Alternate Titles: King Kong's Counterattack
Year: 1967
Director: Ishiro Honda
Special Effects Director: Eiji Tsuburaya
In The Suit: Haruo Nakajima (King Kong), Yu Sekida (Mechani-Kong & Gorosaurus)

We only have the English dub of this movie, but as usual, that usually pays for itself in the form of comedic gold. In this case it's not the translations that are bad, it's the incredible choices that were made regarding the voice acting. This second and last Toho King Kong movie was co-produced by Rankin/Bass, who were also producing a King Kong television show but who modern readers will mainly know for the animatronic Christmas movies like Rudolph The Reindeer and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town. And the main villain of this piece, Dr. Who (no, that that Dr. Who) sounds just like the Burgermeister from the latter film. But that's nothing compared to the voice of the female lead, Lt. Susan Watson, who is played by Linda Miller but overdubbed by someone else who is doing their absolute best to sound like the most annoying female cartoon character you can think of. A high pitched squeaky voice that excitedly EMPHasizes ALL the wrong WORDS. Oh CAPtain! Is THAT a DInosaur? Oh GEE!

Her voice especially reinforces the feeling that this is very much a cartoon in live-action movie format. It is loosely based on the Rankin/Bass cartoon, although with an emphasis on loosely. The bad guy Dr. Who existed in the cartoon...

...and in one episode he piloted a Mechanical Kong, like we'll see in this movie (although in the cartoon he literally sits inside it instead of controlling it with a computer).

Excuse the poor quality images; they are from a heavily edited and no-longer available YouTube video.

Beyond that, there's no similarities between the cartoon and the movie. None of the other characters from the movie, including Susan, are in the cartoon, and the cartoon has a boy named Bobby who is friends with King Kong and tells him what to do.

Here's our much cooler looking Mechani-Kong for this film...

...and our much suaver Dr. Who.

To get the rest of the cast introductions out of the way, in the first scan we also have Commander Carl "Beast Man" Nelson played by Rhodes Reason and performing his own voice acting, and Lt. Commander Jiro Nomura, played by Toho regular Akira Takarada. These two along with Lt. Watson (a nurse) are on a submarine mission for you, baby the UN Research Council, but Nelson has a side interest in proving out the legend of King Kong.

And in the scan with the bad guys, the lady is Madame Piranha, referred to in the credits as Madame X. She's played by Mie Hama, known to us as Falling Down Girl from King Kong vs. Godzilla.

Falling Down Girl is moving up in the world. Experience with Kong changed her personality.

Dr. Who (played by Eisei Amamoto) has a number of operatives, and the guy on the left in the image below is Toho regular Yoshifumi Tajima.

Dr. Who is an international criminal with a base at the North Pole (according to the dialogue, although a prominent map of Antarctica suggests otherwise) and a longtime rivalry with Commander Nelson (which i thought might have come from the cartoon but that doesn't seem to be the case), and Madame Piranha is an operative of an unspecified country (the movie rules out Japan, China, Burma, Indonesia, Thailand, the US, and the USSR), and they are interested in acquiring Element X, which will aid in the rapid production of nuclear weapons and allow the "nuclear domination of the universe" (not just the Earth, mind you). Element X is extremely rare but also extremely abundant at the North Pole. The difficulty is extraction, and to that end, Piranha's country has hired Dr. Who, who has in turn built a giant robot gorilla based on a drawing he stole from Beast Man Nelson at some point in the past. These highly technical drawings are literally just drawings of a gorilla, so it's unclear why Dr. Who needed to steal them or, even more importantly, why anyone would design a giant mechanical gorilla just to use as a glorified crane.

Uh...cause why wouldn't you design a giant mechanical gorilla to use for everything??

Dr. Who sends his giant ape robot out to the mine, and follows in his little Fisher-Price helicopter.

As a crane, Mechani-Kong makes a good gorilla. He's got a belt full of explosives and he just keeps taking them off and dropping them into the crevice below him, leaving us to wonder if he should really be bombing the thing that he is standing on. But he does make it down to Element X.

