The Mighty Peking Man

1980 "Action... Excitement... Spectacle beyond your wildest dreams!"
5.4| 1h30m| PG-13| en| More Info
Released: 19 March 1980 Released
Producted By: Shaw Brothers
Country: Hong Kong
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Info

Word of a monster ape ten stories tall living in the Himalayas reaches fortune hunters in Hong Kong. They travel to India to capture it, but wild animals and quicksand dissuade all but Johnny, an adventurer with a broken heart. He finds the monster and discovers it's been raising a scantily-clad woman, Samantha, since she survived a plane crash years before that killed her parents. In the idyllic jungle, Johnny and Samantha fall in love. Then Johnny asks her to convince "Utam" to go to Hong Kong. Lu Tien, an unscrupulous promoter, takes over: Utam is in chains for freak show exhibitions. When Lu Tien assaults Samantha, Utam's protective instincts take over: havoc in Hong Kong.

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Director

Ho Meng-Hua

Production Companies

Shaw Brothers

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The Mighty Peking Man Audience Reviews

WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.
SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
ultramatt2000-1 As you know, I love monster movies. When I first heard and read about MIGHTY PEKING MAN I wanted to see it. After I watched it, I would say that it is a Frankenstein's Monster made up of the 1976 KING KONG remake, TARZAN (since there is a female jungle there), the original MIGHTY JOE YOUNG, EARTHQUAKE (the way the title appears on the land) and TOWERING INFERNO (the climax). The special effects are not bad, but the music consists entirely on stock music. For instance, the disco song that played at the TV station is an instrumental song by Franck McDonald & Chris Rae called "The Jam". The ending where the title fought helicopters on top of the building has Dmitri Shostakovich's "Symphony No. 5 in D Minor" playing. All in all, this is a pretty good movie. This is arguably one of the better KING KONG rip-offs. If you like kaiju films, cheesy movies and bizarre cinema, then give it a watch. You will like it. Rated PG-13 for violence, nudity, gore and some profanity.
Scott LeBrun Wacky, if obvious, Hong Kong made update of the classic King Kong story. The title character is an enormous ape, discovered by an expedition into the Himalayas. Naturally, Mighty Peking Man is soon brought back to civilization where he goes on the expected rampage. Evelyne Kraft plays Samantha, an incredibly sexy blonde jungle woman who's fond of the big guy.While the tone is sometimes more serious than expected, this is still quite the agreeable diversion, with enough things in it to make its audience laugh. It even gets reasonably energetic and exciting, with MPM doing an amount of damage to HK that easily rivals anything Godzilla ever did to Tokyo. A production of those reliable folk at Shaw Brothers, this is very nicely shot in widescreen, and its special effects are quite amusing and entertaining overall (with much use of miniatures). The music, credited to Yung-Yu Chen and "DeWolfe", is suitably rousing.The acting is of the "not so hot, but admirably sincere" variety. Kraft is extremely appealing, both as a performer and a scenery attraction. Danny Lee is likewise ingratiating as Johnnie Fang, the adventurer hired to lead the expedition. We have an appropriately disgusting human villain, as well as an enjoyable title antagonist. Sometimes MPM has some pretty priceless expressions on his face.Director Meng Hua Ho gets right down to business, with MPM terrorizing village residents in an uproarious opening action set piece, and delivers brainless thrills for a well paced 91 minutes.Seven out of 10.
Mark Honhorst This movie, while definitely not credible film making by any means(or worth ten stars), is good ol' fashioned, camp entertainment. You have a giant ape, a blonde babe whose nipple pokes out for almost the entire movie, gore, death, and destruction. What's not to like? That said, this is just an adventure movie, and it delivers what it promises: Action, romance, and a giant ape. And it's hilarious to boot! While it probably tries to be serious(well,maybe not) it just comes off as silly. And, this being a big budget Chinese release, the picture looks great while the movie is totally goofy. This is one of those movies that's better to find in the dubbed, Amercanized version. It just makes it sound even sillier. Definitely worth a look for all fans of silly cult cinema. Especially silly cult cinema.
Woodyanders The lamentably lousy '76 "King Kong" remake fortunately inspired a handful of hilariously horrible low-budget cash-in copies which includes the incredibly awful Korean cheapie "A*P*E*," the groan-inducing idiotic spoof "King Kung Fu," and this simply stupendous Hong Kong howler. Produced by the Shaw Brothers, who usually cranked out extravagant chopsocky costumers by the dozens and shot on a conspicuously paltry budget of what appears to be several rolls worth of quarters, this utterly inept, yet always entertaining and frequently sidesplitting tale of gorgeous jungle honey Samantha (the beautiful, curvaceous, flaxen-tressed Euro minx Evelyn Kraft, giving the viewers am amazing eyeful in a scanty, revealing fur bikini outfit that leaves precious little to the imagination) and the fearsome, village-stomping behemoth ape who's her best friend is not to be missed. Blessed with all the correct so-totally-wrong-it's-paradoxically-right schlock movie stuff -- clueless ham-fisted direction by seasoned journeyman Ho Meng-Hua, a crummy, leave-no-cliché-unturned cookie cutter script, meager (far from) special effects, laughably poor dubbing, proto-MTV buzzsaw editing which accentuates a manic rapid-fire pace over rhythm and continuity, unspeakably terrible dialogue ("Hey look -- it's Peking Man!"), ramshackle production values, a sappy romance between Kraft and dorky Oriental adventurer Danny Lee (who also portrayed the titular bionic superhero in the equally astounding "Infra-Man" around the same time), a breathlessly frenetic pace, an absurdly melodramatic score, a fantastic mondo destructo monster on the rampage sequence (WARNING: Possible *SPOILER* ahead - in one alternate version Kraft croaks along with the ape at the film's riotously botched conclusion), a few groovy Erutrash disco tunes (one's even sung to a cloying lovey-dovey jungle montage!), and, most importantly, a certain cheerfully off-target, yet still unyielding and unbridled go-for-it hearty gusto which blithely permeates every last fabulously fumbled frame -- this choice chunk of delectably dreadful cinematic cheese rates as essential viewing for hardcore bad film buffs.