After the death of her uncle Milton, Mandy is to inherit his property and money. She and Jed Slater, an attorney, travel to Kong Island to locate the whereabouts of Bradley, Milton's son, and Bradley's infant daughter, who crashed on the island two decades earlier. After arriving on the island, Mandy and Jed Slater meet up with Ted, Mandy's boyfriend, Jack Carver, a jungle guide, and Shana, Jack's girlfriend. Later the group comes face to face with Tarzeena, the jungle queen, and Tabonga, a gorilla. Tarzeena turns out to be Bradley's missing grown-up daughter. Dr. Mortimer, a mad scientist, kidnaps both Tabonga and Tarzeena so he can use them as guinea pigs for his evil experiments. Mandy, Jed, Jack, Ted and Shana all come to Tarzeena's rescue and destroy Dr. Mortimer. In the end, Mandy, Ted and Tarzeena return home to America.
↑ The actress Christine Nguyen is not to be confused with the artist of the same name.
Background
The film was shot simultaneously with other films, including Super Ninja Doll (2007), another film by Ray with almost exactly the same cast.[6] The actor Michael Gaglio, playing the role of Dr. Mortimer, is a frequent collaborator of Ray.[7]
Home media
A DVD version was released by Infinity Entertainment[8] in 2013.[9]
Reception
Like Super Ninja Doll,[10]Tarzeena, Queen of Kong Island received poor reviews and ratings,The Video Source Book, for example, calling it a "bomb", and "horrible",[11] the Union Democrat giving the film zero star, [12] or the VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever, that wrote: "Horrible Tarzan spoof about a couple standing to inherit a fortune if they can prove the owner (and his daughter) who crashed on a jungle island years ago are dead. Arriving they find the daughter was raised by apes and the island has a mad scientist hoping to use a mind control device to brainwash her into becoming his love slave. If only it were nearly as good as that description made it sound."[13]
A review by Tars Tarkas, however, praised some points of the production: "Director Fred Olen Ray manages to craft together a nice little homage to not only the Tarzan films, but those old jungle films where people wander through stock footage and movies with crazy mad scientists. Tarzeena is a great throwback to anyone who has suffered through borefests such as Nabonga."[6]
In his book Jesse James and the Movies, Johnny D. Boggs, commenting on the fact that Ray's 1997 Western filmThe Shooter has been described as the director's best film, comments: "Then again, how good does it have to be better than Tarzeena, Jiggle in the Jungle?"[14] Commenting in 2010 in the Los Angeles Times on the perennity of soft-core pornography on cable TV, Jon Weinbach ironically mentioned Tarzeena: Jiggle in the Jungle as one of the "memorable" creations the genre had given the world.[15]
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