Yonggary (1999)

"Heed my warning or we're all doomed!"

South Korea brought back their 1967 kaiju in Yonggary 1998. This time Yonggary is a fossil discovered by an unscrupulous professor. His mentor tries to warn him and the government that a global disaster is at hand. Per usual, the dire warnings go unheeded until an alien spaceship arrives and reanimates Yonggary!

Professor Campbell discovers a fossilized dinosaur fifty times bigger than a T-Rex. As it is excavated crew members beginning dying horrific deaths. His assistant, Helen, quits over the cover-ups. She is approached my Professor Hughes, Campbell’s ex-mentor. Hughes tells Helen that with Yongarry being disturbed, aliens will soon arrive and bring Yonggary back to life. She is skeptical, but almost immediately his prophecies come true. The government calls them in to help find a way to defeat not only the massive kaiju but the aliens in orbit controlling him.

The first thing that has to be said is that this may have been a Korean production, but there weren’t any Korean actors in it. The cast was predominantly white. I had to stop the film and make sure I was watching the correct movie.

This film was made for 7 million USD/10 billion won and I have no idea where the money went. The CGI was laughably bad. It truly would have been better if they had guys in rubber suits stomping through town. The acting wasn’t much better and the dialogue was awful. There were lines lifted from other films such as Independence Day. I laughed all the way through it, especially every time Capt. Cue Card had trouble reading his lines! I took off a ½ point for one guy calling Godzilla a p*ssy. Seriously, we do not denigrate Big G. The military war room was hysterically funny. There were tall living room lamps for lighting and posters on the wall, even a stuffed animal displayed. One general smoked a cigar through all the hand-wringing and planning causing everyone else to have to hotbox his stinky smoke. Definitely, not a designated smoking area.

Despite the extremely low quality, Yonggary aka Reptilian had one thing going for it—there was a lot of kaiju action. It might not have been good CGI but planes, helicopters, and people in jet packs battled Yonggary and later another kaiju, Cycor, appeared to throw down as well. I laughed in all the wrong places which was its own kind of entertainment. Even for fans of kaiju flicks, this one might be a giant footprint too far. Best to watch the original from 1967 rather than this terrible effort.

17 October 2025

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Ripoff of Godzilla 1998 (from my Letterboxd review)

If this is meant as a sequel to the 1967 Yongary movie then it has to be one of the worst sequels ever. The acting is so bad and even the story rips of Godzilla 98 which is also one of the worst movies ever made.

The only good thing about this is the alien spaceships look kinda cool, in a Starship Troopers way. The monster design would be so badass if it wasn't really really bad CGI, if they had used suitmation or had the CGI of today's movies it would be very cool looking, but they didn't use a suit at all just poor graphics that make me wanna hurl.

This is no Fred 3 but this is one of the worst things ever made. It's like an Asylum Studios movie but if they mockbusted Godzilla 98. They even ripped off the "monster stomps on the guy" shot but somehow worse. Even the city looks like it's from Zilla 98. What hot Garbage!

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