''The Mighty Peking Man'' (猩猩王) (Mandarin: ''Xīngxing Wáng'' – which translates to "Gorilla King" in English) is a 1977 giant monster film produced by

Shaw Brothers Studio Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd. () was the largest film production company in Hong Kong, and operated from 1925 to 2011. In 1925, three Shaw brothers— Runje, Runme, and Runde—founded Tianyi Film Company (also called "Unique") in Shangh ...

to capitalize on the craze surrounding the 1976 remake of ''King Kong''. The film was originally released in the United States with the English dub in 1980 as ''Goliathon'' The film was directed by

Ho Meng Hua Ho Meng Hua (1 January 1923 - 19 May 2009) was a Chinese film director from Shanghai, working in the Cinema of Hong Kong and the Cinema of Taiwan. Early life In 1923, Ho was born in Guangdong province, China. Ho grew up in Shanghai, China. E ...

and produced by

Runme Shaw Runme Shaw, K.St.J (; 1 January 1901 – 2 March 1985) was the chairman and founder of the Shaw Organisation of Singapore. Runme Shaw and his brother, Run Run Shaw, together known as the Shaw Brothers, were pioneers in the film and entertainmen ...

; the

special effects Special effects (often abbreviated as SFX, F/X or simply FX) are illusions or visual tricks used in the theatre, film, television, video game, amusement park and simulator industries to simulate the imagined events in a story or virtual w ...

were directed by Sadamasa Arikawa, with Koichi Kawakita as assistant FX director, who would move on to the

Heisei The is the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Emeritus Akihito from 8 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. The Heisei era started on 8 January 1989, the day after the death of the Emperor Hirohito ...

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or '' kaiju'', originating from a series of Japanese films. The character first appeared in the 1954 film '' Godzilla'' and became a worldwide pop culture icon, appearing in various media, including 32 films produ ...

movies and the

Mothra is a fictional monster, or ''kaiju'', that first appeared in the 1961 film '' Mothra'', produced and distributed by Toho Studios. Mothra has appeared in several Toho ''tokusatsu'' films, most often as a recurring character in the ''Godzilla'' ...

trilogy. It starred Danny Lee and Evelyne Kraft.

Plot

Lu Tiem (

Ku Feng Chan Sze-man (born 3 July 1930), better known by his stage name Ku Feng, is a Hong Kong actor. Background He studied in Beijing, and has appeared in hundreds of films, many of which were produced by the Shaw Brothers Studio Shaw Brothers ( ...

) sees the Newspaper with His friends about the Giant Foot Print that was revealed in Himalayan India. The discovered nations were released as a past flashback, Utam the Mighty Peking Guy who destroys the buildings, throws rocks, and causes an earthquake-like rampage. They all chase him through the race. Lu deeds to send His Minion to torture Goliathon in any slights for destroying Indians. A party from

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

, headed by Johnny ( Danny Lee) are exploring the Indian side of the

Himalayan mountains The Himalayas, or Himalaya (; ; ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the planet's highest peaks, including the very highest, Mount Everest. Over ...

. They see the Himalayan people about the

Gorilla Gorillas are herbivorous, predominantly ground-dwelling great apes that inhabit the tropical forests of equatorial Africa. The genus ''Gorilla'' is divided into two species: the eastern gorilla and the western gorilla, and either four ...

what happened in the last year was revealed to destroy Himalayan villages. Johnny and friends meet all of the other animals like

Bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family Ursidae. They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats throughout the N ...

Monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incom ...

and Natures along with Buffalos and

Gnus Gnus (), or Gnus Network User Services, is a message reader which is part of GNU Emacs. It supports reading and composing both e-mail and news and can also act as an RSS reader, web processor, and directory browser for both local and remote file ...

and fights the

Elephant Elephants are the largest existing land animals. Three living species are currently recognised: the African bush elephant, the African forest elephant, and the Asian elephant. They are the only surviving members of the family Elephantidae ...

s who are the Bodyguards of Utam that chase everyone and kill innocent people. The First Himalayan Elephant was shot and murdered by Johnny and chases, Lu Tiem has no doubt rose what happened Today. In the Morning,

Tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on ...

confronts Him and the mud comes. Johnny attacks it who bites Leg, Lu shots and chases. After Lu Tiem kills Him, Johnny assaults and punches him if his deeds are to takes down innocent people. Johnny sleeps while Lu and his friends retreat to the jungles and go back to China. He was left on his own and starts to become homeless and discovers the eponymous

Peking Man Peking Man (''Homo erectus pekinensis'') is a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' which inhabited the Zhoukoudian Cave of northern China during the Middle Pleistocene. The first fossil, a tooth, was discovered in 1921, and the Zhoukoudian Cave has ...

, a

Yeti The Yeti ()"Yeti"
''

Evelyne Kraft) to tells Utam what to do that He stays away from taking down him before he was meant to be passed away by him in a poster. Johnny later to fights the

Malayan Tiger The Malayan tiger is a tiger from a specific population of the ''Panthera tigris tigris'' subspecies that is native to Peninsular Malaysia. This population inhabits the southern and central parts of the Malay Peninsula and has been classified ...

but was chased by Samantha and seeing the Giant

Leopard The leopard (''Panthera pardus'') is one of the five extant species in the genus '' Panthera'', a member of the cat family, Felidae. It occurs in a wide range in sub-Saharan Africa, in some parts of Western and Central Asia, Southern Russia ...

attacks him and was a friend of her whose parents had been killed in a plane crash. Samantha was raised by Utam (the Peking Man) with nothing to wear but animal skin

bikini A bikini is a two-piece swimsuit primarily worn by women that features two triangles of fabric on top that cover the breasts, and two triangles of fabric on the bottom: the front covering the pelvis but exposing the navel, and the back cover ...

