As Travessuras de Uma Sereia

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.

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.

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.

This year's Chinese New Year is packed with Festive Films, from Monkey King 2, Vegas to Macau 3 to Mermaid.

After watching all 3 of them, I have decided to only write a review for Mermaid because it is the only one worth the effort and time.

The great thing about Mermaid is that while it is a comedy that brings the whole family together, it manages to bring in an underlying plot that teaches us important values about ecosystem and a life lesson about money and materialism.

While not on par with Chow's masterpiece like Kung Fu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer, Mermaid is better than Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons. The slapstick style of comedy of Chow is evident throughout the movie, and the laughter by the audiences can be heard echoing throughout the cinema halls.

A number memorable scenes provide some of the biggest laughs – such as when Shan made numerous botched attempts to assassinate Liu Xuan with various means and weapons from the sea.

Newcomer Jelly Lin is the latest in a long line of "Stephen's Girls". Chow has the knack of discovering an illustrious list of talented actresses that include Karen Mok, Cecilia Cheung, and Vicky Zhao. Lin is the latest muse to channel Chow's range of rubber-faced physical comedy and deadpan delivery of killer lines. Jelly Lin is reportedly cast from auditions with over 10,000 hopefuls.

While this film will not play extremely well with critics, it undoubtedly will have a good word-of-mouth as it is an entertaining movie with the right balance of humour, touching moments and good acting.

After watching so many movies is this Chinese New Year, I can say that Mermaid is easily the best movie of them all.

I look forward to Stephen Chow's next movie, and the opportunity for him to step in-front of the camera once more.

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.