Synopsis
In 1967 when the movie industry registered an unprecedented expansion both in quality and quantity, two monsters emerged in the Korean cinema. They were The Great Monster Yonggary and A Monster Man from Space. If "Yonggary" is some imaginative creature born from the dragon and “Godzilla”, "The Monster Man" in which space monsters cast greedy eyes at the Korean peninsula seems to be more closer to the Hollywood and Japanese imagination. In the eyes of Korean spectators, this monster is an uncanny object of unfamiliar familiarity. This composite monster kidnaps a young woman, as King Kong did, followed by her fiance who is an air force man and other soldiers. As in The Great Monster Yonggary," "The Monster Man" appears as the two young persons are about to marry. Not as in "Yonggary," the reason of the monster's appearance is not the anxiety about manhood. The bride who has only one parent (mother) and who has had sex is overcome with a nameless fear about marriage. The extraterrestrial "The Monster Man" comes to Korea to make the spectators believe two things. First is the belief that the Korean peninsula is the most beautiful land in the whole world. Another is that the Air Force of Korea is extremely powerful. In A Monster from Space, what the woman symbolizes is not so different from that in films dealing with the Japanese oppression of Korea or the Korean War. The woman is an allegory for the defamed people and is, at the same time, the passage to restore the national pride. (Kim So-Young)