Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1968, Kim Ki-Duk) (v) 61

First, not that Kim Ki-Duk, unfortunately. Second, don’t be fooled by the rating: this is one godawful movie. However, the pleasure quotient is through the roof.

The pleasure here, for me at least, comes in two forms. The first is that it’s what kids today call a Kaiju, but in my day we called ‘em Giant Monster Movies. I have a weakness for this genre; while it has been argued that all film is a kind of dream, the strangeness of a Giant Monster Movie has always struck me as particularly oneiric, with their cardboard cities and impossible creatures, who would realistically break their bones the moment they took a step. (This is why War of the Gargantuas remains my favorite, since Inoshiro Honda ditches the lumbering rubber suits for body makeup, resulting in almost-acrobatic monsters.) Frankly, there aren’t many things more wonderfully cinematic than giant monsters fighting it out in an urban landscape.

The second pleasure is one that, unfortunately, usually goes hand in hand with Kaiju: It’s genuinely terrible. Not mediocre, but jaw-droppingly and head-smackingly bad. The plot lumbers from moment. Yongary (rhymes with gymboree) breathes fire, and we can see the metal tube of the flamethrower in the monster’s non-articulated mouth. There’s a little kid (isn’t there always?), and at one point, he gets Yongary to dance, and the soundtrack encourages him with a little bit of fake rockabilly. The less said, the better, actually.

However, the following exchange had me on the floor in tears. It really has to be seen to get the full effect, but I’ll do my best. The hero pulls up to the front of the military base; he knows how to kill Yongary. The MP at the gate stops him, and hero explains, dubbed, why he needs to get in. Now, imagine a traditional two-shot of the hero and the MP, with no real urgency on the part of either actor. The MP says, as the hero stares at him dumbly:

You got here a bit too late, sir. They’re going to hit Yongary any minute. (Pause.) They’ll be using guided missles. (Pause.) You’d better go. (Pause.) They’re going to hit Yongary any minute. (Looks at watch, then:) They’ll be using guided missles. (Pause.) You’d better go.

It’s unclear if the dubbing team ran out of time, were intentionally trying to camp up the movie, or just didn’t give a fuck, but the result is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

At the end, the hero and the military finally defeat Yongary with itching powder; I assume that we don’t see the previous attempts to kill Yongary with a whoopee cushion, an electric buzzer, or binoculars with ink on the eye-pieces. He seems to scratch himself to death (without leaving any physical marks), then collapses into the river. Yet, one of the final images is of a trail of blood on the water… and the trail appears to originate from Yongary’s ass. I shit you not, Yongary dies from bleeding from his ass. Which makes me think: maybe it is that Kim Ki-Duk…

Where we saw it: tv | We deign to rate it: outta 100
Posted by kza at 03:00 PM | Comments (1)