AfterMighty Joe Young, however,Kongknockoffs started becoming not only more blatant and plentiful, but downright weird.
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Tanaka had always wanted to make a Kong film, and here was his chance.
Still, he bought the script, made one small correction, and was good to go.
The crew of generically horny, wisecracking sailors is mostly irrelevant.
The real story concerns Madame Piranha (Toho regular Mie Hama).
With enough Element X on hand, her country would rule the world.
Now, this sinister Doctor Who has uncovered an enormous deposit of Element X at the North Pole.
Are you following all that?
Sounds like this mad scientist shes hired might be padding his bill a bit.
Okay, lets stop right here.
you’ve got the option to just go watch the damn movie yourself.
Im more interested in this MechaKong business.
Not nearly as good as the real Kong anyway, which even Dr. Who has to admit.
Anyway, as forKing Kong Escapes, let me just say this.
So maybe Im to blame for the sequel.
Its not like audiences were clamoring for one.
When De Laurentiis finally decided a follow-up was necessary, he faced several immediate problems.
First, Kong was pretty decisively dead at the end of the first one.
We all heard his heart stop beating.
Second, De Laurentiis waited a full decade before putting the sequel into production.
But then came Ronald Shusetts script.
With Kong as dead as dead can be, where do you go?
Return to the island to nab his albino son?
Claim the first one had all been nothing but a bad dream and start over?
Have some Japanese Chick Sale clone build a giant robot Kong to work in the Alaskan oil fields?
No, Shusett had a better idea.
Or an idea anyway.
Okay, heres the premise.
You kinda wonder if they bothered talking to the Mayor about their plans beforehand.
Lucky for them, they just happened to have one on hand.
Ten minutes in, it already feels like another Toho film.
Nevertheless, my dad and I went to see it opening weekend.
With that Kong bond firmly in place, we had no choice but to seeKing Kong Lives.
When it was over, we left the theater and headed out to the parking lot.
We got in the car, neither of us saying a word for a few minutes.
Finally my dad said, Yeah, that was pretty bad.
Today few people remember this one even exists.
That poor mans John Hurt, British horror semi-icon Michael Gough, stars as esteemed botanist Charles Decker.
In the first five minutes, we learn Decker survived a plane crash while on expedition in Africa.
To prove this, he begins injecting the chimp with a serum hes distilled from those fast-growing carnivorous plants.
At times, oddly, it even seems to presageRise of the Planet of the Apes.
Oh, I guess you cant really hold it against the Italians.
Closest I came was Brad Harris.
The IMDb page alone offers three radically different supposed storylines.
Its like a version of the old Blind Men and the Elephant routine.
Well, kind of.
Well, kinda, I guess, sure.
I guess thats in there someplac, too, in a way.
And does a supposed descendant of King Kong show up and smack everyone around?
Thats the one thing thats not here, unless this supposed Kong relative is a dwarf.
I suppose I shouldnt have been too shocked.
Though it does have a lot of boobs in it.
Problem was, nobody did.
Hed already made a (very) minor splash with hisGodfatherparody four years earlier.
What if in the case ofKong,you took the original story and swapped all the sexes, right?
Play the whole thing like a wacky sex comedy.
It wasnt a bad idea, just a very bad film.
But that wasnt the end of the trouble.
Which it may well have been.
The poster was leaked and that VO5 deal was struck to put Lenska in the public eye.
It played a few days in Germany and developed a cult following in Japan, but thats about it.
It took nearly 30 years to at last see a home video release.
Most everyone above the age of 13 whos seen it has concluded it wasnt worth the wait.
