King Kong, the most iconic giant monster in American cinema, has proven his title as kaiju royalty with some notable fights and scrapes against dangerous enemies. Since his first appearance back in 1933, King Kong has captivated audiences with his enormous size, ferocity, and gentle heart. His name has been invoked in several sequels and remakes of his original film of the same name over the years, with the Monsterverse films being the most recent franchise to bring Kong back to theaters.
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In all of his appearances, King Kong has engaged in a climactic battle against some enemy, from giant prehistoric creatures to human-made weaponry. While Kong doesn’t have as much combat experience as his cinematic rival, as Godzilla has much more iconic enemies, he’s still no slouch when it comes to combat on a colossal scale. King Kong’s best fight scenes utilize his strength, cunning, and simian agility, all of which allow Kong to punch well above his weight class.
9Kong vs. tyrannosaurus rex
King Kong (1933)
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Even as early as 1933 king kong, The filmmakers were aware that the concept of a giant ape would be much better with a unique opponent to pit him against. Enter the T-Rex from the original film, a stop-motion creature that swept movie screens 60 years earlier. Jurassic Park would popularize the dinosaur as a cinematographic icon. After kidnapping the object of his obsession, the beautiful Ann, Kong steps in to defend her against another apex predator, one of Skull Island’s hostile T-Rex specimens.
The stop-motion of this battle is quite impressive and shows unprecedented mastery in one of the first giant monster fights in history. Of course, the beloved duel is still quite old and is undoubtedly sometimes titled with a shaky frame rate. But the sequence at least deserves credit for how innovative it was at the time, not to mention Kong’s first use of a bloody finishing move as he messily rips the creature’s head in half with his jaws.
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8Kong vs. Mechani Kong
King Kong Escapes
The fourth installment of the King Kong franchise and the second film produced by genius kaiju director Ishirō Honda of godzilla fame, King Kong Escapes is one of the few films that gives Kong his unique enemy. Mechani-Kong is the creation of the film’s villain, Dr. Who (legally distinct from the snooty time traveler of British television fame), who apparently builds Mechani-Kong as a way to mine valuable radioactive ore at the North Pole. When his robotic version fails to be up to the task, Dr. Who sends Mechani-Kong after the organic original.
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Mechani-Kong is a fairly intelligent opponent, provoking Kong to fight by kidnapping his latest romantic interest and harassing him with dizzying high lights. The fight pits both Kongs on equal footing as they scale the iconic Tokyo Tower, punching and punching each other until the end. While the end result is pretty ridiculous, the creativity at least elevates this fight above some of Kong’s early attempts at fighting monsters one-on-one.
7Kong vs. The skull crawler
Kong: Skull Island
Kong: Skull Island gave audiences the Monsterverse’s glimpse of King Kong’s legendary natural habitat, populating it with a unique new horde of hostile fauna. The most dangerous massive creatures on Skull Island are the Skullcrawlers, nasty serpentine burrowers with two clawed legs and hauntingly empty eye sockets. Kong fights a particularly large Skullcrawler towards the end of the film, outwitting his ferocious, bestial opponent with simian ingenuity.
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This fight is the first time the Monsterverse’s Kong shows off his skill with improvised weapons, wrapping a massive propeller and anchor chain around his fist to wield it like a makeshift flail. The Skullcrawler does its best to envelop Kong, strangling and mutilating him at the same time, but the gigantic ape finally gets the best of it, reaching down his throat and pulling out his gastrointestinal tract from the inside out. Even if Skullcrawler isn’t the most memorable opponent Kong has faced, their battle in Kong: Skull Island It’s quite spectacular.
6Kong vs. The V-Rex
King Kong (2005)
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Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake of king kong It’s not particularly fondly remembered today, especially in the wake of Kong’s excellent Monsterverse portrayal. However, the film’s version of the classic T-Rex fight, carefully crafted in Peter Jackson’s signature style for CGI battles, almost makes the film worth watching in its own right. This time, the humble T-Rex is upgraded to a V-Rex: bigger, stronger, and more cunning than its alphabetically older cousin. If that wasn’t bad enough, Kong has to defend Naomi Watts’ Ann from three of them.
V-Rex are quite terrifying opponents, with all the intelligence and pack tactics of a Velociraptor but the brute strength and ferocity of a T-Rex. However, Peter Jackson’s King Kong is slowly able to dispatch them all, using his more gorilla-like stature to beat them into submission. Jackson even recreates the iconic gaping jaw with stunning modern effects. This primordial battle is definitely an improvement over the previous films, but it still loses points for lack of originality.
