In Africa, Burt Dawson (Brad Harris) is shot by a cohort while robbing a payroll, and left for dead. He recovers and vows to find his former friend, Albert Muller (Marc Lawrence) and take revenge. Once he is well he visits an old friend, Theodore (Aldo Cecconi) and Theodore’s mistress, Ursula (Adriana Alben). As he is leaving he runs into Theodore’s daughter, Diana (Ursula Davis) and son, Robert (Marc Fiorini). They try to talk him into going on a hunt. Diana says she is after something called the Sacred Monkey. It is said to be in an area called the forbidden jungle. Burt declines to go.
In the depths of the jungle Albert is implanting control devices in the brains of gorillas turning them into robotic slaves.
During the hunt the group is attacked and Diana is kidnapped by a remote controlled gorilla. Theodore and Robert try to get Burt to help try to find her. Since they don’t know that the gorillas were remote controlled Burt believes Diana is dead and refuses to help. It’s not until Robert tells him that he saw Turk (Paolo Magalotti), a close friend of Albert, and believes that the gorillas were being directed by him that Burt agrees to look for Diana. Burt’s motive is in wanting to find Turk and then Albert.
In the jungle, Burt finds the Sacred Monkey. It turns out to be an orphaned girl that grew up in the jungle and can communicate with all the animals. Her companion is a chimpanzee. Burt calls her Eva (Esmeralda Barros). Even though she can’t speak English she guides Burt to the cave where the robotic gorillas took Diana. In the cave Burt comes face to face with Albert and learns that the mad scientist is ready to take his experiments to the next level. Albert wants to implant a control device into a human.
“Kong Island” AKA “King of Kong Island” AKA “Eva, la Venere selvaggia” or “Eva, the savage Venus” was released in 1968 and was directed by Roberto Mauri. It is an Italian/Spanish Horror science fiction Adventure Jungle movie. There are two versions of the film, the cut down American release and the uncut European version. There was a subsequent version that took the English dubbed version and inserted some of the cut scenes back in. The copy used was a Polish subtitled copy.
There is no Kong in the movie, or King for that matter, and it does not take place on an island. Even the jungle girl, Eva, in the original title is not the main character. She actually contributes very little to the film other than a few boob shots in the original Italian version. The main character of the movie is the mercenary, Burt, and his quest to find Albert. There are also some subplots that make the movie a little hard to follow at times.
The Gorillas were guys in suits. The main gorilla, Malik, was played by Miles Mason. As far as mad scientists go, Marc Lawrence as Albert Muller is typical. Unfortunately there is very little horror or science fiction in the film. Other than a slightly bloody operation in the beginning of the film, the science fiction aspect doesn’t get going until the movie is almost over. Most of the film is jungle montages and some jungle scenery that could be stock footage or could be new footage, it blends in quite well.