The Mermaid

In this environmental activist comedy from Stephen Chow, mermaids whose environment is being destroyed by an evil developer plot to kill him, using a pretty mermaid as bait. The complications are unsurprising.

While lacking any comical martial arts, the movie still has Chow's usual slapstick humor and weirdness. This includes a very funny scene of a series of hapless assassination attempts, a goofy singing duet, and a cool special-effects driven scene involving splashing water into objects. Some scenes are a bit too dumb, but overall this is a reasonably amusing movie, although nowhere near as funny as Chow's masterpiece, Shaolin Soccer.

The plotting doesn't make much sense. The developer unconvincingly shifts from fairly cartoony awfulness to general sincerity, and the mermaids are, weirdly, more concerned with vengeance than with fixing their problems. But within its silly, slapsticky world, this isn't a huge problem.

What is a huge problem is the shift into violence towards the end. It's both upsetting and nonsensical; a classic example of a movie that makes its villains evil to the point where they do terrible things that not only don't benefit them, but that would seemingly work against their interests. This whole part of the movie is pretty terrible, and to some extent ruined it for me.

One last note. I had a dual audio version of this, and started off watching the English dub. I'm not someone who automatically rejects dubbed movies, but I strongly suggest that you do not, under any circumstances, watch the English dub of this, because it is horrendously bad. I think it's a shame that a successful director's biggest hit of all time doesn't rate competent English actors. If I were rating this based on the dub, I would take another star off. It's an embarrassment.

Over all, I liked this movie.

I rarely watch Chinese movie. I actually watched this one because of its box office.

The movie is definitely a good comedy. You will laugh a lot and sometimes it will be difficult to stop!

Specially the scene in the police station.

But the special effect & visual graphics is very weak what will annoy you.

Not to mention the underwater scene(s).

Story is not that deep but you cant complain because its a comedy movie.

But you will definitely be entertained.

Nice movie, better than I expected. The film's main message is about saving the environment. Scenes can be quite disturbing as they show real life footage of marine animals like dolphins being caught, sea birds covered in oil and the attack on the merpeople... There was lots of comedic moments throughout the film as expected. Special effects were obviously not as realistic as Hollywood films. Movie storyline started off light-hearted then gradually become grim. Shows how greed can destroy our world. Last few scenes made me cry. Love the way they portrayed the relationship between the mermaid and the guy. 7/10 stars. Several inappropriate scenes not suitable for children.

Mei Ren Yu

The Mermaid is written and directed by Steven Chow. I was unaware that going into this movie. To be honest I knew nothing about this movie other than the English title and that it was a Chinese film. You might recognize Steven Chow's earlier work: Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer. I'm beginning to understand why this movie made half a billion US dollars.

The store is about a group of near humans who want the business that is endangering their homeland to go away. Sound familiar? It's the same premise as Avatar and Furn Gully. Once you get past that it's much different, tonally. This is a goofy comedy that hits it's mark sometimes and on others is just bizarre.

Lin Yun plays Shan the young, innocent and beautiful mermaid. She's obviously new to acting and her role seemed to be perfect for her. Unknowing of the outside world and how to handle luxury. She wasn't believable in scenes that didn't involve her innocence.

Chao Deng plays Liu Xuan a wealthy beyond means businessman who endangers the merfolk. He was the best actor in the entire movie and when you look at this track record in China it's not a surprise that he could draw a crowd to see the film.

Show Luo plays the Octopus-man in the film is and is by far the funniest part of the film. Since it's easier for mermaids to hide among the humans it proves funny and near impossible to hide the fact he's a huge octopus on his lower half.

The direction of the film is well done and I had been meaning to look up who had directed it since the start of the film. Good direction can make up for some bad acting by supporting characters. Much of the dialogue seems to be lost in translation. I felt that some of the funny parts must be colloquial or maybe my sense of humor is too strict.

Verdict: Watch if you enjoy foreign films or Steven Chow. The first act is really slow and some of the supporting actors are off. The humor is either really goofy or clever.

This may not be a Stephen Chow masterpiece.

It is not because this is a bad movie, it is simply because Stephen Chow has set a very high standard in classic like Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin soccer.

Comparing to what is available in the cinemas since beginning of the year, this movie fares well. Complicated movie like Hateful 8 may be critic's favorite, but this movie does what a movie fundamentally should do, that is to entertain its audience.

Stephen Chow prove yet again a good director needs just to able to tell his story well, to make a good movie.

His visual sense is driven, not by a need to appear artistic and confusing, but to resonate with audiences.

The result, a well made movie that is entertaining and a simple story told well by a gifted film maker.

Chow has a gift for spotting talent and using them well.

Not only he is brave in casting a newcomer to lead role.

He is able to spot the that Deng Chao (better know as the Running Man) will be perfect as a comic male lead.

He is likable, even when he is acting like a greedy spoil rich brat. He certainly oozes charisma.

Under Chow's direction, he is able to master the act of comic timing and delivery. Best scene has to be the "failed assassination scene" where the interplay between Jelly (mermaid) and Deng Chao result in a stomach ripping experience for the audience.

I used to think his wife (Sun Li) is the only credible actress in his family, after watching Deng's performance here, I am convinced he is more than a Running Man.