Yonggari / Yonggary (2001)

Rather oddly, the impetus for this remake of the 1961 South Korean monster movie of the same name was the critically-panned 1998 Roland Emmerich reimagining of Godzilla. The English-speaking cast and American setting were presumably to cater to the massive numbers of masochistic monster movie fans, wondering where they would get their next fix now that Hollywood's Godzilla 2: Electric Boogaloo had crashed and burned. That being said, however, if one is willing to overlook the awful CGI and sub-par acting, this has moments that are better than Godzilla '98, especially in the climactic monster fight and the practical effects used in the city destruction scenes. But to say that this is a good movie would be a complete lie; indeed, the version I watched was the 2001 re-release, made not because the original 1999 version was so well-received, but necessary because the original made so little sense that they had to add scenes, including an archaeological dig only mentioned in the original, and an entirely new character representing a cliche "Above Top Secret" government organisation to be the mildly antagonistic human. Throw in a dash of plastic aliens with incomprehensible voices, a weather system that seems to exclusively feature rainless thunder and lightning, and no actor you've ever heard of, and you get Yonggary, a sub-par monster movie, and my own pet theory for why South Korea eventually produced an exemplary monster movie, The Host, in penance.


If George Lucas remade Jurassic Park...