TALKBACK: King Kong Escapes

[Gwangi]

[mbozzo]

'King Kong Escape' is a good movie. When I first watch it, I didn't know that it was based on animated series. Doctor Who was very evil, and Robot Kong make a great enemy for our giant ape.

[klen7]

The summer issue of G-Fan (#106) has a wonderful interview with the adorable Linda Miller ::swoooon:: Lots of great pictures from her modeling career as well. Very cool.

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

Better track that down!

[mr.negativity]

[Henry88]

love how the dub use's "Dr who" as the bad guys name.

[tbeasley]

For some reason I always forget how much fun this movie is, so it feels like a pleasant surprise with every viewing. I enjoy it way more than King Kong vs. Godzilla. Admittedly I've only seen the US versions of both, but in this case Kong escapes Universal messing with the movie too much. It's such a colorful, animated movie, where villains are villains and heroes are heroes (or giant apes).

I also finally sat down and watched Rankin/Bass' King Kong Show, or at least the 8 episodes Classic Media released. So I never got to see Mechani-Kong, but it is interesting to see where the genesis of the movie comes from. The show itself is a charming if quirky mix of American and Japanese design and animation sensibilities. Hopefully with Legendary bringing Kong and Godzilla together again we might see the entire series released (along with Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla).

[Legion]

I've never seen the Japanese version either. That's only true of only one other Toho sci-fi film (Gorath).

I've always adored this movie. But I started loving it so much more once I discovered years ago that it's a big screen version of a cartoon show.

[Gwangi]

[lhb412]

[H-Man]

[klen7]

[lhb412]

[Hybrid Gojira]

Basically, this movie is awesome. I like some aspects of KKvsG better, but I think that's mainly because I like Godzilla's early scenes with the military so much. I actually think KKE is probably more fun and THIS version of Kong is superior to the 62 Kong.

[lhb412]

Am I right in assuming that Gorosaurus was just labeled 'a dinosaur' in King Kong Escapes and wasn't given an actual name until DAM, or was he named before then?

[Benjamin Haines]

[H-Man]

[lhb412]

Thanks for the replies! I guess I was wrong.

[Benjamin Haines]

I've finally seen the Japanese version of King Kong Escapes. This was the first time in at least a decade that I've watched the film in any form. I'd only seen the US version growing up and I never liked it much but watching the original version now, I think it's a lot of fun. It really embraces its status as a live-action cartoon.

The cast is just dynamite. Rhodes Reason, Linda Miller and Akira Takarada are a terrific heroic trio. Hideyo Amamoto and Mie Hama play the star villains with Yoshifumi Tajima, Sachio Sakai and Susumu Kurobe as henchmen. Ikio Sawamura is the Mondo Islander!

Between Mondo Island, Antarctica and Tokyo, there are a lot of fantastic miniature sets. The final showdown on Tokyo Tower is a big highlight, with Kong and Mechani-Kong each relatively small compared to so many other kaiju so the tower really dwarfs them and there's tension as they scale it. The film's production design and cinematography are glorious, as is Akira Ifukube's score.

I still think Kong looks terrible. The suit is especially bad in the water and the puppet head looks awful. There's so much else to admire in the special effects but it's mind-boggling that both of Eiji Tsuburaya's takes on Kong himself looked so ridiculous in different ways. Actually, between King Kong Escapes and Son of Godzilla in 1967, both Kong and Godzilla looked near their worst right at the height of Japan's Monster Boom.

I can see how Kong fans who don't like the aesthetics of Japanese tokusatsu would see this is as a cheap and/or egregious knockoff of the original King Kong but I enjoyed how this movie ran a lot of the classic tropes through a late-'60s Toho filter. Kong taking interest in a woman, Kong fighting a theropod dinosaur and a serpentine monster on his island home, Kong being exploited and breaking out of captivity, and Kong climbing a tall skyscraper all get a Toho-style rendition. While Kong's fight with Gorosaurus is pretty derivative of the 1933 T. rex battle, the other classic Kong tropes are redone in fresh new ways.

I should give the US version another shot soon.