FILM (1977)

The Mighty Peking Man Danny Lee Sau-yin, Evelyne Kraft, Ku Feng Director: Ho Meng-hua

Ho Meng-hua's kitsch classic portrays a Hong Kong that had never been seen before on the big screen - and has never really been seen since. For while the city's film industry has worked the angles on all genres over the past 100 years or so, monsters have not really played much of a part. Not of the big hairy variety, anyway.

Through a filmmaking career that spanned more than two decades and a collection of around 50 films, Ho - who died last year, aged 80 - pretty much covered all the bases. From erotic thrillers (The Adulteress) to martial arts epics (The Monkey Goes West) to low-key dramas (Susanna), the director was able to reflect on everything his audiences knew - and needed to know - about this city and its history.

And so that's why Ho was the perfect match for this localised version of the King Kong legend, which features still quite incredible scenes of a huge, heartbroken ape tearing his way through Wan Chai, Causeway Bay and on to Central, there to meet his sorry end.

Ho had complete scale models of some of the city's landmarks made - Jardine House (pictured) and The Excelsior hotel among them - to give his action a sense of reality. On a purely visual level, the film leaves his audience with a lasting legacy, also capturing real scenes of the city and its surrounds which have long since faded from view.

Given his eclectic filmmaking tastes - required as he was then by Shaw Brothers to produce four films a year - it is of no real surprise The Mighty Peking Man is a wild ride, too, blending its influences, its moods and its mayhem.