Yongary, Monster from the Deep

Dir. Kim Ki-Duk

80 Minutes

South Korea

1967

Starring: Yeong-il Oh, Jeong-im Nam, Sun-jae Lee, Moon Kang

**/*****

A South Korean kaiju film looking to capitalize on the various monster films coming out of Japan,Yongary, Monster from the Deep is of mostly paltry film quality, but suffices as cheap entertainment for fans of the genre. Character, motivation, relationships, and even personality or talent is secondary to patiently waiting for the events that lead to the unveiling of the long dormant monster Yongary, who goes on an animalistic rampage through South Korea not because it is evil but because it is simply its natural state of being.Yongary impressively spends quite a bit of time with its rubber suited antagonist (or hero depending on how one is viewing the action), though much of that screen time is relegated to slowly walking around the city and being destructive (one exception being a bizarre moment where the child protagonist (clearly taking some cues from the direction of the Gamara series) shines a spotlight in its eyes and the two share a brief dance to what sounds like surf rock music). As the military gets involved and begins to attack Yongary from all sides, the usual messages come out: being mindful of our technologies against the potential dormancies in nature, man's temporality, and, as the boy laments the death of "the monster", an understanding of nature not being confined to human trappings of civilized behavior (and, because the original South Korean audio is basically lost, all done in a half-heartedly awful English dubbing). 

There is not much of anything in the film to set it apart from other kaiju offerings, but this never gets in the way of its entertainment value. The monster Yongary is always great fun to look at, and the film does not save it for a few "money-shots" in the third act (it appears within the first half hour and is a fairly consistent presence from there) while peppering the running time with extended bits of useless exposition. And there are some other marvelous cheap effects: miniature cities, toy cars exploding as they drive off fake hills, and mannequins. One knows what they are getting into with this business, and those who have no interest dabbling in giant lizard cautionary tales need not apply.

October 20th, 2019