Mermaid Legend — Mermaid Legend( Blu Ray)
Mermaid Legend is a mid-80s Japanese film that shifts from being a small fishing port set drama/ murder mystery, onto being a blood-spurting vengeance thriller, with slight fantasy/ supernatural undertones. It’s a decidedly tonally shifting affair-moving between the dramatic, laidback underwater mellowness, sleazy obnoxiousness, and seared brutality- it’s certainly an interesting/ intriguing mix of genres/ tone. Here from Third Window Films as part of their Director's Company Collection, which focuses on the legendary 1980s Japanese production company, is a recent Blu-Ray of the film, featuring a new scan of the film, a commentary track, a writer's interview, and a visual essay.
Mermaid Legend ( aka Ningyo Densetsu) is from the year 1984. It was directed by Yamagata, Japan born Toshiharu Ikeda- between 1980 and 2008, he had twenty-six credits to his name. These moved between lightly sleazy giallo, slasher and body horror crossbreed Evil Dead Trap (1988), crime thriller The Brutal Insanity Of Love (1993), 1950’s set sexualized drama The Key (1997), and a school teacher falls in love with a hostess drama Akifukaki (2008).
Mermaid Legend focuses on relatively newlyweds Migiwa( Mari Shirato), and Keisuke (Jun Etô). The pair live in a small fishing port and go fishing for pearls. She drives down with a rope, holds her breath, while he is on deck pulling her rope up- when low on air. The pair have a fairly bickering-based relationship- but clearly, they do love each other.
The town they live in is all a flutter with rumours of a leisure centre being built, and Keisuke and his drinking buddies are dead set against it. So there is certainly a split between those who want it and don’t.
One morning Migiwa and Keisuke set out to fish- the other local fishmen say they shouldn’t as it is a non-fishing day/ would be very bad luck to go out to sea- but the pair shrugged it off, still going out. Migiwa gets in a little trouble while driving- but Keisuke doesn’t respond…and the next thing we know, his dead body is thrown overboard. One thing leads to another, and Migiwa is wrongly accused of murder, so she flees to a nearby island to try and figure out who the guilty.
The first hour or so of the nearing one-hour and fifty-minute film goes from a mix of small-town drama and murder mystery. Then, when we and Migiwa get the island, it shifts more into a hiding away drama, before shifting through a few sexual encounters- with rather forced/ rape leaning before we dropping into the bloody/ brutal side of things- which move from vicious knife stabbing, and multiple spear impalements(!)
The cast is ok -to -mixed- for example, Migiw character arc is fairly well realised, though on the less impressive side is things Etô playing of a drunk is truly awful. The film plays around twenty/thirty minutes too long, with some of the dramatic interactions becoming very samey and bland. I always enjoy genre-blending/tonal-shifting films, but Mermaid Legend is a little too mixed to be wholly successful.
This recent Blu-ray is a region-free disc- the scan here looks clean and well defined throughout. With easy-to-read English subtitles.
On the extras, we have a small but decent selection of things. First is a new commentary track with genre experts/ writers Jasper Sharp and Tom Mes. They start by talking about how they have both been recording commentary tracks for twenty years now. They talk about Japanese films of the 80s in general, and how they differed from films of other decades. They touch on how the film at hand bridges the gap between arthouse and exploitation. They briefly talk about the history of Japanese pearl diving/ Ama, and how it appeared in films. They discuss the film's impressive sound design and the equally impressive underwater filming. We get a bio of lead actress Mari Shirato, finding out amongst other things that she came from a beauty pageant background. Later on, they discuss the work of director Toshiharu Ikeda, focusing on some of his more notable films. They talk about one of the film producers Susumu Miyasaka, and other notable films he was involved in. They discuss the location used in the film's finale, and more. It’s a nicely chatty track, with some interesting facts/observations along the way.
Otherwise, on the new side, we have a Video Essay on Toshiyuki Honda (19. 38) which finds James Balmont discussing the career of Honda, who scored the film. He moves from talking about the score to hand, moving onto discuss notable albums he’s released in the genre of jazz fusion, and his other soundtrack work- all in all, a most interesting/ informative extra, and I do hope we get to more extras from Mr Balmont
Lastly, we get an Interview archive with writer Takuya Nishioka( 29.58), and a trailer. The finished release has an insert with writing by Jasper Sharp, and a slip sleeve.
In finishing, Mermaid Legend is an intriguing mix of genres- yes, it’s a somewhat flawed/ uneven affair, but if you have an instrest in Japanese film that sits between arthouse and exploitation, it’s worth a look.