Stephen Chow is back with a new movie in which he only directs and not act in. I was disappointed to have found that out while watching it.
To me, Chow was his best when he directed himself in Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle. And those two movies seem to be his lightning in a bottle because after that he did CJ7, a huge step down which he never recovered from.
The Mermaid did not have an interesting story to begin with, it was almost a walking cliche. In the first few minutes I thought he was going to tackle some worldly issue like whaling but that never came to pass; which if he did may have made things more interesting.
This cast he assembled also did not do the movie any favour, especially Lin Yun who played the titular mermaid character. She was an uninspired choice and watching her, you just can't get behind her because Chow just made her do faces that not only wasn't funny but was so unappealing that it hurt her.
The male lead in Deng Chao, who looks like a carbon copy of Harlem Yu, was probably the better actor but Chow did not do him any favours either. As for the rest of the cast, it's a wonder that they are actors to begin with.
The only one that escaped unscathed was Show Luo who actually was the only one that made me laugh, hard. Without his few short scenes this movie would have been worse.
Chow has become what George Lucas was in the Star Wars prequels. This weird fascination for using CGI has taken over so much that everything else became secondary. The flashback scene would have been served better had Chow went old school CGI completely, like Kung Fu Panda's for example. Instead this mixture of low-quality CGI inside a real life setting was just jarring.
Also, mermaids are creatures of the water. They are supposed to be able to swim with amazing speed and grace. Here, Chow just made everyone move like humans in flippers.
I very much regret spending my money on this movie, and this will be the last time I walk in to a Chow movie with giving him the benefit of the doubt.
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