Review of Yongary, Monster from the Deep

Yonggary (1967) is much like Gamera, a cash crop film, aping off the success of other pilfered monsters, better ones. The film opens with what I thought was a rather nice shot of space with rolling credits, followed by a fine cast of mediocre actors and a young boy in shorts, the evil omen for any giant monster movie fan of terrible things to come. The story and plot run through very worn out terrain, mysterious happenings somewhere, a loving couple, monster attack, and discovery of weapon to kill the monster. The film was geared to children, as most kaiju films of this time (late 60s), one would expect this in itself would diagnose Yonggary as terminally unwatchable, but the kid aspect is what to me kept it entertaining, Yonggary dancing, drinking, etc. were all bizarre enouph to keep a smile, bad editing also played it part. As for the action sequences, Yonggary's arrival and first rampage was well done, not very convincing mind you, but thats never really the point in these films, to look interesting and incite nostalgic inner child hollaring.

Yonggary is by far one of the most forgettable Kaiju monsters to grace East Asian screens, his physical appearance is right down the middle neutral to anything that may catch attention; his skin color bland, his design simple and uninspired and his range of emotion nonexistent. However , despite all of this, I had fun watching it, unlike Gappa, pretension toward seriousness is out the window, thus making the inevitable moral lesson and speech at the end all the more bearable.

One of the better, lesser kaiju films. 6/10