"Mighty Peking Man" is not a movie one can just stumble upon after a particularly hard day and hope to enjoy as a straight-laced monster movie. You have to go into it knowing it's shoddily made, knowing you'll be roaring with laughter more often than you'll be oohing and awing. It deserves to be viewed on a Sunday morning following a partytastic night out with a coupla friends, after a marathon of Prehistoric Glamazon Huntress "MADtv" sketches. You must be in a certain euphoric mood to have your intelligence vomited on, after all, and "Mighty Peking Man" requires a viewer with the IQ of a gnat.
Granted, you most likely don't have the IQ of a gnat; I know I shouldn't be recommending bad movies to you, but if you were going to die tomorrow and your final wish was to watch one final bad movie, you may as well pick "Mighty Peking Man". It isn't Jack Hill bad (unpleasant, sorta kinda humorless); it is Ed Wood, Claudio Fragasso bad, unwittingly awful but so good at being awful that even Russ Meyer, post-viewership, might take a minute from objectifying nubile young woman and pat himself on the back for actually being good at what he does. We can agree that "Mighty Peking Man" is garbage, but it is successful in one (one) thing it does: it set out to be a cheap "King Kong" knockoff, and it doesn't just succeed, it prevails, as a cheap "King Kong" knockoff.
The film follows a group of Asian explorers trudging through the strenuous jungles of India in hopes to find the Mighty Peking Man, a legendary (and massive) ape-like creature who stalks the territory with reckless abandon. Leading the way is Johnny (Danny Lee), a man still recovering from the infidelities of his ex-fiancée. Moments into the trip does Johnny get separated from the group; near instantly, he is almost killed by the Peking Man himself, until — WAIT! — buxom wild woman Samantha (Evelyne Kraft) comes to the rescue. In a terribly conceived flashback sequence, it is revealed that, as a little girl, Samantha's parents were killed in an airplane accident. In the years since, she has attended to a rustically decorated cave, and, more or less, has considered her ape pal to be a brother, a father.
Johnny quickly falls in love with her, but he can't just go back home and claim her as his bride: he also has to bring the ape back to Hong Kong by the force of Lu Tiem (Feng Ku), a ruthless promoter. And just when things start beginning to look like "King Kong", coincidences start to tread into territories of unparalleled duplication, right up until the film ends in a predicted showdown atop a helicopter swarmed skyscraper.
"Mighty Peking Man" has more of a fascination with Evelyne Kraft than its titular monster, obsessing over the heaving possibilities of a nip-slip (she wanders around in a sure-to-be taped-on animal skin bikini top akin to Lil' Kim's '99 VMAs outfit), obsessing over slow- motion sequences where she gets to make orgasmic faces at the most cringeworthy of times (like when she gets a snake bite a few inches to the left of her crotch and Johnny must suck the poison out).
But alas, "Mighty Peking Man" isn't high art; at times, it works more as schlocky (if not, accidental) comedy, and it's impossible to be anything less than shallowly amused. Perhaps the film didn't realize it was terrible while it was being made. But once again, any filmmaker that figures a myriad of doll house sized "sets" or an abundance of horrifying green screen special effects suggests anything resembling quality can't possibly be sane. "Mighty Peking Man" wanted to capitalize on the "King Kong" craze, economically and efficiently; and for all its appalling productional decisions (and I mean appalling), it works. Barely.
Granted, you most likely don't have the IQ of a gnat; I know I shouldn't be recommending bad movies to you, but if you were going to die tomorrow and your final wish was to watch one final bad movie, you may as well pick "Mighty Peking Man". It isn't Jack Hill bad (unpleasant, sorta kinda humorless); it is Ed Wood, Claudio Fragasso bad, unwittingly awful but so good at being awful that even Russ Meyer, post-viewership, might take a minute from objectifying nubile young woman and pat himself on the back for actually being good at what he does. We can agree that "Mighty Peking Man" is garbage, but it is successful in one (one) thing it does: it set out to be a cheap "King Kong" knockoff, and it doesn't just succeed, it prevails, as a cheap "King Kong" knockoff.
The film follows a group of Asian explorers trudging through the strenuous jungles of India in hopes to find the Mighty Peking Man, a legendary (and massive) ape-like creature who stalks the territory with reckless abandon. Leading the way is Johnny (Danny Lee), a man still recovering from the infidelities of his ex-fiancée. Moments into the trip does Johnny get separated from the group; near instantly, he is almost killed by the Peking Man himself, until — WAIT! — buxom wild woman Samantha (Evelyne Kraft) comes to the rescue. In a terribly conceived flashback sequence, it is revealed that, as a little girl, Samantha's parents were killed in an airplane accident. In the years since, she has attended to a rustically decorated cave, and, more or less, has considered her ape pal to be a brother, a father.
Johnny quickly falls in love with her, but he can't just go back home and claim her as his bride: he also has to bring the ape back to Hong Kong by the force of Lu Tiem (Feng Ku), a ruthless promoter. And just when things start beginning to look like "King Kong", coincidences start to tread into territories of unparalleled duplication, right up until the film ends in a predicted showdown atop a helicopter swarmed skyscraper.
"Mighty Peking Man" has more of a fascination with Evelyne Kraft than its titular monster, obsessing over the heaving possibilities of a nip-slip (she wanders around in a sure-to-be taped-on animal skin bikini top akin to Lil' Kim's '99 VMAs outfit), obsessing over slow- motion sequences where she gets to make orgasmic faces at the most cringeworthy of times (like when she gets a snake bite a few inches to the left of her crotch and Johnny must suck the poison out).
But alas, "Mighty Peking Man" isn't high art; at times, it works more as schlocky (if not, accidental) comedy, and it's impossible to be anything less than shallowly amused. Perhaps the film didn't realize it was terrible while it was being made. But once again, any filmmaker that figures a myriad of doll house sized "sets" or an abundance of horrifying green screen special effects suggests anything resembling quality can't possibly be sane. "Mighty Peking Man" wanted to capitalize on the "King Kong" craze, economically and efficiently; and for all its appalling productional decisions (and I mean appalling), it works. Barely.