But it turns out that Dr. Who forgot to shield it from the very radioactive materials that it was supposed to retrieve. Mechani-Kong collapses, leading Dr. Who to point accusingly at his #1 henchman and shout, "You did that!". Sheesh. Dr. Who is my dad. Dr. Who later concedes that the shielding was the problem. "The magnetic mass has destroyed his circuits. We will start again.". Very optimistic and single-minded. Madame Piranha is not happy with this, but Dr. Who convinces her to beg her government for more funding so that he can create some shielding for his robot and she reluctantly agrees.

A couple of continuity points before we go forward. First, King Kong is described as being only 60 feet tall, which is admittedly large for a gorilla, but it's a reduction from his near-equal stature to the 150 foot Godzilla in King Kong vs. Godzilla. In general, the smaller the monster the more detailed the models that they stomp on have to be, and that is the case here, so that's a good thing. And it does bring King Kong closer to his height from the original 1933 film (although that varied wildly). But the change in size dovetails with the second point, which is that Nelson talks about King Kong like he's only a legend. So this movie doesn't seem to take place in the same universe as King Kong vs. Godzilla, which is disappointing. But this movie nonetheless feeds back into the Tohoverse thanks to the appearance of Gorosaurus, who will appear in Destroy All Monsters and (as stock footage) other mainline Godzilla films.

Back to our plot. The UN submarine has some predictable trouble - fortunately for a submarine in a Toho movie not a full blown explosion, just an underwater rockslide that damages their rudder - and they are forced to dock at the nearby Mongo Island in the Java Sea to make repairs. Since the island is serendipitously the place that Nelson wanted to check out for his investigation of King Kong lore, he, Jiro and Susan go ashore in an adorable little hovercraft.

I just want to mention that Susan spends this movie in a short skirt. It's not exactly appropriate on a submarine or while going island hopping.

On the island, the three are warned off by an old native, who tells them from a distance that it's taboo to be on the island before disappearing up a mountain trail. Nelson and Jiro tell Susan to wait by the hovercraft because it's "safer". They don't leave her a gun. They don't send her back to the sub. She can just stand there. And why did they bring her if only to sit on the shore?

In fact, their assessment of the area's safety is highly inaccurate, unless (and it's entirely possible) you subscribe to the theory that Gorosaurus was just walking through the area minding his own business and wasn't going to bother anyone.

How ya doin'?

Gorosaurus is Toho's attempt at a realistic, non-radioactive dinosaur, and that makes him harder to bear than the completely fictional Godzilla. Susan doesn't like him either and she start screaming relentlessly. The two men that left her behind turn around but it takes them much longer to get back than it seemed like it took them to travel so far, and they seem to get lost on the way. Meanwhile, the screaming wakes up King Kong from his banana-induced stupor.

King Kong is looking better in this movie than his previous Toho appearance. More cartoonish, perhaps, but not just simply awful like he was in King Kong vs. Godzilla.

Gorosaurus hasn't gone anywhere near Susan yet, so when Godzilla shows up, Goro's just like, what, what? I didn't do nothin'.

But of course they fight.

I bet they're instinctive rivals!

Now despite this fight being a tribute/retread of the original King Kong movie, in a Toho film giant monsters fight with pro-wrestling moves. And that's a problem for Gorosaurus with his stumpy little hands. But he's got that figured out. First he distracts you by waving his little hands around menacingly. They can't possibly reach you, but you can't help looking at them. Ha ha ha ha! And while you're mesmerized by that, he jumps up in the air and hits you with both legs, sometimes even falling to the ground when he's done.

Despite the ferocity of the kangaroo kick, King Kong eventually gets Gorosaurus on the ground and pummels him relentlessly until he passes out. Then he turns his attention to Susan, who he is of course enamored with. Susan shouts, "Put me DOWN, Kong." and he does, long enough for Gorosaurus to wake up and bite Kong in the leg.

Did Nelson and Jiro get sucked into a black hole? How are they not back yet?

