Random Review - The Mermaid

For those who live outside of China, not a lot of people have seen Stephen Chow’s bizarre fantasy-romance The Mermaid, even though it’s the 7th-highest-grossing film in China of all time with $553 million worldwide (only $32 million under Iron Man). But I honestly think that you should, for the simple fact that it’s the closest anyone will come to watching a cartoon perfectly visualised in live-action. As a movie? Meh. But as a cartoon? Well transitioned.

So in The Mermaid, there’s a mermaid (obviously) who’s given a task by her octopus leader to assassinate a businessman who’s clearing out the mermaid’s environment with sonar to build a theme park. She goes off to meet him as a prostitute, but slowly, the two different creatures fall in love. Fairly simple plot, with an evil man turning good and an environmental message thrown in for good measure.

Then there’s…everything else.

I think that the closest thing I can compare The Mermaid to in terms of style is actually Bollywood cinema. It’s that ideal of making a ridiculous movie with a ton of energy with the intent of giving the audience a great experience rather than an interesting story. The Mermaid has Bollywood’s loony CGI, wonky physics, unique overacting and even a couple of random song breaks here and there.

But what’s missing from The Mermaid is that Bollywood sense of scale. It feels larger-than-life, for sure, but it never feels like this big emotional package, more often like a Saturday-morning cartoon. Bollywood is epic, while The Mermaid is merely large.

So as a comedy, The Mermaid is at its absolute best when it embraces its sarcastic absurdism, particularly in the first act, but falls apart when it turns more cartoonish. The humour in the movie either falls into the clever absurdity of an early Simpsons episode, or the beleaguered cartoonism of a bad parody movie. Occasionally, there’ll be some really dark humour thrown in here and there, but it’s mostly very silly and intermittently funny rather than hilarious.

It also doesn’t help that as a comedy, it’s held back by many scenes of bland melodrama on the offside with the main evil businessman and his ex, none of which develop into anything funny. The mixture of drama and comedy does not work in those scenes, because they lack any dramatic weight or humour.

But what comedy is there is helmed wonderfully by the actors involved, who are clearly trying their hardest. The leading guy, Deng Chao, is really giving it his pantomime best, selling his ridiculous character so well. And easily the standout is the sentient octopus, played by Show Lo, who is probably the closest to a reasonable character in this movie.

Writing-wise, this definitely needed a few more passes. I appreciate the environmental message and the scripted absurd comedy (instead of the slapstick), but this screenplay is just flat-out bad in some cases. Many scenes are dedicated to dull exposition or speeches where someone explains the intricate details of everything involved, despite the opportunity for clever visual storytelling. Some plot points are just forgotten altogether, and the film lacks a strong sense of character, along with the aforementioned bland melodrama.

As I said, this is a very Bollywood-esque film, and so I don’t expect the CGI and the production to be 100% real or anything. I think that in regards to special effects, the animation is great, but the CGI artists often don’t seem to be even trying, especially with the green screen, holy shit.

And to cap it off, this movie may have some of the worst ADR I’ve ever seen in any movie ever. It’s like the entire movie was dubbed Samurai Cop-style, and so no-one’s voices match with their mouths.

My final verdict on The Mermaid is this: it could have been a lot worse, but it could have also been a lot better. I understand why people love this movie (it has a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes), but ultimately, I don’t think it’s for me.

I’m giving The Mermaid a C+.

Have you seen this movie? If so, what did you think of it? Leave your answers in the comments below.