Ren yu lian

It starts with the troubled artist lacks inspiration until he finds a mermaid living nearby. This is the standard romantic fantasy about a mermaid falling in love with a human man. Every scene is what you would expect it to be. There is a bit of creativity when the mermaid eats an apple to become human. Takes me back to genesis, if you follow.

I watched this because it starred Charles Heung Wah-Keung, an actor I refer to as the Goose Boxer. He did the 1978 martial arts movie of the same name. That movie was above average and quite memorable. As usual, he did quite a few other martial arts movies, some good, some stinkers. He went on to be a big name producer of Win's Entertainment and China Star Entertainment Group.

My copy is the usual VHS converted to digital that plays as a square video on a HDTV with dual Chinese and English hardsubs that are not too poorly translated. The best line of the movie is when Charles says to the mermaid "Don't run away".

Why would anyone watch this movie 40 years later? I am on a mission to acquire and watch every martial arts movie of the golden age from 1967 to 1984. I have watched over 3000 and reviewed about half that and figure I am about halfway done. In doing so, I am also interested in the lives of the actors. That leads to distractions like this. Other than my personal reason, I cannot imagine any other reason to watch this movie. Nevertheless, I will post my review knowing it is most likely never to be read by anyone else.