The Mermaid

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.

Stephen Chow is one of my favorite directors in China, I have seen many wonderful films directed by him like KongFu Hustle, ShaoLin soccer.

An outstanding characteristic of Chow's film is tricking of comedy ( I don't know how to describe that style accurately).

However, this film, The Mermaid, is very different compared to the other two mentioned above. To conclude it in a sentence, that is a wonderful mixture of comedy, love, science fiction and environment.

Environmental protection is heavy point of this film, but unlike many other directors, Stephen Chow shows it in another way, which is love and comedy.

This film inherit many characteristics in Chow's old films, like 'XiaoQiang' and 'WangCai' and so on. Though Language comedy has intrinsically regional difference, many tricks can be conveyed from the simple actuation.

Stunts seem to be an fatal drawback of Chinese films, may be investment is the major problem. But stunts in this film is very nice, e.g. the tail of octopus and arresting of the mermaid under water.

Overall, this is a wonderful movie which will catch heart of a very general range of audience. I strongly recommend it.

Ruthless land developer Liu Xuan is planning reclamation project for Green Gulf. He's using powerful sonar to drive away dolphins. He takes on Ruolan as his business partner. The playboy Liu Xuan calls up cheap floozy Shan after being ridiculed by Ruolan. Only they don't know that Shan is actually a mermaid. She is part of a community being driven out by Xuan's sonar. Shan is told by Brother Octopus to assassinate Xuan. After many failed attempts, Shan wins over Xuan with rotisserie chicken. Shan is conflicted about killing him but a conflict is inevitable.

This is Stephen Chow's very broad brand of comedy. The museum mermaid is hilarious. There are some funny bits with Shan. There are lots of funny with a good helping of environmentalism. However, there are some uncomfortable violence especially the climatic battle. Chow is obviously heavily influenced by documentaries such as The Cove. It's awkward to have such vicious violence trying to coexist with the broad cartoon comedy. There is a difference between cartoon violence and brutal horror violence. He needs to cut down on the horrifying.

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.

I started to like Stephen Chow's movies since Shaolin Soccer. In order to maximise my enjoyment, I go for this movie without reading any reviews, especially from those who are always quick to write a review like a book. Anyway, I can trust that a Stephen Chow movie needs no reviews and quality is guaranteed. So being impressed with the poster, I set my hopes high. In order not to spoil anyone's fun, I will not describe the story or details. Generally, one can see that Stephen Chow's aim in this movie is to smash all China's box office and he did it successfully, with some good messages as usual; about love, humanity and environmentally friendly here, filled with romance, comedy, action and even a good old song. What else do you need for a movie to sell well ? Nothing else. For China audience who have not seen too much of Stephen Chow and where people do not have too high demand on artistic values, they are sure to enjoy it very much. For me, I don't like this style of "mo-lei-tao" comedy and I find them too much here. Much of the jokes are also old and predictable, although done in a good way. The male and 2 female leads are good. Most of the other supporting casts are poor. The 2nd male lead just cannot act and his face just don't match the role. Using that great classic HK song from the 80s is obviously to please the Chinese but made the movie less creative. This movie don't deserve any awards unless they give it for the same reasons like Titanic. Overall, I find this movie not as good as his last 4 because it doesn't give me much surprises.