- Actors: Yun Lin, Chao Deng, Kris Wu Yifan, Yuqi Zhang, Shangzheng Li
- Director: Stephen Chow
- Format: Subtitled
- Language: Mandarin Chinese
- Subtitles: French, Polish, Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Thai, English, Spanish
- Dubbed: Thai, English
- Region: All Regions
- Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
- Number of discs: 1
- Rated: R
- Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
- Release Date: July 5, 2016
- Digital Copy Expiration Date: December 31, 2019
- Run Time: 94 minutes
Stephen Chow’s
latest, The Mermaid, is a strange
film for many reasons. It’s a fairy tale with an environmental message, a plot
that sounds like a Disney movie but is paired with sexual innuendo and scenes
of graphic violence, and was somehow the highest grossing film in the history
of Chinese cinema. Although undeniably entertaining in a unique way, this level
of success is difficult to fathom.
The uniqueness
of The Mermaid doesn’t necessarily
come from the individual elements, which have all been used before, often in
Chow’s previous films. What is strange about these fairly predictable working
parts is the way that they are placed together. The graphic comic violence was
used before in Kung Fu Hustle, only
now it is paired with the kind of children’s film narrative the filmmaker
utilized in his lesser known CJ7.
Pairing sophomoric humor with adult themes and a silly storyline makes it
difficult to understand who the intended audience is, despite its widespread
success in China.
The R-rating it received for the U.S. market and this country’s
unwillingness to read subtitles makes it a much harder sell for international
markets.
With a visual
style of The Little Mermaid by way of
Baz Luhrmann, The Mermaid is about
the title sea creature who becomes a trained assassin in a plan to stop a real
estate tycoon from destroying the environment. In order to help save the home
of her people, mermaid Shan (Jelly Lin) learns how to exist on land in order to
seduce and kill Liu Xuan (Deng Chao), the billionaire entrepreneur whose latest
development is causing the destruction of all sea life in the area with a
weapon that resembles something out of a James Bond film. Shan predictably ends
up falling in love with Liu Xuan, who inevitably learns the error in his ways.
This may sound like a spoiler, but The
Mermaid is not a film filled with narrative surprises. Style alone is what
makes this film stand apart, utilizing Chow’s signature cartoonish action and
sense of humor.
Nearly
everything about this film feels expected, even in its uniqueness, until the
bloody turn towards the end. Chow goes for shock value as he has done many times
before, but he does it to give the environmental message impact rather than for
cheap laughs. Until the last fifteen minutes or so, I was convinced that the
R-rating was a huge mistake. Part of me is still convinced that this would have
received a PG-13 had it been a superhero blockbuster.
Controversy and
creativity aside, I wasn’t as impressed with The Mermaid as I had hoped. The unique visual style of Chow’s work
lacks the same impact it had with his first few hits, and the moral message
feels a bit too broad, never really earning the pathos that it demands of the
audience. Even with the inclusion of some shocking documentary footage to force
home the film’s underlining point, The
Mermaid is a bit too silly and disjointed to take seriously. We have
consistently seen that box office numbers don’t always equate with quality
filmmaking, and I would liken the success of The Mermaid in China
to that of Deadpool in America.
The Blu-ray
release also comes with a Digital HD copy of the film. You might think that the
visual style of the film would beg for a high definition presentation, but the
effects are surprisingly rudimentary. Perhaps the over-reliance on cheap CGI is
just Chow’s style, but here it feels like a limitation of the budget. The
special features included on the disc are a making-of featurette,
behind-the-scenes footage, and a music video.
Entertainment Value:
7/10
Quality of
Filmmaking: 6.5/10
Historical
Significance: 7/10
Special Features: 6/10
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