Constance F
Long thought of as lost, wangmagwi finally comes to our shores as that family member of the kaiju genre. Whereas Kong is the Grand pappy, Godzilla is the cranky father, Mothra is that aunt who spends her days gambling in Las Vegas, Wangmagwi is that crazy uncle who sits on the porch in his underwear bitching about the Constitution and firing his 12 gauge off into the distance at random.
There is nothing in this movie that would appeal to the special fx junky or anyone except the diehard monster fan or collector purists like myself. A ten year old boy dicing up the monster's eardrums and then peeing inside the creature's head is just the icing on the cake. It does hold one distinction and that is the first kaiju film to be made entirely by Koreans.
So bad are the sound effects that a coffee can full of pennies is more convincing. But you can't blame them for lack of trying.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
04/06/24
Full Review
Monsol E
I assume this was supposed to be a parody of the kaiju movies of the time, as I doubt they could have made anything this bad unintentionally.
The plot is just "spacemen send a monster to conquer earth"...the slightly unique thing is how it's earth's density that causes the monster to grow...
...and what a monster it is...by that I mean this is one of the worst Kaiju I've ever seen. It looks like if Beast-man from MOTU, and Gene Simmons had a lovechild. It's indestructible, but has a big obvious weakspot on it's back, which, somehow, is also indestructible.
The monster knocks some buildings around, but doesn't actually do much, most of the movie darts between various people trying to escape the attack...[now that could be interesting actually, a Kaiju movie specifically about the common people affected?]...but the people are all very dumb, and their panic is largely played for laughs, as people lose their pants, and fall in poo. I did enjoy The bride and her mother managing to fall every couple of steps. But what good gags the movie had were all drawn out too much, and got annoying.
The main characters don't do much, the little hobo kid did the most by far...actually climbing the monster, going in it's ear, and knifing it's eardrums, then going on it's back and sabotaging the device...which was indestructible...but easily unscrewed. Kid was a champ.
Now, the airforce has spent the entire movie doing nothing, but eventually they crash one plane into the monster's shoulder, and the aliens give up, kill their own monster, and leave....I'm not kidding....that's the end.
Story aside, the production was lousy, the monster suit looked TERRIBLE, and while the miniature city looked nice, it wasn't shot well...you need to angle the camera to convey size, but too many shots of the monster were straight, and just looked like a guy on a set. The sound design was also atrocious, a building getting knocked over should be a deafening crash, not the sound of a bunch of marbles being dropped on the floor.
If this was a parody, the way it made everything suck was very well done and funny.
If this was supposed to be a legit Kaiju for Korea...OOOF.
Definitely worth a watch if you love giant monsters, and have a malleable sense of humor...or poor taste.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
10/19/23
Full Review
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