La Revanche de King Kong

I had to move this review over from "Kingu Kongu tai Gojira." Hard to keep the Japanese movies straight when the same monsters keep reappearing. I saw this one under the title "King Kong versus Doctor Who" (that's this one, right?) and cheap though the movie was-- and evidently completely unrelated to the famous Doctor Who of British TV-- I was impressed that Kong and his karma are faithfully characterized in a new story. The writers here understand that the thing about Kong is how his power makes him attractive to ignoble exploiters who, although he could crush them with a finger, have technology and craftiness that level the playing field for them against Kong, more or less. The "more or less" is where the tension of the story comes from. That and the second thoughts about whether civilization is using its dominion over nature wisely. In the original movie Kong was exploited by humans for entertainment; here he is exploited for labor and finds himself in the role of a John Henry whose strength is matched against that of his mechanical counterpart. The symbolism of the original film is not violated but only enriched.