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5 Kong and Godzilla’s Original Fight
King Kong vs. Godzilla
Before Godzilla and Kong fought in the Monsterverse, the two giant movie monsters faced off in a film produced by Toho. King Kong vs. Godzilla. Both the third Godzilla film and the third King Kong film, the title fight takes place at the base of Mount Fuji, where Toho versions of both legendary creatures face off. In response to Godzilla’s latest attack, the humans launch Kong from a plane to Japan, hoping for mutually assured destruction.
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At first, Kong may seem outmatched thanks to Godzilla’s atomic breath, but the resourceful ape is soon able to turn the tide by using his opposable thumbs to launch a variety of projectiles at the King of the Monsters. The iconic image of Kong shoving a tree down Godzilla’s throat also gives the battle some bonus points. Unlike their modern rematch, Kong emerges victorious here, a kind of suspension of disbelief that nevertheless doesn’t ruin the legendary, if silly, final showdown.
4 The classic biplane battle
King Kong (1933)
As great as the spectacle of modern CGI-laden kaiju battles is, it’s hard to top the endearing ingenuity of 1930s cinema. No matter how powerful Kong proves to be on Skull Island, the relentless advance of human civilization will ultimately It turns out to be his undoing, not to mention his strange obsession with Ann. The image of King Kong scaling the Empire State Building while punching groaning biplanes is a pop culture staple too powerful to ignore.
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This battle has some real dramatic weight behind it, proving the film’s claim that humanity is the most dangerous monster any creature, no matter how large, could ever hope to encounter. The downbeat ending makes the humans’ victory over King Kong, which should feel triumphant, into a bitter, moody occasion, leaving a greater emotional impact than almost any other Kong fight. That said, there’s no denying that the real action on display pales in comparison to more implausible fights later in Kong’s cinematic history.
3 The Hong Kong fight
Godzilla vs. Kong
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After decades of waiting, monster movie fans finally got to see the genre’s two biggest names face off again in a rematch with all the trappings of a modern big-budget blockbuster. After a few fights, Kong and Godzilla finally make it to the dense streets of Hong Kong, where they go all out in a final fight amidst the neon-clad buildings of the megacity. Despite being hopelessly outmatched earlier, Kong manages to get in some good licks in the second round.
Kong is able to use the city’s terrain to his advantage, dancing in circles around Godzilla with his climbing skills. His ancestral axe, made from the dorsal scale of one of Godzilla’s species, also helps him, absorbing some of Godzilla’s atomic breath. Ultimately, Godzilla is still too strong for Kong, but he puts up a good fight, one of the best battles in the Monsterverse, but not the best of Kong’s career.
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2Godzilla and Kong vs. mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs. Kong
As great as it is to see Godzilla and Kong fight, seeing them team up against a common enemy is even better. Shortly after Godzilla’s victory, Mechagodzilla comes online and begins wreaking havoc, the dormant consciousness of King Ghidorah’s skull freed from the original programming. Kong comes to his senses and sets out to lend a hand to his former enemy against a greater shared threat.
It’s a visual marvel to see Kong and Godzilla use their strengths to their advantage, with Kong acrobatically swinging Mechagodzilla with his ax while Godzilla overloads him with atomic energy. It’s clear that none of them could have defeated the mechanical monster alone, something that is really felt through the fight choreography. The fight is a little tainted by the ridiculous way the human characters are able to stun Mechagodzilla long enough for the kaiju duo to take him down, but it’s still a popcorn-worthy action spectacle.
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1 The struggle of Egypt
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
As phenomenal as some of their previous battles have been, the feud between Kong and Godzilla in the Monsterverse reaches its best moment in the Egypt sequence of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Here, Kong once again needs to recruit Godzilla’s help, but he has only one way to get his attention: by emitting a defiant roar that is heard around the world and that instantly draws the atomic lizard’s wrath. Before long, Godzilla has rekindled their old feud, confronting Kong across one of the great pyramids of Giza despite his pleas for peace.
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From Kong’s exasperated facial expressions to Godzilla’s suplex, there are plenty of great beats to enjoy in Kong and Godzilla’s latest rematch. Both fighters have enjoyed improvements since their last duel, with Kong’s new mechanical brace actually having enough force to take down Godzilla’s powerful new pink energy. Entertaining, outrageous and expertly acted, King Kong’s strongest cinematic fight ends with a victory for him, dragging his knocked out comrade across the arena by his tail.