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King of Kong Island (1968)

Kong Island
Eve the Wild Woman
Eva, la Venere selvaggia


Cast:

Brad Harris is Burt Dawson
Esmeralda Barros is Eva, the savage girl
Marc Lawrence is Albert Muller
Adriana Alben is Ursula
Mark Farran is Robert


What the box says:

A mad scientist travels to mysterious Kong Island, a land inhabited by the descendents of King Kong and a strange savage queen. His mission: to implant receptors into the brains of gorillas and create a gorilla war for world domination! Brad Harris Esmerelda Barros star in this campy favorite.


Plot:

A jeep of guys are trucking along when they’re gunned down by a mercenary group. Obviously, sharing among mercenaries is difficult concept which ends with one guy shooting his partners.


I know what you're thinking did I fire 5 shots or 6? You like my Dirty Harry impression?
However, Bert may have been shot but not killed.

Later, a mad scientist conducts surgery on a gorilla to implant a wire, antenna, into its head.

Bert is looking for Al. He stops by to visits some old friends Ted and Ursula and they’re twenty-something kids: Robert and Diane. At Ted’s nightclub, Bert spots Turk who knows Al. Outside, it turns into Turk and his goons versus Bert and some stranger who pops up the last minute.

Diana talks Bert into going hunting with her brother and her. They are searching for the mysterious sacred monkeys when not looking at the stock footage of the elephants, lions, and zebras. The hunting party is trekking along unaware that Turk is following them. Setting up camp, the natives are getting disturbed because of the sacred monkey is nearby. Gorillas come out of the camp and grab Diane.


I'll be a general after Cornelius takes over...
Turk tells Robert the only way to get Diane back is…

Cut to later, where Robert tells Bert about the gorillas. Bert doesn’t want to get involved until Robert mentions that Turk is involved.

Robert, Bert, and their bearers trod back into the jungle along with the stock footage of crocodiles. Reaching the camp site, Robert heads out to Turk. The ransom was for Robert to bring Bert with him. Bert keeps spotting a strange jungle girl around.

The next day, Bert and Robert continue trotting along unaware of being followed. More stock footage ensues before the gorillas attack. Bert saves the mysterious guy who helped with Turk a few days earlier. He’s an Interpol agent who is looking for Albert, the mad scientist who’s experimenting on animals.

Bert and agent find the injured Robert who’s explaining what is going on until Turk shoots him.

The natives catch Bert and the agent. The tribe releases them to chase them. The Agent gets mortally wounded and Bert escapes and spots the jungle girl again.


Good to know living in a jungle iproves dental hygiene...
A gorilla attacks Bert who is able to kill it.

Ursula is so sick of Ted that she has decided to leave him. The charming in a hairy, nasty way of Ted refuses to let her go.

Bert tries talking the jungle girl to leading him to Diane.

Turk has Diane taken to mad scientist, Albert. Let the plot explanation begin.


A giant computer brain doesn't seem kind of creepy to you?
He controls the gorillas and explains how he plans to move onto controlling humanity. A security breach has Albert send Turk to investigate it.

Bert and jungle girl are outside. Apparently, Albert wants to use Bert as his first human-radio controlled slave. Bert is chased by Turk.

One of the gorillas goes after jungle girl. She can’t tell him to stop. Apparently, the sacred monkey everyone is terrified of is jungle girl who can talk to the animals and order them to obey her.

Bert finally dispatches with Turk.

Jungle girl is taken to the same cage with Diane. Albert announces for Bert to turn himself in. Ted and Ursula arrive. Ted has been financing Albert’s experiments put wants Diane freed and revenge for Robert’s death. Ursula shoots Ted. She was planning to running off with Albert and has a festering hatred of Diane who she blames for ruining her life.

Ursula gets shot. Bert shoots Albert. The gorillas grab Bert who shoots the computer that controls the gorillas. That frees the gorillas to allow Jungle girl to talk to them to dispose of Albert.

Bert and Diane leave Jungle girl behind and head off.


What I say:

Italian filmmaking has been known for not letting a genre get away from it. With seeing how certain movies become box office hits, the "tributes" start flying. In the 1970s, George Romero's Dawn of the Dead inspired the Italian zombie sub-genre. In the 1980s, Road Warrior inspired the post-apocalyptic wasteland movies like Warriors of the Wasteland. However, that doesn't always mean that every low-budget Italian movie is inspired by something else. I can't think of any jungle adventure movies that were big in the late 1960s. After the past few months my Ten of Fans probably would be drawing for blood if I do any more gorilla movies. Don't have anything on near burner so this should be the last one for the immediate future.

King Kong has made a few trips from scaling buildings to battle Godzilla in King Kong Vs Godzilla to some remakes be they having him tied to a giant gas pump or climbing the World Trade Center in the 1970s or its 1980s sequel King Kong Lives. Any movie with a title King of Kong Island isn't going to be high quality. With a title like this, I wasn't expecting it to be high dollar...However, I have to admit I was expecting some sort of giant gorilla attacking a city in pseudo-Godzilla type fashion. However, if you're expecting any kind of King Kong ripoff, the disappointment is the only King Kong sized thing in this movie.

Had enough Sheena or jungle girl like from Nabonga Gorilla. I thought that enough bad gorillas were in White Gorilla. Jungle girl nicknamed Eve by the rugged mercenary is more commonly known as sacred monkey by the naticves who are terrified of her ability to talk with the animals. She definitely looks a bit more like Sheena than Dr. Doolittle.

The first 45 minutes or so are almost totally disconnected away from the end of the movie. The mercenary searching for the man who tried to kill him he gets drawn into helping some friends unaware of being lured into a trap by, of course, the guy who tried to kill him earlier. Not just the man who tried to kill him but this is more than a villain but a full-blooded mad scientist. Yes, the MAD SCIENTIST experimenting on remote controlling gorillas. However, he wants to move into using humans to gain power and money to "RULE THE WORLD!" The Interpol agent pops up to show up to explain about Albert, everyone's favorite mad scientist, evil experiments. The fact he just dies faster than Dirty Harry's partner who's about to retire is incidental.

King of Kong Island may not be black and white like some of the other gorilla movies. At least, the earlier B-movie gorilla movies were about 15 minutes shorter than this movie. What does any jungle adventure movie need? Padding the movie length with more of the stock footage jungle or savannah creature footage and a guy in a gorilla suit that looks more realistic on an episode of the Beverly Hillbillies than in this movie are a couple off the very big signs of the gorilla/jungle adventure sub-genre.

This may be the worst badly dubbed movie outside of Japan. Normally, badly dubbed has a kind of humor to it. After all, most Godzilla movies have a kind of B-movie charm to them. Well, this has to be one of the worst movies I've run across in quite a while even compared to some of the other gorilla movies from the past couple of months. Many reviewed movies do get a few jokes made about them but not in the spirit of a "critic". King of Kong Island just feels like a car pieced together at junkyard. However, not trying to make it match together, it is more unmatching than the 1949-1973 Cadillac in the Johnny Cash song, "One Piece at a Time."



1 NINJAS

Badly Dubbed Quotable Dialogue

"There's a powerful evil spirit and it follows the sacred monkey."
"I can't wait until shooting a sacred monkey."
"I've never been surer."
"The sacred monkies!! The sacred monkies!!!"
"This brain cell is responsible."
"The gorillas are getting excitied."
"Lomba!!! Lombda!!! Lombda!!!"


Morals of the Story

Surgeons wear butcher aprons.
Gorilla blood is orange.
Nairobi is loaded with many swinging nightclubs.
Africa is an island.


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