Archive Talks: The Mermaid
- This is a past program
Part of the UCLA Film & Television Archive screening series Archive Talks. Register at cinema.ucla.edu/events to attend this in-theater screening.
In-person: Julie A. Turnock, associate professor of Media and Cinema Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
The deliriously silly energy of Hong Kong writer-director Stephen Chow’s musical action comedy The Mermaid helped propel it into the history books as the highest-grossing film in China. Crucial to sustaining the madcap anarchy of its story about a band of mermaids fighting to save their ocean home from a billionaire developer is the wild style of its visual effects. Fins fly, tentacles writhe and bodies—human and otherwise—are flung about in defiance of physics–and ILM’s influence over effects aesthetics. Neither “bad” nor “wrong,” Chow’s approach offers a counterpoint to the relentless realism of the standard modern blockbuster.
(DCP, color, in Mandarin with English subtitles, 94 min. Director: Stephen Chow. Screenwriters: Fung Chih-chiang, Stephen Chow, Ivy Kong Hing-Ka, Chan Tsang Kan-cheong, Si-Cheun Lee, Ho Miu-Kei, Lu Zhengyu. With: Lin Yun, Deng Chao, Kitty Zhang.)
ATTENDING THIS PROGRAM?
Ticketing: Admission to Archive screenings at the Hammer is free. Your seat will be assigned to you when you pick up your ticket at the box office. Seats are assigned on a first come, first served basis. Box office opens one hour before the event. Questions should be directed to the Archive at programming@cinema.ucla.edu or 310-206-8013.
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