At this point our wayward men have finally made it back, so they grab Susan and start running for the hovercraft. Susan says, "Wait, we CAN'T leave him like THIS...", having apparently developed an attachment to the big gorilla in that short period of time. Kong continues to fight his dinosaur opponent, eventually using the tried and true jaw stretch, which reveals Gorosaurus' soapy interior.

He looks up seeking approval for his kill, but Susan is gone. He follows to shore, where the hovercraft is already halfway back to the submarine. But life on Mondo Island isn't easy, and the hovercraft is soon attached by a sea serpent.

King Kong figures he'll help with that, too.

He starts by throwing a rock, which bonks the head of the serpent with unerring accuracy. Then he wades in and gets more personally involved in the fight.

While he's fighting the snake, the three in the hovercraft continue back to the submarine. However, they have to contend with the crew of the submarine, who are firing (i hope) at the snake, despite the fact that it is directly behind the hovercraft and therefore our protagonists are in the line of fire. "Stop firing!" (at us!), shouts Nelson, and the crew belatedly does. If you told me that someone on that submarine was planning a mutiny, i'd believe you.

The rudder repairs aren't finished yet, so when Kong is done with his snake fight, he comes over and knocks on the submarine.

This causes considerable panic, but Susan asks the Captain to let her go up and talk to Kong. He reluctantly agrees. Jiro is also acting very protective; it turns out we have a budding romance there. But Susan right now is focused on Kong. She talks to him the way Ugly Americans talk to people in foreign countries. As long as you speak loudly and slowly enough, anyone can understand you. Except with her cartoonish voice. "DON'T SHAKE the SHIP!" (Kong: shake... ship?). "I EAT and SLEEP on this ship." (Kong: eat...ship?). OMG! Shut up, cartoon lady! Luckily, he does seem to understand enough to let go, and eventually the submarine is repaired and they leave Kong behind. Very sad.

They forget all about their original mission and head back to the UN to announce that they've found King Kong.

When asked why Kong was so gentle with Susan, Nelson responds, "It's very easy for us to understand. You see, as ridiculous as it may sound, Kong is a male and Ms. Watson is... well, see for yourself, gentlemen!". A hearty laugh is had by all.

The plan is for another expedition to go back and study Kong. But in attendance is Madame Piranha, who contacts Dr. Who in a James Bondian hat and lipstick phone (spy movies were very big at this time and the movie uses a lot of those elements).

Dr. Who decides to scrap his fairly reasonable plan to repair and shield his robot Kong and instead decides that he should capture the original. Sticking it to his old enemy Nelson seems to be a bigger motivator than common sense. He arrives on Mondo Island ahead of the UN team, and has helicopters bomb King Kong with sleeping gas (how come the good guys never think to use gas on the monsters?).

Min would like you to know that, just like all the army guys in every Godzilla movie, all the bad guy henchmen are wearing white gloves. She would like you to know that Madame Piranha has good hats.

The old native we saw earlier - apparently the only native on the island - shows up to protest the treatment of his god. Dr. Who shoots him. Three times, which Min thought was excessive, but as we'll see, it wasn't enough to kill the old guy straight away. Kong is then lifted up with some helicopters.

And then they transfer him to a boat and take him up to the North Pole. The UN guys then arrive and, i mean, it takes them a long while to notice the bomb remnants and stuff that were used to knock out Kong, but eventually they do. They also find the native, who is dying. Susan is supposed to be a nurse, but she just stands there and stares at the poor old guy until Jiro literally grabs her arm and drags her to him. I guess she didn't know she'd have to be dealing with icky natives. Min is very upset with her. She's supposed to be a nurse! By the time she gets to him, it's too late to save him, but he is able to describe his killer: "An oriental skeleton, a devil with eyes like a gutter rat, took Kong into the skies". Captain Nelson immediately recognizes him from that description as, "My old friend, that international Judas, Dr. Who."

When Susan wonders if they'll EVER find Kong, Jiro assures her that they will, "as long as they haven't taken him to the North Pole".

Meanwhile, at the North Pole, King Kong is beset with indignities. Imprisoned, chained up, Dr. Who's workers drop toolboxes on his head, and then he's subjected to the glowing disco lights from a device dangled in front of Mechani-Kong...

