The Mermaid 2016 - Film Review

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The Mermaid (2016) - Film Review



The Mermaid (otherwise known as Mei ren yu) is an absolutely brilliant film on so many different levels. It is funny, daring, brutal, romantic, action packed, beautiful, ugly, scary and above all things, highly thought provoking.

It has officially just become China's highest grossing film ever, as it has already made approximately $AU 417m at the box office in its first two weeks!

This film is being marketed to its mainstream audiences as a comedy film about mermaids, which it is, but it is so much more than that, in fact it could be one of the most significant and influential films of our time!

Starring Yun Lin, Chao Deng and Yun-Lin Zhuang, The Mermaid is essentially about a man, who cares about nothing else, but money and a girl who is really a mermaid in disguise and has been given the task to murder him, because all of her family and friends are dying slow and agonising deaths from the sonar equipment his company is using to kill marine life.

The movie starts with showing us real footage of mass pollution and marine mammals being slaughtered, this truly reinforces the main message of the film: when the last breath of fresh air has been breathed and the last drop of clean water has been drunk, money won't mean a thing.

The mermaids in the film are a metaphor for the marine animals some countries slaughter seasonally, such as whales, dolphins and seals. These mermaids give them a human voice, that we can no longer ignore.

The film isn't all doom and gloom though, as there are a lot of hilarious and obscure scenes, brilliantly directed and co-written by Stephen Chow, with everything from a man in a bathtub pretending to be a mermaid, to the octopus man's hilarious facial expressions, as his tentacles are cooked on a hot plate and even the cops who have no idea how to draw a mermaid.



The Mermaid was filmed in a 3D format, with stunning underwater scenes, wonderful cinematography and creative computer enhanced mermaid "costumes", which will make you wish you could grow a tail and join them frolicking amongst the coral reefs and "bend" water like a pro.

This is the absolute best comedic "echo-fable" I have seen to date and I truly hope it will help to start people asking questions about the way we treat our environment and how we can help to fix and change the fate of our planet.

This is the must-see movie of 2016!



The Mermaid is rated M and is not recommended for persons under 15, as it contains adult themes, low lever violence, language and sexual references.

10/10

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