Sadly Over-hyped

Absolutely brilliant

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This film begins with an obvious toy boat being destroyed by a guy in a cheap gorilla suit--the sort you'd rent for just a few dollars at a costume shop. Then, he proceeds to destroy a bunch of buildings that look even cheaper and sillier than those found in the Japanese giant monster films from Toho Studios! Most of the time, he moves about in super-slow motion and does a whole lot of nothing. And, as he does not much at all, you hear circus-like music. This time, however, the movie is a bit different, as the extras are all Korean AND their command of English is amazingly bad--so bad that it's rather funny to hear some of them stumble over even the simplest words.Sadly, however, as the movie progresses, you learn that the cheap sets and guy in the gorilla suit and Koreans who can't speak English are the BEST aspects of the film!! That's because the acting is abysmal, the editing was done by a chimp, many scenes featuring screaming Korean peasants went on too long, the music highly inappropriate as well as annoying and the dialog is among the worst I've ever heard. Believe me, Ed Wood couldn't have made a gorilla film any worse than this (including his own BRIDE AND THE MONSTER).There are unnecessary subplots involving a rather bland-looking actress and her boyfriend as well as a Colonel who is a total idiot (and needs a good haircut to even remotely look military) and curses CONSTANTLY--possibly more than any character in the 1970s. Aside from these stupid subplots, the rest of the film is essentially KING KONG but set in a Korea that is chock-full of crappy sets.Overall, there really is nothing to recommend this film--unless you really need to see a guy in a gorilla suit flipping off the army (I kid you not--this REALLY happened in the movie). It's so bad, that it's a film almost exclusively for bad movie fans. It's also a great film for Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange or Dino De Laurentiis to watch so that they can see that by comparison, the poor 1976 KING KONG film is like a Merchant-Ivory production! However, I do NOT recommend that Kim Jong-Il see the film--he might be tempted to nuke South Korea, since they were responsible for this atrocity of a movie!

Well, I just had the good fortune to see this movie on the big screen in glorious 3D(although my 3d glasses kept falling off of my regular glasses) and must say that all of the previous posts(with exception of the person who gave it like 9 stars) just did not get this movie and never will. Yes it is bad, terribly bad. Yes the acting sucks etc. Did this detract from my enjoyment of the film? Not a whit. I can imagine that in 2d on a TV the charm could be significantly diminished but in its original 3d glory this is not to "B" missed . I cant fathom all of the bad posts from folks who claim to like this genre of movies. I mean look at the godzilla movies that were coming out at this time frame, pure cheese! Yet I love them just the same! If your idea of a giant monster movie is the Hollywood godzilla or the peter jackson king kong then by all means please skip this. If on the other hand you wish peter jackson would take his next million dollars and sink it into a remake of meet the feebles then you might get a few chuckles out of this movie.

Mind you the "rubber shark" many reviewers mention isn't rubber at all...It's real! Only it's...obviously dead. A dead baby shark they must have bought at the local Korean fish market or something. Watching an extra, in a fake-looking ape suit, pretending to wrestle with a dead baby shark pretty much sums up the production values in this film. See it so you can't believe it! The movie's American ads actually stated "not to be confused with King Kong", but in some countries it was released as "The return King Kong". What also cracked me up was that the ape has apparently no vocal cords of any sort : he does not make a sound during the whole movie! The credits also thank the US military for their cooperation. How come all the tanks, etc, look like toys? Is this actually anti-American propaganda, aiming to pretend that the US have the crappiest army ever seen? Mind-numbing.

As a big fan of giant monster movies from the orient such as Godzilla and Gamera I had a to check out APE, the film that has so many alternate titles which in My opinion is hilarious such as APE: Attacking Primate Monster, Super Kong, and The New King Kong. I have seen most giant gorilla films and from viewing The original classic King Kong, The Son of Kong, the 1976 remake of King Kong, it's sequel King Kong Lives and ToHo's King Kong vs. Godzilla and King Kong Escapes and the Q.T. flick the Mighty Peking Man. I can tell you that APE is the most different of them all and the most horrible one of the lot but I really don`t mind the fake looking ape with the zipper on the side of the costume which sometimes they forgot close it all the way, the really bad dubbing, the stupid dialogue, the paper thin buildings (I say paper thin because when the buildings are on fire it sounds like paper burning!), the toy vehicles, the toy cow, the pool that is supposed to be the ocean, the rubber shark, the maximized snake, the army and the people running over and over and over again and such and plus what made it even better was it was filmed in 3D! I don`t mind this terrible stuff in APE because it makes the film funny and even better than what it supposed to be.APE is so dumb that I couldn't stop laughing.Minor briefing on the goings on in APE:In the beginning of APE it starts out with a bang with the boat and we are introduced to two workers on the freighter (shouldn't the film have begun and told how the APE was captured and where he came from?). They have the slowest conversation and it really helps with the very out of place dubbing. In this conversation they talk about the big guy and that he is going to Disney Land and all of a sudden the toy boat is blown up out of proportion. The screen is black and all you see is fire and the pool that is supposed to be the ocean for several seconds. Then immediately we see APE fighting with a giant great white shark that in My opinion resembled more of a basking shark. The shark never fought back and APE just thrashes him back and fourth a dozen times. This was an excellent seen for what it was. Through out the film we see Ape dance, gave the finger which was an awesome excellent experience to view and he never makes any roars and I noticed that there were no stomping sounds whatsoever! The character Colonel Davis was hilarious! he said lines such as "to hell with the press, I'm going to smoke this cigarette"! The film is a total laugh fest and I think people who love horrible movies with many mistake and fake looking stuff this is THE FILM for you!Notes:For the people who are interested in buying APE on video go to the following web address http://www.bijouflix.com/index.html. They have an excellent selection on rare low budget films at great prices with super fast shipping and service! This is a dream come true if you love this movie and were unable to see it when it was TV or find it at a video store. This is what I believe the only way to find the film unless you find on DVD at Amazon.com