Crap Film Club screening of The Mighty Peking Man

Titans of '60s and '70s Hong Kong cinema, the Shaw Brothers are best-known for their many martial-arts films, but Mighty Peking Man is an exception. An energetic, shameless attempt to cash in on the 1976 remake of King Kong, Mighty Peking Man varies that movie's formula only by having the giant ape (or in this case, ape-like proto-human) come from India instead of Skull Island.

Playing a heartbroken explorer, Danny Lee (The Killer) leads an exhibition to recover the legendary Mighty Peking Man. But once he's in the wilds of India, Lee finds not only the monster but also a barely clad, barely articulate nubile jungle woman (Evelyne Kraft), who befriended the gargantua as a child. Recognizing the potential to capitalize on his find, and not wanting the pass up the opportunity to indulge in a classic male fantasy, Lee returns to Hong Kong with both Kraft and the beast in tow, leading to some inevitable havoc-wreaking.

There are trashily enjoyable B-movies, and then there are trashily enjoyable B-movies that at some point cross the line into something greater by throwing in such details as a crying elephant and a montage sequence in which two people fall in love while frolicking with a friendly, surprisingly laconic leopard. Mighty Peking Man belongs to the latter category, making it ideal viewing after midnight—or, if you're already inclined to watch a man in an ape suit smash up a scale model of downtown Hong Kong, any time of day.