Director: Charles Lee (a.k.a. Godfrey Ho)
Cast: Pierre Kirby, Edowan Bersmea, Danny Raisebeck, Danny Lee

It's often very interesting to see how a society's look on something that borders on (or surpasses) being fascinating to ponder can change not only across the decades, but also across the centuries or millenniums. One such fascinating idea that has evolved countless ways since the dawn of mankind is concerning monsters. I'm not talking about the kind of monsters that are a down to earth size such as vampires, werewolves, or zombies. The monsters I really want to talk about are gigantic monsters, monsters that in our minds tower yards (or meters to non-American readers) above the average height of a human. If you look back in human folklore, you will see that many of these gigantic monsters had some very human qualities to them. There were certainly plenty of exceptions along the way such as the Kraken or Cetus, but quite a few of these gigantic monsters were basically humans who just happened to be very big, such as Goliath, Gilgamesh and his son Pantagruel, and the giant in Jack And The Beanstalk. I think it was around 1904 with the publication of H. G. Wells' The Food Of The Gods when there was a start of the decline of the idea of humans as giant monsters, even though Wells' novel did deal with gigantic humans. Wells' book tapped into the idea of ordinary humans through their scientific folly being the cause of the appearance of gigantic monsters that were not human in any form. Twenty-nine years later, the movie King Kong was released, and while the title monster was not created by human scientific folly, it did kickstart the idea of a big unhuman monster wreaking havoc in human society and being close to unstoppable.

With the ideas of H. G. Wells and King Kong being combined, it gave birth to more or less the modern interpretation of giant monsters most of us picture in our mind when the subject comes up. You know, not just the various reincarnations of King Kong, but other gigantic apes that ripped off King Kong (such as A*P*E and Queen Kong) Godzilla and his various and many Japanese cousins, the Transformers movie series, and others too numerous to mention. Most people, when confronted with this type of movie, simply choose to suspend disbelief and just sit down with the expectations of just be entertained in a popcorn movie type of way. Often that's how I sit down to watch these movies. But for some reason, as I watch these movies, some big questions almost always pop up in my mind. For starters, I wonder, at least when these giant monsters are organic in nature, how on earth they manage to scrounge up enough food day after day in order to be fed enough. (For giant monsters like Transformers, I wonder what kind of power source would be powerful enough to keep these humongous machines constantly moving.) Also, I wonder how so many of these gigantic monsters seem to be almost totally resistant to modern day firepower such as depleted uranium bullets or humongous explosive devices. Then in the (usually predictable) ending when the monster has been killed, I can't help but wonder what the authorities do with the corpse of the giant monster. How did they get rid of King Kong's body before it started to smell pretty ripe? Did they have to get chainsaws and cut his corpse into movable pieces? If they did cut Kong up in pieces, what did they then do with those pieces? Transport them to zoos across the country to feed the meat-eating animals housed there?

I want to assure my readers that I am not such a wet blanket to myself when I think of questions like those I posed in the previous paragraph. I can always push back those questions into the back of my mind until the closing credits start to roll, and I can enjoy the movie as it plays out. Though I have to admit that with some particular kinds of gigantic monster movies, it can be a lot harder not to focus on the particular movie's weaknesses. The particular kind of giant monster movies that give me the most challenge not to criticize are for the most part efforts made outside of the United States of America. For various reasons - lack of budget, a lack of understanding of how science is and how people act typically, or just simply a lack of ambition to try and be as competent as possible - these particular giant monsters often have at the very least a strong feeling that something is "off" - and at the very most, a really deranged narrative. As I indicated, it's hard to try and appreciate these particular movies at face value. It's so hard, that when I got a chance to watch the giant monster movie Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent, I didn't even want to make any effort. That's because the movie was directed (under a pseudnym) by the legendary Hong Kong filmmaker Godfrey Ho, whose career is peppered with movies (mostly about ninjas) where he combined newly filmed footage with footage from finished moves from various Asian countries... with neither source providing competent footage by itself. But I was intrigued about how Ho would temporarily leave behind his ninja film expertise and deal with a genre that would be brand new to him.

