Taekoesu Yonggary (1967)

User Rating:

3.5/10   

Director:

Ki-duk Kim

Writers:

Ki-duk Kim (screenplay)
Yun-sung Seo (writer)

Release Date:

13 August 1967 (South Korea)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Horror

Plot:

Earthquakes in central Korea turn out to be the work of Yongary, a prehistoric gasoline-eating reptile that soon goes on a rampage through Seoul.

Plot Keywords:

Korea | Earthquake | Reptile | Little Boy | Exploding Airplane

Cast

Yeong-il Oh
Jeong-im Nam
Sun-jae Lee
Moon Kang
Kwang Ho Lee
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Cho Kyoung-min	...	Yongary
Ted Rusoff	...	Protagonist (voice)

Also Known As:

Dai koesu Yongkari (Japan) (alternative transliteration)
Great Monster Yongary (International: English title) (informal literal title)
Great Monster Yongkari (International: English title) (alternative transliteration)
Monster Yongkari (International: English title) (informal alternative title)
Yongary, Monster from the Deep (USA) (TV title)
Yongkari, Monster of the Deep (International: English title) (informal alternative title)

Runtime:

Germany:64 min | South Korea:100 min | USA:79 min | Japan:74 min

Country:

South Korea | Japan

Language:

Korean

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:PG (video rating) | West Germany:12

Company:

Kuk Dong

Trivia:

The original Korean print of the film was destroyed making the film partially lost, because U.S. prints for the T.V. version still exist.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: Yongary's waggling tongue mysteriously disappears from his mouth when he is shown breathing fire.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "Son of Svengoolie: Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967) (#1.65)" (1980)

the Godzilla and Gamera of Korea

"Yongary: Monster from the Deep" is another entry on a nearly endless list of low-budget giant monster films that owe their inspiration and creation to the two most popular movie monsters of Asia: Godzilla and Gamera. The monster, Yongary, has characteristics similar to both of these monster icons. The thing is that Yongary makes his film debut in a film that is very cheap, dull, and oftentimes unintentionally funny. And the moments that were intentionally funny, are mostly just painful to look at.

Yongary, as you can imagine, was represented by a man in a rubber suit. The suit, I'm afraid to say, is a very poor effort. It isn't bulky like Godzilla, but in fact very slender, like the T-rex costumes of some particular low-budget American dinosaurs movies. When viewed from the side, Yongary doesn't look half-bad. But since we most commonly see him from the front, he mostly looks pretty bad. Too skinny, too humanlike, too unrealistic. There are many other revealing aspects to the poor special effects. Yongary, like Gamera, can breathe and literally inhale fire. Whenever he does either one of these, you can see the nozzle in the back of his mouth and his tongue just seems to disappear. And what's also funny? Yongary is prone to feeling itchy, and also likes to dance. Yes, dance.

The human characters are dull and uninteresting, mostly annoying, as you would expect. Dubbing, for once, wasn't half-bad. Like Gamera, Yongary has a child character who idolizes him. But I think this character just smiled too much. Even when he talks about how Yongary wasn't a bad monster, he just smiles. If Yongary is facing danger, instead of being angry, the kid still smiles. There is also a sense of stupidity with these characters. Such as, what's the point to sending a man in a rocket into space to observe a nuclear explosion? One can easily see and observe from a safe distance on Earth. And also, there's a moment where the characters argue about missiles to attack Yongary with, and say the missiles could be too dangerous to the city to use. But, when they are used, the missiles don't seem to cause much for an explosion. Missiles fired by jets later on, which are much smaller and less destructive, seem to cause greater damage.

Bottom line, "Yongary: Monster of the Deep" is a movie that is worth looking at. But do not expect much from it. It is better than other low-budget Godzilla-rip offs such as "The X from Outer Space", but is still not all that impressive of a film.