Mermaid Got Married (1994)



	Mermaid Got Married		Return to Review Archive - M
	Year:	1994	Ekin Cheng gets that sinking feeling
	Director:	Norman Law Man
	Producer:	Clarence Fok Yiu-Leung
	Cast:	Christy Chung Lai-Tai, Dior Cheng Yee-Kin (Ekin Cheng), Takeshi Kaneshiro, Kent Cheng Juk-Si, Teresa Mak Ka-Kei, Yuen King-Tan, Lau Siu-Ming, Dennis Chan Kwok-San
	The Skinny:	A harmless but muddled Hong Kong take on Splash.
	Review by Kozo:	Mermaid Got Married is the Splash-like tale of a beautiful mermaid (Christy Chung) who loses her pearl when she saves high school teacher Dior Cheng from drowning. It turns out she also saved him when they were both kids (a direct lift from Splash) so there's an immediate connection between the two. Unfortunately, the pearl is the source of her power so she follows him onto land. While landlocked, the two they fall in love but trouble is around the corner. Scheming student Kiki (Teresa Mak), feels threatened because her boyfriend Kenji (Takeshi Kaneshiro) takes a liking to the affable, attractive Christy. Things get worse when the usual greedy profiteers (led by principal Kent Cheng and teacher Yuen King-Tan) set out to capture Christy, intending to use her for their own dastardly purposes. A somewhat charming film, it unfortunately suffers from a lack of story or direction, and a lot of the emotional tugs are more like pokes than anything. It’s nice to watch Christy Chung with a fishtail, but Takeshi Kaneshiro is underused and Dior Cheng is at his least charismatic. Worse, the happy ending is designed for audience satisfaction but does so through a total lapse of logic that leaves the audience confused. A must for Christy Chung fans, but not crucial for anyone else. (Kozo 1996)


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