NYAFF REVIEW: ‘The Mermaid’ is ridiculous, offbeat fun
Stephen Chow’s The Mermaid, which recently played the New York Asian Film Festival, is a crazed and hilarious comedy that reimagines the story that inspired The Little Mermaid. According to Subway Cinema, the presenters of NYAFF, the film is the highest-grossing Chinese movie of all time, and that honor falls at Chow’s feet. The director of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle is a comedy master who is able to couple zany plot devices with zanier characters. The resulting film is an upbeat and offbeat comedy that has a running commentary on the human world’s destruction of the wild world.
Shanshan (Jelly Lin) is a mermaid who lives in a broken-down, flooded ship with a community of mermaids and mermen, but their existence is being eradicated thanks to the deadly sonars given off by a company owned by Liu (Deng Chao). The businessman uses sonar to kill off marine life in the local area, and this includes Shanshan and her family.
In order to stop the destruction of her species, the ocean creatures send Shanshan, disguised in human clothes, to kill Liu and reclaim their safety in the sea. After Shanshan sees Liu, they begin to fall in love, and the plans for the future need to evolve. For lovers of The Little Mermaid, this should sound vaguely familiar.
Chow’s film is not exactly a typical romance, and there are no crabs singing “Under the Sea” like the Walt Disney version. Instead, he has the world of the mermaids play out in strange, strange fashion. Thanks to CGI, these mer-creatures leap out of the water, sometimes with the help of slingshots, and wreak havoc on unsuspecting humans. They are led by an octopus (Show Luo) who slithers his way around the abandoned ship and eventually the human world above.
The ultimate showdown between sea creatures and armed humans is a finely orchestrated and intricately staged feast for the eyes.
The comedy is definitely funny and absurd. Chow doesn’t care about reality or plausibility, and that’s a good cinematic choice. By making The Mermaid as weird as possible, the director is able to bring in elements of fantasy and use CGI effectively to break all the rules. This means the narrative is difficult to predict, even though it’s based on well-known source material. There’s no telling what Chow and his ensemble will do next.
Sometimes the scenes fall flat. Not all risks taken by the director have a tremendous payoff, but thanks to an excellent set, some stunning CGI and stellar performances, especially from Lin and Luo, The Mermaid largely works as a cinematic oddity.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
- The Mermaid
- In Mandarin with English subtitles
- 2016
- Directed by Stephen Chow
- Written by Hing-Ka Chan, Chow, Chi Keung Fung, Miu-Kei Ho, Ivy Kong, Si-Cheun Lee, Zhengyu Lu and Kan-Cheung Tsang
- Starring Jelly Lin, Deng Chao, Kitty Zhang and Show Luo
- Running time: 94 minutes
- Rating:
