In all fairness, it is not new to structure a movie with the theme of "big companies destroying the environment for profit", and in "The Mermaid", which has stripped away the specific geographical and spatial characteristics, "Qingluowan" and broken boats and seafood signs, playgrounds and roast chicken stalls, Yinghe co-stars Deng Chao, Zhang Yuqi, Lin Yun, etc., and becomes a fable with vague signifiers in space (physical, geographical, and even performative). Brother Unruly and the main planner of the reclamation plan, Liu Xuan (Deng Chao), is seduced by the mermaid Shanshan (Lin Yun), and behind Shanshan is a group of angry mermaids whose living environment has been destroyed by sonar devices. "-style killing behavior has been repeatedly performed, but it is difficult to execute because Shanshan fell in love with Liu Xuan.
This kind of story, in the hands of director Stephen Chow, is still a nonsensical comedy that is extremely funny and imaginative. From the jet aircraft to the avenger octopus disguised as a human being forced to cook its own claws. This kind of "non-choreography" embarrassing situation is too similar to the classic scenes of almost every household's works by Stephen Chow (whether acting or directing). Zhou's breath. However, in addition to being nonsensical, the almost undisguised and direct use of film scenes such as "Lust, Caution" seems to be a little powerless.
In fact, from the two passages of walking by the sea and letting go of Liu Xuan, it can be clearly seen that in addition to the continuous broadcasting of old-fashioned songs such as "Always Hello in the World" and the tribute expressions such as Zheng Shaoqiu's albums collected by the mermaid parents, The meaning borrowing of existing classic pop culture texts that existed in Zhou Xingchi's works in the past has become a pale and empty self-entertainment in "The Mermaid". Unlike "Kung Fu" or "Journey to the West, Conquering the Demons", which uses Cantonese fragments and meanings to structure the story, the tribute fragments appearing in "The Mermaid" basically have nothing to do with the progress of the story. The transformation of Duan, I believe that the discerning audience can see it without too much effort, from the creation of the situation (the temptation of the target who is about to be murdered into the house) to the visual language (Liu Xuan jumps into the water and Mr. Yi in Lust, Caution). Flying into the car is almost exactly the same) the full lineage, basically without much use of the brain, this is definitely an unprecedented inefficient intertextual attempt in Stephen Chow's films. While the bridges that trigger laughter from the audience include some highly actionable and well-designed comedy clips (such as Lin Yun’s assassination of Deng Chao’s failure and Deng Chao’s alarm, etc.), there are also many directly developed with genitals and gender differences as laughing points. The language stalks of the meat and jokes also make the characters in the film directly comment on the "feces and pee farts", which is unprecedented in the scale of Zhou's works released in the mainland. Its previous work "Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons" was only visual bloody violence, but in this one, it directly carried out the degrading thinking to the end. The relationship between Liu Xuan and Ruolan (Zhang Yuqi) is also bound by physical/economic ties throughout. Ruolan's control over Liu Xuan not only uses her own body, but also uses her investment in the development plan and her right to speak. In the end, he did not hesitate to go into battle in person and start killing the mermaid group. These are unexpected fast food narratives that were repeatedly produced in Hong Kong movies in the 1980s and 1990s. Repeatedly on the screen in 2016, brutal Simple, but seems to be very effective.
All in all, "The Mermaid" can basically be regarded as a failed self-replication of Stephen Chow as the director. The form is accepted as it is, but it does not have an effective interaction with the current era. On the contrary, it blindly emphasizes innocence but loses innocence. , tells a complete story but falls into a cliché, just like a set of men's clothes that Deng Chao wears most of the time in the film, which looks stylish and stylish, with an empty flower stand and nothing inside. Of course, interesting indexes such as "Japanese assistant alludes to Japan's hunting of dolphins" and "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" pays tribute to the dragon's career. Still the deification of Zhou as a stylized filmmaker. Of course we like genius, but blind superstition is also contrary to the spirit of genius itself that attracts us.
"Xinmin Weekly"
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