Hellcat Studio

Hellcat Studio, also listed as Hell Cat, has built its catalogue around one character: Caesar, the ape who leads the uprising in the modern Planet of the Apes films. Its sixth scale figures carry DYM catalogue codes and come in more than one version, with an Ape Leader Ver. A and a fuller Ver. B among them.

The first Caesar is drawn from Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the film where his story begins. The follow-ups move to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, with Caesar now leading the colony in the forest, and add the horse he rides there as its own piece, so the general does not have to walk.

Apes are a hard test for any maker. There is no actor's face to copy, only a performance turned into fur and muscle, and the sculpt has to carry the intelligence the films gave him. A good Caesar reads as a leader from across the room; a weak one reads as a chimpanzee in a costume.

Collectors weighing a Hellcat Caesar will want to compare it with the Caesar pieces Star Ace Toys has made, which take a different route: fixed-pose statues in polyresin and vinyl.