With past Ho (ho ho) movies I have reviewed for this website, I have basically reviewed the movie by simply giving detailed plot synopsizes to describe their ineptness and sheer insanity. But for Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent, I'll chance the pace and review it the same way as most non-Ho movies on this website. The reasons for that are not only so all my Ho reviews won't seem to blend together, but so I can note that this particular one is especially ambitious, at least by Ho standards. For one thing, just observe what the entire plot is like, with both recycled and new footage combined together. We have a little girl named Tingting (or Tintin - the movie can't decide) who has a pet snake. There are also a group of scientists in the area that are testing a new gym bag-sized device (though they call it a "formula") that can cause plants and animals to grow to a gigantic size. There is also a terrorist leader in the area named Solomon who covets the "formula" so that with it he can control the world's food supply. There are Solomon's armed henchmen who break into the scientists' laboratory to get the device, but through various circumstances, Tingting gets into possession of it, and through accident gets her pet snake to grow to a gigantic size. Meanwhile, the authorities get a secret agent with the cool name "Ted Fast" to track down Solomon. And while that's going on, the local military has its hands full tracking down the device and the terrorists while the terrorists are looking for the device. There is also local police officer Zhou and his partner trying to figure out what's happening and why the military and scientists refuse to clue them in. And... whew, I haven't even got to characters like the traitor scientist and Tingting's parents, all of whom influence the plot to some degree! To say that this plot is overstuffed is putting it mildly. I will admit that despite all these many characters and their various motivations, it's never particularly difficult to know what is going on at any moment. Sure, it's hard to swallow that all of this is happening at once, but it never becomes incoherent.

However, you might have got a certain suspicion about Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent from that above plot, that being with all those characters running around, there is very little time for these characters to really stand out. If that's what you suspected, let me congratulate you for guessing correctly. One example of the limited character development is with the little girl Tingting. She hardly gets showcased before her pet snake grows to a gigantic size, so it's really hard to sense how her thinking changes due to this fantastic occurence. As the movie progresses, she and other characters (mainly Solomon, Ted Fast, and Zhou) are at times offscreen for considerable amounts of time, so that when they do reappear suddenly, I was a little bewildered for a second or two before remembering they had appeared much earlier. But whoever is in a scene regardless of whether they suddenly showed up or not, they are all frequently dubbed with English dialogue that sounds out of a textbook instead of natural English dialogue. Do people really say "How dare you?" nowadays? Some of the dialogue is priceless, which adds to the fun; Solomon is seen talking to himself with the words, "Once I get the formula, I will be in control of the world's food production! Think of the power I will have! HA!" Tingting mulls calling her snake "Charlie" at one point, and several times lies to her parents so unconvincingly, no person of reasonable intelligence would accept what she is claiming. But it goes without saying that such silly dialogue and characters are what to be expected from a Godfrey Ho movie. If you and your friends are prepared for that, and are in the mood to do some riffing from the comfort of your TV chair, you will all find enough material with the movie's dialogue and characters to have fun.

Earlier in this review, I mentioned that Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent is a giant monster movie, so understandably you may be thinking that the special effects depicting the giant snake would be worth quite a few chuckles. Actually, while I would never say the special effects are what they should be, they are better than I expected, especially for a movie with a real low budget such as this one. Though the bootleg print I watched was a rip from a VHS copy, so that fine details couldn't always be studied, I did see the effects crew went to the trouble to build really a really big snake, one that could be moved around when needed. There's also some model work of buildings used when the snake is Godzilla-sized, and while all these and other effects were done on the cheap and a few notches below what was found in Japanese giant monster movies of the time, their sometimes tackiness has a charm you just can't get with CGI. The movie also sports some martial arts and gunplay, some by the creators of the original film, and some by Ho. The action isn't the best I've seen in an Asian movie (bullets are sprayed all around like the shooter is having a seizure), but it does sometimes have a little pep and spectacle, certainly more than an American filmmaker would have with as little money and time as Ho and the makers of the original footage used. And even when Ho and the original filmmakers screw up, often it does add to the unintentional comedy level the movie brews. My favorite unintentionally comic scene was when someone enters an apartment, and in the next shot four gunmen in the room suddenly rise from the bottom of the screen - why were the gunmen all kneeling down on the floor just before the person entered the room? These and other laughs make Thunder Of Gigantic Serpent a lot of fun, whether you are familiar with any of Ho's other movies or not. If you are also a fan of kaiju movies from Japan or anywhere else in Asia, there will be even more here to entertain you.

(Posted September 9, 2026)