Yongary, Monster from the Deep

Yonggary (1967) is much like Gamera, a cash crop film, aping off the success of other pilfered monsters, better ones. The film opens with what I thought was a rather nice shot of space with rolling credits, followed by a fine cast of mediocre actors and a young boy in shorts, the evil omen for any giant monster movie fan of terrible things to come. The story and plot run through very worn out terrain, mysterious happenings somewhere, a loving couple, monster attack, and discovery of weapon to kill the monster. The film was geared to children, as most kaiju films of this time (late 60s), one would expect this in itself would diagnose Yonggary as terminally unwatchable, but the kid aspect is what to me kept it entertaining, Yonggary dancing, drinking, etc. were all bizarre enouph to keep a smile, bad editing also played it part. As for the action sequences, Yonggary's arrival and first rampage was well done, not very convincing mind you, but thats never really the point in these films, to look interesting and incite nostalgic inner child hollaring.

Yonggary is by far one of the most forgettable Kaiju monsters to grace East Asian screens, his physical appearance is right down the middle neutral to anything that may catch attention; his skin color bland, his design simple and uninspired and his range of emotion nonexistent. However , despite all of this, I had fun watching it, unlike Gappa, pretension toward seriousness is out the window, thus making the inevitable moral lesson and speech at the end all the more bearable.

One of the better, lesser kaiju films. 6/10

While this is by far the most blatant Godzilla rip-off I have seen, it's far better than Godzilla could ever hope to be. The English dub is ridiculous. At one point a soldier actually repeats two lines. The green screen work is hit and miss, sometimes it seems like they might be trying to be bad for the comedic effect. There were a couple times I actually laughed out loud. As bad as this movie may be, I still liked it.

Cheapo Korean GODZILLA rip-off. Yonggary has a nose that glows when excited, likes to dance to rock 'n' roll, and is vulnerable to itching powder. Going Godzilla one better, Yonggary breathes fire AND shoots lasers from his nose. An allegedly cute eight year old boy befriends him; you keep hoping a building will fall on the boy or he'll get run over by a tank or be trampled by the mobs fleeing in terror to shut him up. The weirdest sequence occurs early in the movie: on his wedding night, just when his new bride is getting amorous, an astronaut is summoned on a secret mission; the next scene you see, he's blasting off into space in an enormous phallic rocket ship.

This was South Korea's second attempt to make a monster movie, and this is the best one in my opinion.

This film can be boring even with the monster action, Yongary just moves so slowly. That's one hundred percent a problem they had with the costume.

Half decent acting from the cast, the characters a pretty paper thin, but you don't see them that much anymore when Yongary shows up twenty three minutes in.

The special effects in this movie are actually pretty solid, the scene where Yongary attacks Seoul is the highlight of the film, the visual effects are on par with Godzilla at the time. Yongary has an ability where he can shoot lasers out of the horn on the tip of his nose, it's a really good effect. The miniature work is not as good as Godzilla's at the time, they look more like Ultraman miniatures.

I only recommend this one to people like me who really love Kaiju movies.

A Scientist and a young woman get married and immediately are harassed by the bride's young brother, whom you will likely hate almost immediately. Their honeymoon is short lived, as the scientist's new father-in-law calls him into action on the wedding night, not the kind of action he was looking for. It seems this man is the only one who can solve a problem plaguing the Korean people...a giant, angry, thunder lizard who has emerged from "the deep". I guess it's happened before, as most of the people know this Godzilla-like beast by his first name, Yongary.

Anyways, Yongary destroys a bunch of buildings, killing a bunch of people I assume, and ravages the Korean oil refineries, using the blow-torch in his mouth. We find out that he was only causing this ruckus because his tummy was growling, yes our boy Yongary was hungry. That pretty much covers most of the movie, other than a scene where he starts to dance, which makes it all worth watching (not really).