. Like

Tarzan Tarzan (John Clayton II, Viscount Greystoke) is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization, only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adv ...

, she has learned both to swing through the trees on vines and to communicate with and command the jungle animals, with the exception of a

venomous snake Venomous snakes are species of the suborder Serpentes that are capable of producing venom, which they use for killing prey, for defense, and to assist with digestion of their prey. The venom is typically delivered by injection using hollow or ...

who bites her on the inner thigh, requiring the hero Johnny to suck out the poison while Samantha's leopard friend and the Giant Elephant attacks and battles the snake. Shortly thereafter, they fall in love. Johnny and his partners bring Samantha and Utam to Hong Kong, where Utam goes on display to the incredulous public. While in Hong Kong, Samantha doesn't seem to prefer women's clothing and continues to wear her animal-skin bikini. Johnny, meanwhile, reconciles with the girlfriend whose romantic betrayal with his brother had been the impetus behind his sudden decision to explore the Himalayas. Samantha sees this and runs off and Lu Tiem confronts and punches Her that She stay away from Jungles. Utam goes wild to saves Her and kills Lu Tiem was now been here lies and gets revenge for killing Him (after the Tiger bites His Leg and chases). During Samantha's running, Utam ends up on a rampage. Utam then goes to the tallest building he can find (namely the

Jardine House Jardine House (), formerly known as Connaught Centre (), is an office tower in Hong Kong. The building is located at 1 Connaught Place, Central on Hong Kong Island. It is owned by Hongkong Land Limited, a subsidiary of Jardines. At the time ...

) and climbs it. Johnny and Samantha catch up to Utam and plan to get him out of Hong Kong and back to their jungle. Utam sacrifices and kills the Last Villain with several

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribut ...

s in a scene greatly reminiscent of the ending of Kong gets burned his body and falls off. Samantha is killed in an explosion during the conflict while Johnny receives a minor gunshot wound to the lower leg. then Utam crashed down the smaller building explodes and killed.

Cast

* Danny Lee – Johnny Feng * Evelyne Kraft – Samantha ** Katherine Murphy as Young Samantha *

– Lu Tien * Lin Wei-tu – David Chen *

Norman Chui Norman Chui Siu-keung (; born 16 October 1950) is a Hong Kong actor. He was best known for portraying heroic protagonists in many martial arts films from the 1970s to 1980s and later portraying villainous roles in the 1990s. Chui was contracted wi ...

– Ah Lung * Wu Hang-sheng – Ah Pi * Hsiao Yao – Huang Tsui-Hua * Chen Ping – Lin Chang * Ted Thomas – Commissioner Theodore * Steve Nicholson – Commissioner's aide * Corey Yuen (uncredited) * Keizo Murase – Utam (uncredited)

Production

''The Mighty Peking Man'' had a budget of six million

Hong Kong dollars The Hong Kong dollar (, sign: HK$; code: HKD) is the official currency of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It is subdivided into 100 cents or 1000 mils. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority is the monetary authority of Hong Kong an ...

for the Shaw Bros. studio. The film took over a year to complete and was shot in

Mysore Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...

, India. the miniatures were done by Cosmo Productions, everything from model cars, trucks, helicopters and buildings done by Murase himself. the design of the character Utam was made by brown fur originally white hair in the prototype, several scenes from man-in a suit and animatronic mask, close up puppet shots of the head, life size hands, legs. the climax filming the scene in top the Jardine House on the roof where Utam blown up by between takes, were poured by gas and was dangerous, and a stuffed dummy crashed the General Post office burns the set.

Release

''The Mighty Peking Man'' was distributed by Shaw Bros. in Hong Kong. Also in United States both released from March 19, 1980, by World Northal Pictures and re-released in April 23, 1999, by Rolling Thunder Pictures.

Reception

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' reviewed a 100-minute long Cantonese-language version of the film stating it was an "interesting if not unique Hongkong-made escapist entertainment for the inquisitive middle-of-the-roaders audience of other countries." and "it is high camp, Chinese style and for this reason it just might make it in less demanding markets." In retrospective reviews,

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

gave the film three stars out of a possible four in the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'', and, incidentally, actually upgraded his rating for the thematically similar ''

Infra-Man ''The Super Inframan'' (, translated literally as ''Chinese Superman'') is a 1975 Hong Kong science fiction action film produced by Shaw Brothers Studio in 1975. Inspired by the huge success of the Japanese tokusatsu franchises such as '' Ultr ...

'':

"''Mighty Peking Man'' is very funny, although a shade off the high mark of ''Infra-Man'', which was made a year earlier, and is my favourite Hong Kong monster film. Both were produced by the legendary
Runme Shaw Runme Shaw, K.St.J (; 1 January 1901 – 2 March 1985) was the chairman and founder of the Shaw Organisation of Singapore. Runme Shaw and his brother, Run Run Shaw, together known as the Shaw Brothers, were pioneers in the film and entertainmen ...
, who, having tasted greatness, obviously hoped to repeat. I find to my astonishment that I gave ''Infra-Man'' only two and a half stars when I reviewed it. That was 22 years ago, but a fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that film. I am awarding ''Mighty Peking Man'' three stars, for general goofiness and a certain level of insane genius, but I cannot in good conscience rate it higher than ''Infra-Man''. So, in answer to those correspondents who ask if I have ever changed a rating on a movie: Yes, ''Infra-Man'' moves up to three stars.

Footnotes

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mighty Peking Man Shaw Brothers Studio films 1977 films Hong Kong horror films 1977 horror films 1970s adventure films 1970s monster movies Films about apes Giant monster films Kaiju films Films about Yeti Films set in India Films set in Hong Kong Films directed by Ho Meng Hua 1970s Japanese films 1970s Hong Kong films