Exploitation Week: The Mighty Peking Man

Hey all and welcome back to Day 3 of Exploitation Week.  Eww did I step in something?  Oh sorry that smell is coming from the craze that was the 1976 King Kong.  Now don’t get your feathers ruffled, I am referring to the 1977 rip off that was a Japanese film that was shot in Hong Kong.  So prep your toy tanks and get those model airplanes in the air.   This is The Mighty Peking Man.

He did the monster mash!!!

The Spoiler obeys the girl’s every command!

In the deepest of the Himalayan mountains on the side of India, it is said there lurks a fierce ape like creature that stands over 100 feet.   Hmm that sounds kinda familiar…anyways this expedition to capture said creature is under way but we need an experienced hunter.  Enter Johnny (Danny Lee of Code of Honour, City on Fire and The Killer) an adventurous soul that is crawling inside a whiskey barrel because his girl was getting it on with another man.  Johnny warns his creditors the dangers of the jungle and has to get tough on them in order to survive the awesome ferocity of India. 

Swell cave you have here...roomy even.

He encounters Samantha (Evelyne Kraft of The French Sex Murders, The Bod Squad, Lady Dracula, The Fifth Commandment and Assassination Attempt) a shapely blond  barely covered in animal skins that has been marooned on this land as a child who has taken to behaving like Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.  She communicates with the animals including the massive ape known as Utam.  He is her protector and friend.  Guess she could not invoke the power of 20 some odd Japanese school children to summon Gamera. Samantha is bitten by a poisonous snake and her leopard mauls the snake while Johnny must take her supple thigh and suck the poison from it.    After such an event the two fall madly in love.   As that is often the case.

Phew, I should have skipped those baked beans.

Johnny and his partners convince Samantha to bring Utam to Hong Kong so he may be seen and they nixed mentioning they can rack in a lot of bread.    Johnny reconciles with his ex girlfriend and Samantha feels betrayed.   She runs maybe all of three blocks when some plaid polyester clad rapist attacks her; only to be squashed like an over ripe grape by Utam.   Utam is now enraged and proceeds to stomp up and down Hong Kong and create mass destruction.   Several helicopters, tanks and military personnel are at the ready.

And now I have just a few comments about our picturesque delight.   Panavision 35 mm is the culprit to capture this film in question but for some reason they recorded it in Mono.  The better portion of the “Special Effects” are done by Teruyoshi Nakano (King Kong vs Godzilla, Mothra vs Godzilla, Lake of Dracula and Evil of Dracula) for our various men beating the crap out of each other in rubber suits this Orangutan King looks like a Halloween store bought costume that the mask keeps shifting between shots.

Utam's first and last day as car valet.

To be fair they used similar animatronics techniques that were used in The Planet of the Apes films but the costumer did not arrange the fur in a realistic pattern so it looks bald in spots.  The forced perspective and scale models could be better but all in all are not that bad.  It cannot be taken seriously but it has been good for a laugh so if your heart is one for cheese ball monster films of this magnitude, then have at it.