...and then while he's dazed, workers drill (yes, drill) devices into his head.

What the hell! You can't just do that! Drill into a living organism's skull and screw shit in! Kong is going to eat all of you.

This is all for the purpose of hypnotizing King Kong and allowing Dr. Who to control him (and so much more efficient than just fixing the goddamned mechanical gorilla you have just sitting there!). For good measure (or because he's a vengeance-obsessed super-villain), Dr. Who has also lured Nelson and his allies to the North Pole, so that Susan can be used to control Kong if these devices fail. Which they had better not because Madame Piranha is tired of excuses.

Such good hats.

Kong is sent out to do the same thing Mechani-Kong failed at. Kong starts by moving the rocks caused (i guess?) by the cave-in when Mechani-Kong collapsed. And he does well there. "My Kong could never dig like that", says the man who earlier in the film was bragging about how much better his robot gorilla was than the real thing. But soon, King Kong makes it to Element X, and its dazzling lights start to make Kong sleepy. Sooooo sleepy. But Dr. Who keeps yelling insults in his ear, and eventually Kong just tears the devices out. Yeah! That's right. No one tells King Kong what to do!

Faced with another failure, Dr. Who smoothly says, "Just as I thought. Kong could easily withstand the radiation, unluckily we couldn't maintain the power that we had." Obscure your failure with jarbled English all you like, doctor. It's still a failure.

Luckily for him, his plan to lure Captain Nelson to his base has succeeded. When Dr. Who says that they haven't seen each other in a while, Nelson responds, "Not enough years to suit me" (provided just in case you're building a fan-fiction backstory for these guys). He, Jiro, and Susan are imprisoned and tortured so that Susan will agree to control Kong for Dr. Who.

Madame Piranha had earlier said that Beast Man Nelson was "interesting" and indeed she has him taken out of his cell for some private time in her personal chambers. But he proves immune to her charms and he's taken back to the prison. Just when things get so bad that it seems like Jiro and Susan might be killed, King Kong, who had been locked out of the base with a big metal door, renews his attack and everything falls to chaos. The good guys get to wander the base unsupervised as the bad guys try to deal with the damage done by Kong. But they don't manage to escape and are eventually imprisoned again. Meanwhile, King Kong jumps into the ocean and swims away.

For some reason he's headed to Tokyo. It's unclear why. If this is a new Kong unrelated to the first film, he's never been there before. But for some reason he makes a beeline to Tokyo; that place just has some hidden beacon for giant monsters, i guess.

Madame Piranha tells Dr. Who that he's a failure and she's withdrawing her support. But he can barely hear her; he's too excited about the idea of bringing his giant robot gorilla to Tokyo for a brawl. And i can understand his enthusiasm. But Piranha points out that if the two giant apes fight in Tokyo, many people will die. This could potentially be the cause of an international incident for her country, but she also is showing a new-found sense of morality.

As for Dr. Who, i appreciate his anticipation of a giant monster fight. But really, shouldn't he going back to Plan B and working on shielding Mechani-Kong so that it can mine Element X? We're not sure why he ever gave up on that plan and decided to kidnap Kong in the first place.

Kong makes it to Tokyo in a scene that Min is pretty sure is from War of the Gargantuas with Kong swapped out for Gaira, although we didn't go back and check.

King Kong makes it into Tokyo proper by nightfall, and you can see the size difference between him and monsters in other Toho movies.

Meanwhile, Madame Piranha completes her face turn and helps Nelson and his two companions escape. Dr. Who has brought them to Tokyo on a boat (i guess with the idea that after Mechani-Kong has captured Kong, Susan will be forced to control him), and they dive out of the water into the sea. Piranha is spotted letting the prisoners go but there are no repercussions.

