The Mermaid

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.

The Mermaid, originally released under the title Mei Ren Yu, is a Chinese and Hong Kong fantasy romance that has broken numerous box office records upon release, including biggest opening day and biggest single-day gross in the history of Chinese cinema. A sequel is reported to have completed filming and the usual forgettable American remake is also being planned as of writing this review.

Two questions are of importance now. Is this movie really worth its hype? No, it isn't since Mei Ren Yu is light years away from being the greatest film coming out of Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China. Is it however a bad movie? No, it's a quite entertaining flick offering ninety-four minutes of quirky popcorn cinema.

This movie tells the story of a superficial property tycoon whose industries pollute the world. He is surrounded by capitalistic business partners and shallow acquaintances interested in his flashy lifestyle. One day, a young mermaid disguised as a beautiful woman tries to seduce him in order to kill him for torturing her race and destroying their realm. However, the charming mermaid and the lonely businessman start developing sincere romantic feelings for one another and must now defy the influence of their capitalistic partners and vengeful friends.

There are quite a few positive elements that deserve to be mentioned to describe this film. First of all, the quirky plot comes around as a contemporary fairy tale dealing with real-life challenges such as environmentalism. Up next, this movie also has a strong Chinese identity since it values communistic and socialistic values over ruthless capitalism and extreme economical competition. This film offers a wonderful combination of genres as elements of comedy, fantasy and romance collide. The balance between light-hearted elements such as the love story between the two protagonists and serious issues such as excessive genetic testing is another strength. The extroverted, intense and quirky acting performances blend in wonderfully to portray intriguing characters such as an aggressive and jealous octopus as well as an obsessed and scheming Western scientist.

As you might have figured out already, this successful movie isn't without a few significant flaws. Despite an entertaining script, the overall plot remains shallow and deals with themes that have been used in cinema from home and abroad time and time again. The exaggerated use of visual special effects is overbearing and gives this movie artificial and lifeless vibes. The use of slapstick comedy isn't as cleverly delivered as in many Western productions and instead has silly, predictable and childish tones. These are also the reasons why this movie might rather appeal to children and young teenagers than to older teenagers and adults.

At the end of the day, The Mermaid, initially released as Mei Ren Yu, is a fast-paced romantic fantasy movie with meaningful themes, intriguing characters and decent acting performances. This film however suffers from its overbearing visual special effects, shallow plot and childish jokes. This film is recommended to children and young teenagers in particular. Curious older teenagers or adults might want to watch this commercially successful film once on streaming devices but certainly shouldn't aim at purchasing that overall rather shallow movie. There are actually numerous better films of many genres coming out of Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China.

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.

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.

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.