beat the …no they don’t they all just walk into the building, and thankfully out of our lives.

A very bad monster film. Not as bad as A*P*E but not much in the known universe is as bad as A*P*E.

Watch with Korean Barbeque. Make sure it’s good Korean barbeque. The film is bad enough.