Nelson shows up, alone and in a new and totally dry shirt, at a police station and tells them to stop shooting at Kong. Clearly he went back to his apartment to change before going to the police. He probably took a shower too. When the police chief gives the standard, "Yeah, right, who are you, buddy?", he responds, "I'm Carl Nelson of the UN Research Council" and the police chief is like, "Ooooooooh, yes!". He makes a call and the police on the scene stop the attack. Jiro and Susan are right there. Yeah, but you can't just tell any cop to stop shooting. You clearly need to go to the station and tell the chief. One of the cops turns to Jiro and asks, "Are you the UN?" and he says, "Yup", and they give him the phone. Susan pushes her way past the cops to go calm Kong down. But then Mechani-Kong comes bursting through a building.

Yep, Mechani-Kong snuck up on everybody while the city is on high alert. And you know he destroyed a whole bunch of other buildings just to get there.

When Mecha-Godzilla debuts, he'll have an arsenal of lasers, missiles, and other weapons. Mechani-Kong is not so high tech. Dr. Who did install the hypno-cone on his head, but Jiro shoots that out with a rifle. Beyond that, all he's got are a pair of flashlights in his eyes. They do blind Kong a few times and give him some trouble, but it's not exactly a technological terror. So it's mostly a physical brawl.

What do you want from him? He was designed for excavation, not taking over the world. Fighting giant monsters was not part of his job description.

But then Mechani-Kong grabs Susan and climbs up Tokyo tower. What's pretty funny is that while Dr. Who didn't give Mechani-Kong a lot of weapons, he did put loudspeakers in his mouth.

And it's Dr. Who's voice that comes out. And remember that he sounds like the Burgermeister, so we half expected him to announce that there will be no toys allowed in Tokyo. But instead he tells King Kong that he had better do what he says or he'll hurt Susan. Now seriously, how do you negotiate with a 60 foot gorilla?

Beyond that, Dr. Who has internal troubles. Madam Piranha shows up at his computer hub (you just have to love computers in 1960s science fiction movies)...

...and pulls a gun on him.

But Dr. Who is too witty for Madame. He takes advantage of the fact that she doesn't just shoot him right away, and he does some shenanigans that allow him to manipulate the computer dials, distracting and soon disarming her. They start fighting.

It seems Dr. Who's last order to Mechani-Kong was to climb up to the top of Tokyo Tower, because that's what it does (It's a Toho film, so that's probably what he would have done anyway)...

...and without anyone to control it, i guess its programming just forces it to stay up there and futily kick at King Kong.

Kong manages to retrieve Susan...

Despite the size difference in this King Kong, Susan looks about the same size in relation to his hand as people have in the hands of other monsters in other movies. I think that means that the people/dolls are too big in other movies rather than the other way around.

Kong puts Susan down, and instead of just going directly down the stairs, she, for some reason, starts climbing across the I-beams or whatever they're called, basically just finding the most dangerous way down the tower possible. Jiro sees this and starts running (up the stairs, like a sane person) to help her.

Oh, just let her fall.

The lame kick fight between the two Kongs continues.

Now, Mechani-Kong is getting a signal from Dr. Who's computer saying, climb! climb!

Jiro has successfully steered Susan most of the way down the tower at his point, but then she unexpectedly falls over and is suddenly rolling down a ledge, about to fall into an abyss. The camera shows it from an angle that makes it look like she's rolling straight down, like the ledge is nearly perpendicular to the ground. But a second later, Jiro just walks onto the ledge and scoops her up. It turns out it was totally flat.

*shakes my head*

Back at Dr. Who's boat, he and Madame Piranha are still fighting, but she is no match for his Old Man Karate. Piranha manages to destroy Who's computer, but then he shoots her dead.

Madame Piranha's destruction of the computer does cause Mechani-Kong to malfunction. He tries to climb to the very top of the tower, which breaks.

Kong goofily watches him fall. Dumb monkey.

Need i remind you about the size of King Kong's brain? Kong is a thinking animal.

And then he falls to the ground. You can actually see him coming to pieces even before he hits the ground. That was some malfunction.

He did the best he could. Those plans he stole were just a drawing of a gorilla.

Another funny thing is that you can see the head rolling out of the shot, but then for the final explosion, all the parts have been neatly re-arranged to fit on camera.

