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By Chris Sawin
| Published
BEE is one of those strange and horny films from the 1970s that you wonder why, in the present day, it exists in the first place. Originally rushed into production to compete with the John Guillermin directed 1976 remake of King Kong (the one starring Jeff Bridges), BEE is a co-production between South Korea and the United States and was originally shot and presented in 3-D.
Co-written and directed by Paul Leder with special effects by Park Kwang Nam, BEE is considered by many to be a Z-movie; so low budget that it’s a complete failure. The film’s entire budget was $23,000, while the special effects budget for the miniature buildings was only $1,200. Shot in just 14 days, BEE is mostly a direct ripoff of King Kong.
Not To Be Confused With King Kong
The story is that a 36-foot ape has been sedated and captured with the intent of showcasing it across the world. He escapes and causes havoc as he makes his way from the sea to Seoul. There’s also an actress in a red dress that he kidnaps on two separate occasions and obsesses over.
The film was originally advertised as The New King Kong before being slapped with a $1.5 million lawsuit by RKO Pictures. The film’s title was then changed to Super Ape and then BEE; a play on M*A*S*H and an abbreviation for “Attacking Primate MonstEr.”
The tagline was also changed to “Not to be confused with King Kong.” South Korea and other foreign countries were able to keep the references to King Kong with alternative titles such as Super King Kong and King Kong Returns. Other titles for the film include Ape (without the asterisks), King Kong’s Great Counterattack, Hideous Mutantand Attack of the Giant Horny Gorilla.
Mr. Canadian Tuxedo Saves The Day
The film opens on an oil tanker in the dead of night, out at sea. Two shipmates discuss the giant gorilla, claiming that he’s been sedated enough to be out cold for five days and that his exhibition will begin at Disneyland, of all places. The ape wakes up and destroys the tanker in an impressive explosion. He then stands up in the middle of the water, clearly showcasing a wet ape suit as it struggles to cover up the actor’s wet arms and neck.
He proceeds to dance-wrestle a shark. He cradles it in his arms, and weaves back and forth in the water with it as if it’s a toddler that he’s teaching to swim. Soon after, he tears the shark’s jaw from its face. The ape then arrives on land and destroys a town in a fiery blaze. He stomps around all of these destroyed homes and throws explosive barrels around. One of these “barrels” is thrown into the camera, and it’s noticeable that they’re just a pile of unlabeled tin cans (think Spaghetti-O cans with the label ripped off).
An American actress named Marilyn Baker (Joanna Kerns in her film debut) has traveled to South Korea to make her first foreign picture. The picture in question, based on the scenes that are shown being shot, is filled with nothing but assault scenes. Her sort-of non-serious boyfriend, Tom Rose (Rod Arrants), decides to surprise her and is the first person to welcome her off the plane.
Tom is cringingly horny, by the way. With his curly white man afro and doused from head to toe in a blue jean jacket and bell bottoms, Tom is DTF and wants Marilyn to blow off her shooting schedule so she can Donkey Kong all night long. He proceeds to be all over her in the car while she pretends to be interested in the buildings they drive past.
Size And Scale Are Merely Guidelines
The film has a funny way of showing scale, as well. A full-size cow is shown before the film jumps to the ape, who steps over what is clearly a tiny cow figure. A man is shown hang gliding one moment, and in the next scene, a tiny version of him is seen by the ape’s head. A giant hand is used to pound through walls and grab Marilyn whenever the ape decides it’s been too long since he’s felt such supple skin, too. For shots farther away with Marilyn, the ape carries a doll in a red dress.
The ape costume is fuzzier than you’re probably expecting, as it’s covered in this curly brown hair, more so than just rubber. There are also peculiar close-ups of him in which the actor slightly moves the mask’s lips. It comes off like a tic because it isn’t really expressive apart from the fact that he’s usually doing it while watching something he shouldn’t. It’s also not flattering at all; the ape has a beer gut, a lumpy butt that’s bulbous in all the wrong places, and giant dark salami areolas.
The ape’s journey from the sea to Seoul is filled with awkward detours. He scares a bunch of kids on the playground, he lip-quiver-stares at a couple who have reluctant sex through a skyscraper window, and he dances some more as helicopters fly above him in the desert while Marilyn hides in a cave. After finally swatting one out of the air, he flips off the camera. The ending sees him throwing rocks down a mountain to cause a rockslide in an effort to continue the comparisons to Donkey Kong.
The other instances of 3-D are rather bizarre. A soldier pulling up to one of the destroyed towns drives straight into a steel beam that crashes through his windshield and attempts to be a close call like the log sequence in Final Destination 2. The ape throws a snake directly at the camera, which immediately falls over. An action movie is being filmed when the ape shows up. They shoot flaming arrows at him that fly at the screen on strings. There’s a pool sequence where the pool stick comes at the camera before the break. The ape also throws rocks at tanks and the army when they start shooting at him, which are also on strings.
Worth Its Weight In Unintended Comedy
The dialogue is full of cringe as well. When news of the ape first starts making the rounds and people aren’t taking it seriously, the police captain is in the dining room with his family and states, “Eat your breakfast, kids, or I’ll become a monster! Rawr!” Colonel Davis (Alex Nichol) serves as the Secretary of Defense, spending the majority of the film on a telephone in a room that echoes like a public bathroom. He also yells at his assistant, who seems to take notes in a planning calendar. Davis makes it a point to exclaim, “If you happen to run into him, ask him if his name is King Kong!” His facial expression and body language imply that Davis thought he really ate with that line.
Upon Marilyn’s first kidnapping by the ape, the army sends in helicopters while Captain Kim (Lee Nak-hoon) and the police stumped upon how to reach them. Tom’s big plan is to run in to save Marilyn, which somehow works because that’s the power of blue-jean bell bottoms. As Tom and Marilyn are seen driving in the city, Marilyn says, “Take it easy, Tom! Somehow I felt more safe with the ape than I do with your driving.”
And finally, after the ape is finally dealt with in the only logical way after causing so many deaths and nearly destroying all of Seoul, Tom ends the film with, “He’s just too big for a small world like ours.”
Tom claims to be a reporter and never actually reports anything. He and Marilyn joke about getting married throughout the film, which is odd, since it sounds like they were essentially just a Tinder hookup before all of this. Captain Kim has two kids who have no dialogue. Every time they’re shown on screen, they’re laughing, sometimes for full minutes at a time, at the ugliest damn marionette you’ve ever seen. There are weird helicopter-flying and tank-driving montages because the production worked with the actual army.
BEE is an awful film with a conclusion that seems obvious from the start, but it’s also entertaining as hell. The special effects are better than they have any right to be, and the overall cheese is thick with a rich ridiculousness that is surprisingly satisfying. The entire thing plays out like a bad drinking game where everyone was totally smashed halfway through, but had to finish the film anyway. Watch it once, then pretend it doesn’t exist. You won’t be disappointed.
I watched BEE via the Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, which is now out of print. The film is currently streaming for free on Tubi, Plex, and YouTube.
