Ape

'The Mighty Peking Man' was created in 1977 by the infamous Shaw Brothers, makers of Z-grade Hong Kong action movies, to capitalise on the hoopla surrounding the Dino De Laurentis remake of 'King Kong'. Like 'King Kong', 'The Mighty Peking Man' has a giant ape monster living like a king in his native land, worshipped and feared by the natives, who is taken by ship to the city, where he runs amok, climbs a skyscraper, batts at annoying aircraft, then falls to his death.


But if anyone was interested in that sort of thing, they'd see 'King Kong', not a dodgy Cantonese version with all the special effects expertise of an episode of The Muppet Show. The Shaw Brothers were canny enough to realise that they needed something special to make their movie stand out.





Enter Evelyn Kraft, hot blonde Swiss bikini babe, who plays Samantha, coincidentally also a hot blonde Swiss bikini babe. Lost in the jungle as a small child following a plane crash, Samantha was befriended and protected by Mighty Peking Man, and now spends her days capering about in a chamois bikini and full make-up. Her curious access to cosmetics suggests that either Avon Ladies have penetrated further into the jungle than previously suspected, or the plane crash from which Samantha was the sole survivor had been chartered by Mary Kay executives on their way to a convention. The poor girl probably survived for fifteen years on nothing but little packets of peanuts and four thousand non-toxic Tahitian Sunset lipsticks.


I was also moved to wonder where Samantha got her chamois bikini from, not to mention the animal skins that decorated her cave. Was there a tannery hidden just over the mountain, or did she synthesise her own tanning chemicals from nail polish remover, cold cream and Calvin Klein's Obsession?


But logic be damned - hot blonde Swiss bikini babes are only inserted into movies for one reason. Or, rather, two reasons. And thanks to structural deficiencies in her chamois bikini, Samantha's left reason decided to make its presence known on more than one occasion. It's difficult to believe that in her slow-motion-frolic-across-the-hillside scene, the editors didn't notice that her costume was proving itself incapable of keeping her under wraps. Or, for that matter, in the lean-in-the-car-window scene.


In fact, the editors probably did notice. They probably noticed a lot. And then they smiled.


However there's a lot more to 'The Mighty Peking Man' than Evelyn Kraft running around in a near-perpetual wardrobe malfunction. There are also the scenes of her dry humping a palm tree, eating an AFL football, and squirming petulantly when she's forced into something other than her chamois bikini - in this case a classy black leather and snakeskin micromini and bustier combination - because it's apparently better to look like a cheap hooker than a jungle girl.


Oh, and there's also a hero, a villain, a leopard who's been stripped of his dignity, and the most tentative elephant stampede ever filmed. But none of them wear chamois bikinis, so who the hell cares?