The Mighty Peking Man

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The Mighty Peking Man (猩猩王) (Mandarin: Hsing Hsing Wang, Cantonese: Sing Sing Wong - literally "Orangutan King") is a tokusatsu kaiju film, produced in Hong Kong by Shaw Brothers Studio. This film was created to capitalize on the craze surrounding the 1976 remake of King Kong.

The film was directed by Ho Meng Hua, produced by Runme Shaw, and the special effects were directed by Sadamasa Arikawa, with Koichi Kawakita as assistant FX director. It starred Danny Lee and Evelyne Kraft.

A gigantic ape-like creature is found in the Himalayan mountains on the India side, along with a former plane crash victim named Samantha. Samantha grew up with Utam (the peking man) with nothing to wear but an old bikini. She and Utam are brought to Hong Kong, where Utam goes on display as a circus freak. His discoverer falls in love with his old girlfriend. Samantha, who loved him, saw this and ran off, nearly getting raped. Utam goes berserk and squashes the rapist, then runs off with Samantha to the tallest building he can find, climbs it, and is burned/shot to death and falls off.

[edit] Re-release

On April 23, Quentin Tarantino re-released Might Peking Man in North America through his Rolling Thunder Pictures distribution company with Miramax. Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of a possible four in the Chicago Sun-Times, and, amusingly, actually upgraded his rating for the thematically similar Infra-Man:

"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 favorite Hong Kong monster film. Both were produced by the legendary Runme Shaw, 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.

Audiences were less receptive to the film's 'insane genius,' however. In its opening weekend, it grossed just $4,873 in 13 theatres ($374 per screen), and ended its run with a miserable $17,368.