Monster Movie of the Week: Yonggary (1967)

YONGGARY: MONSTER FROM THE DEEP (1967)

Director: Kim Ki-duk

Genre: Kaiju

THE MOVIE

Long before The Host and Dragon Wars, South Korea had its very own giant monster, Yonggary. Much like Gamera and Gorgo, Yonggary is a pretty blatant Godzilla ripoff, that tells the story of a giant reptilian creature awakened by an atomic bomb and which goes on a spree of destruction in a major urban city. In this case, Seoul gets all the kaiju love.

While it is a little retro for the time in the fact that Yonggary has no monster opponent, there is the obligatory Kenny character. Kennys are characters in 1960’s and 1970’s Japanese kaiju movies who are always annoying little Japanese school boys in short shorts. Some of them have serious emotional problems. Yonggary’s resident Kenny, is an insufferably precocious smart alec who engages Yonggary in a kind of horrible dance off. Yes, you read that right. The two get down together to some ‘60’s surf pop.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

Yonggary is a big dinosaur, much like Godzilla. His claim to fame is that he has a big glowing horn on his nose. The monster suit is actually pretty awful and cheap-looking with big, glassy eyes. He also breathes fire, which looks suspiciously like a lighter being held in front of an aerosol can.

As a creature, Yonggary has a couple of notable attributes. First is the nose horn, which glows at different points in the movie for unknown reasons. Second, is Yonggary’s behavior. Interestingly, the creature is seen actively devouring oil during the course of the movie. It’s actually rare in a kaiju movie to see a monster actually eating anything (other than the occasional person). Yonggary’s need to drink oil gives him an interesting motivation and suggests an intriguing biology.

This movie also makes me appreciate the craft that went into building the miniature cities and environments in the Godzilla movies. One can really see the difference in quality between the work here and in the earlier Japanese movies. The miniatures really do go a long way to making the rest of the effects work as well as they do and selling the scale of the whole thing.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The dance off! But only because it sucks so hard.

SEQUELS

None, but a loose remake in 1999.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

On DVD, as streaming on Netflix as of this writing.