Great Counterattack of King Kong (1976) - There's probably better
'APE' (also released as 'The Counterattack of King Kong') is one of the many low-budget knockoffs that tried to cash in on the 1976 'King Kong' remake. Unfortunately, it doesn’t bring anything memorable to the table, either as genuine monster cinema or as campy fun.
The film makes no secret of what it’s copying - a massive gorilla escapes captivity, rampages across Korea, swats at helicopters and throws rocks at plastic miniatures, shaped like tanks. On paper, that sounds like the kind of absurd spectacle that could work as a “so-bad-it’s-good” cult favorite. But in practice the film is too cheap and no real fun to leave much of an impression. The giant ape is blatantly just a man in a suit, randomly swatting at badly-designed miniatures, perforated with stilted performances which don’t inspire the kind of gleeful laughter that better 'bad' movies do.
Unlike 'King Kong,' which carried a sense of tragic scale no matter the version, 'APE' feels like a hollow copy, trying to make the audience feel sorry for the huge behemoth, but, seeing as it chooses to destroy half of Korea, it's hard to feel sorry for it, not matter how tenderly it holds a blonde woman.
Just because it doesn’t take itself too seriously doesn't make it fun. Instead, it ends up in the cinematic dustbin, being neither good enough to be enjoyed on its own merits nor dumb fun to be remembered as a cult classic.
In short, 'APE' (or whatever it's called in your region) isn’t much of a monster movie. If you’re looking for giant ape entertainment, stick with 'Kong' including some of the more modern entries in the series which deliver more heart, spectacle and fun than this forgettable knockoff ever could.
3/10