The Mermaid (2016)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2016
	Director: Stephen Chow (Shaolin Soccer, Kung Fu Hustle, CJ7)
	Actors: Chao Deng, Yun Lin, Show Luo
	Country: CN
	Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
	Conditions of visioning: 08.07.2016, Theatre Temple du Bas, NIFFF2016
Synopsis: Shan (Lin), a mermaid, is sent to assassinate Xuan (Deng), a developer who threatens the ecosystem of her species, but ends up falling in love with him instead.
Review: I discovered Stephen Chow thanks to the recommendable sport-action Shaolin Soccer (2001), martial-arts comedy Kung Fu Hustle (2004) and touching CJ7 (2008), but nothing since (I haven't seen the 2013 Journey to the West). I was thus pretty confident in going to watch The Mermaid, forgetting that he is now directing movies no more for Hong-Kong but for mainland China. I could still recognize his punchy straight-forward humour thanks to a couple of jokes, however far too spaced in time and drowned in a deluge of digital special effects as colorful as useless and unrealistic. Unfortunately a clear trend in the current Chinese productions. I could even notice, although I don't speak Chinese, that some actresses were dubbed, also typical of China as you may remember from the little girl appearing at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics (another girl was singing backstage). So maybe it would be OK to categorize this movie as one for children if it was not showing real images of animal cruelty on dolphins, and violently decimating most of its cast before the end. Which can make one question the morality of the production team, opposite to the apparent one of the movie repetitively spelled out in large letters throughout the movie: Protect the Environment and the wildlife, and do not be greedy. Those mixed messages made me ill-at-ease, something a comedy should definitely not do.
Rating: 3 /10