{Gizmodo] How Buddy Cops and the Shaw Brothers Influenced Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

https://gizmodo.com.au/2024/02/how-buddy-cops-and-the-shaw-brothers-influenced-godzilla-x-kong-the-new-empire/

How Buddy Cops and the Shaw Brothers Influenced Godzilla x Kong: The New 
Empire

Cheryl Eddy
February 16, 2024 at 7:30 am

In 2021, it was Godzilla versus Kong. But Godzilla x Kong: The New 
Empire sees the foes team up—reluctantly—to take on a new threat. The 
dynamic between them might be unfamiliar based on what we’ve seen in the 
Monsterverse so far, but movie fans may recognize its origins in… ‘80s 
buddy-cop movies?
Speaking to Empire Magazine, director Adam Wingard (who also made 
Godzilla vs. Kong) revealed his love of buddy-cop movies like 1987’s 
Lethal Weapon, explaining, “My influences are always embedded with the 
‘80s.” How does that come into play in Godzilla x Kong? At the start of 
the film, “There’s a bit of a truce—Godzilla’s in control of the surface 
world and Kong is down in Hollow Earth.” When Skar King, the film’s new 
villain, threatens to disrupt this tenuous peace, the monsters must join 
forces to defeat him. “The buddy-cop dysfunctional relationship dynamic 
is probably the best one to describe Godzilla and Kong,” Wingard said. 
“There’s a lot of misunderstanding—the way that the monsters communicate 
isn’t straightforward.”

Wingard also teases “a personal journey” for Kong and that the movie 
will feature “lots of different versions of Godzilla,” brought about by 
what sounds like another ‘80s special: the training montage. However, 
Wingard’s influences go even further back in film history. “I’m really 
big into Shaw Brothers martial arts. Those films are always about, 
‘Here’s a big threat, and you have to do all these things to pump 
yourself up so that you can take on that threat.’”

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire—which also has a human cast that 
includes Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Dan Stevens—arrives March 29.