The Mermaid

La Sirena

2016 · People's Republic of China, Hong Kong · 100 min

Director: Stephen Chow
Screenplay: Stephen Chow
Producer: Stephen Chow
Music: Raymond Wong
Editing: Cheung Ka-fai
Production company: China Film Group Corporation

What the critics say

95 % Rotten Tomatoes positive reviews

Cast

Show Lo

Zhang Yuqi

Wen Zhang

Jiro Lee

Lin Yun

Zhengyu Lu

What it is about

Liu Xuan, a playboy property developer, buys a coastal wildlife reserve for a land reclamation scheme and uses sonar to clear the sea life out of the area. What he doesn't know is that the bay is home to a community of merfolk, who send Shan, a young mermaid trained to pass among humans, to seduce him and kill him. The assignment gets complicated once the two meet and a bond forms that neither of them had planned for.

How it was made

The story takes its starting point from Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid, but Stephen Chow wanted a modern take on the tale. According to the director, he developed the concept about six years before filming and began writing the script a few years later. Production was kept under wraps: the crew built the merfolk's underwater refuge inside an abandoned former glass factory in Shenzhen. Many scenes were reportedly shot more than fifty times to meet Chow's demanding standards, and he personally coached much of the cast. Lin Yun, who performed underwater wearing a safety harness, often suffered injuries and once nearly was left disfigured.

Reception and legacy

The film opened in China on 8 February 2016, breaking numerous box office records, including the biggest opening week of all time there. It became the highest-grossing Chinese film ever until Wolf Warrior 2 overtook it in 2017, and from 2016 to 2019 it was the highest-grossing non-English, non-Hollywood film worldwide. A sequel has reportedly completed filming.