Suddenly, it's the next morning, with Dr. Who apparently having woken up from his nap to find out that they're still in Tokyo. He starts berating his henchmen, but they're all like, oh, i thought we were gonna capture Kong. Isn't Mechani-Kong going to bring Kong? And then they look out the window and see King Kong running up the dock alongside Nelson and company in a little car...

...and they're all very excited! Look, boss, Kong is coming back, see? We've seen a few times in this movie that Dr. Who is not very good about relaying information properly to his henchmen and mind-controlled giant gorillas, but you can't blame this one on him. These goons are really dumb.

Susan shouts orders to Kong, still thinking (and being right!) that it's possible to communicate with him if she just speaks loudly and slowly enough. To be fair, i've watched a few clips of the King Kong cartoon and that's how the boy Bobby talks to Kong too. It's extra annoying with her voice though, which is more cartoonish than the ones in the cartoon.

I think they somehow took a cartoon person and put it in a real person's body. Who talks like that?

Kong swims up to Dr. Who's boat, ignoring the gun fire from the goons (it's regular gunfire so we can't tell if it's hitting or not) and then pounds on the ship relentlessly.

It's a nice ship and the way King Kong is able to jump up on it and otherwise interact with it wouldn't have been possible if he were at a bigger scale.

Kong's attack is the end of Dr. Who, who is crushed when a table slides into him.

Why isn't that bolted down? On a ship that would be bolted down.

King Kong briefly turns around as if to say, "I stopped the ship good, right? I stopped it good!", but then he turns back and start swimming away. And Susan actually starts to call him back, but everyone else is like whoah there lady, no one needs a giant gorilla hanging around Tokyo. Let him go. "I think he's had enough of what we call... civilization."

He may still be a guy in a monkey suit, but i like the look of this Kong much better. And i really like Mechani-Kong as well. Unfortunately Toho lost the rights to King Kong after this movie. Later, in the Heisei series, Toho wanted to bring at least Mechani-Kong back but found that even doing that would be a difficult fight. Which is really too bad, because i would have liked to see both of these monsters interacting in the larger Godzillaverse instead. At least we get Gorosaurus (yay?).

Godzilla Drinking Game
	Someone thinks it's a good idea to drag a giant monster across the ocean on a raft (giant eggs count).	I guess King Kong is transported a little more securely by Dr. Who's men once they get him down from the helicopters. It's a cargo bay on a big ship.
	Attacking planes fly directly at a monster, with no possibility of avoiding a crash even if the monster didn't swat them down.	Dr. Who's helicopters manage to maintain a relatively safe distance.
	People refuse to believe in the existence of a giant monster even though they've already acknowledged that Godzilla exists.	I guess we have to accept that this takes place in a different continuity than King Kong vs. Godzilla.
	A submarine explodes.	Ok, it doesn't explode but rocks do fall on it for no good reason, resulting in damage serious enough for a forced anchoring.
	Teens have a dance party on a boat. Two drinks/head smacks if they get attacked by a monster during the party.
	The government is completely ineffective when faced with a corporation doing something illegal.
	A humongous lumbering monster manages to sneak up on someone. Two drinks/head smacks if it's the army and they're supposedly using radar.	Hi, everybody. I'm Mechani-Kong and i've somehow managed to get into the heart of Tokyo directly through a line of buildings without anybody noticing.
	A scientist suddenly figures everything out with little-to-no information and explains it all to everyone.
	A monster suddenly grows in size just because.	If anything, the monsters in this movie have shrunk.
	People expose themselves to major amounts of radiation with no concern.
	Everyone suddenly knows a monster's name. Two drinks/head smacks if everyone else nods appreciatively and repeats it.
	Army missiles can't seem to hit a 150+ foot monster and instead explode harmlessly around it.
	A woman falls down for no reason.	Lt. Susan Watson and the ledge that is a super-steep drop only for her.
	Bad dinosaur science. You have to give a little leeway for the time period, but pretending a children's picture book is a scientific journal is always worth two drinks/smacks.

Monsters Appearing: Gorosaurus, King Kong, Mechani-Kong, Mondo Serpent