The Flying Monster (1985)

Run!

A Korean attempt at a Kaiju movie, a bad attempt, a disastrous attempt. Abandon hope all ye who enter here!

Before there was Jurassic Park, Dr. Kim Jin Young believed in the Prehistoric Dinosaur Resurrection Theory. In this movie, it meant he thought dinosaurs buried in the ice and earth would be set free because of global warming. He spent most of the movie wandering around the beaches and caves on a remote island looking for evidence to prove his theory. Part of the time he also ranted to the sky about how everyone thought he was crazy. Buddy, if you don’t want to be considered crazy, you might want to stop ranting everywhere you go. An intrepid reporter imbedded herself in his home as a housekeeper to gather information on his secret new theory. She ended up bonding with his young daughter when she wasn't sunning herself on the beach. I should mention, his badly dubbed daughter who took up a lot of the screen time. Actually, everyone was badly dubbed but the adult voice on the little girl was jarring.

After nearly three quarters of the film watching the scientist wandering and ranting in the rocks, the monsters finally showed up. Pretty sure none of these freaky creatures have been found in the fossil records. If birds are descendants of dinosaurs, thank goodness none of them retained the fire breathing, laser shooting abilities of these guys. The rubber suits were awful, even in comparison to old Godzilla movies. The monster sounds were even worse, and monsters appeared and then reappeared inconceivably. To top it off, most of the miniatures were subpar and they kept using some of the same sets only with different monsters destroying them.

The editing of this film was incomprehensible. The story bounced between characters with no cohesive plot development. The intrepid reporter’s main job was to change outfits between each scene and take care of the daughter. None of the characters were particularly likeable and there were only three main characters! The shots of the monsters made no sense. Actually, nothing about this movie made any sense. The ending was bizarre and abrupt as well. This film didn’t even have the courtesy of being so bad it was good. It’s one of the most poorly put together movies I’ve ever watched, and I watch a lot of old Kaiju and kung fu movies so that’s saying something. Only if you are a Kaiju movie enthusiast and want to add it to your list, or if you have a high pain threshold for badly spliced together movies would you want to watch this.

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