On a mission: Shan, a mermaid with a pure soul, is sent by her people to kill a tycoon.

With a distinctive style of comedy that has entertained cult followers for more than 20 years, Stephen Chow takes a jab at greedy companies that have ruined the environment in his latest sci-fi comedy flick The Mermaid.

In The Mermaid, Chow is fully behind the camera both as co-producer and a director. Nevertheless, old school fans of Chow'€™s classic films, such as The Flirting Scholar (1993), From Beijing With Love (1994) and A Chinese Odyssey (1995), can clearly sense the presence of Chow'€™s comedic touch and soul in almost every scene.

Chow'€™s comedic style and narration are unique and can be so disturbingly twisted that they can make people laugh while at the same feel bad at what they are watching.

To cross beyond the borders of misogyny and political correctness are not taboo for Chow in delivering his narrative, yet he always manage to stretch this kind of style to its maximum limit and make his jokes and punch lines hit all the right spots.

Chow loves to torture his main characters, especially women, in his comedies. From his early days producing comedies for the Hong Kong market to his international rise to stardom with Kung Fu Hustle (2004), fans and audience have seen how female characters in his films have suffered immense physical and mental abuse yet, in his own unique way of storytelling, he always manages to trigger laughter from these endless presentations of misogynistic narratives.

It should be noted, however, Chow'€™s comedy is never about the glorification of misogynistic behavior. He subtly conveys condemnation toward patriarchy and the shallowness of the '€œmacho'€ way of thinking embedded in the minds of narrow-minded men.

While Chow likes to showcase outrageous comedic abusive narratives toward women, he also constantly displays male characters that usually carry a hidden tragic burden behind a comical persona.

In The Mermaid, Chow introduces the story of a self-made tycoon, Liu Xuan (Deng Chao).

Xuan used to be so poor that even when his father brought him one-third of a chicken leg, he thought it was the most delicious and most divine delicacy in the whole world. Being poor, young Xuan promised he would work so hard to reach the top and become a very rich man.

Xuan eventually makes it to the top and becomed one of the richest capital venture barons in China. In his latest venture, he spends tens of billions to purchase a large chunk of land on a bay and plans to reclaim the surrounding sea to develop a wide variety of properties, including houses, apartments and amusement parks.

Partnering with the evil property baroness Ruolan (Yuqi Zhang, who is excellent as a seductive egocentric femme fatale), Xuan hires scientists to develop a sonar technology that disturbs the protected animal species living in the sea so that the government can grant them permission to reclaim the area.

What Xuan does not realize is that the seawaters also host the mysterious mermaid race. Enraged by Xuan'€™s plan to reclaim the area and disrupt the surrounding environment, the mermaids send Shan (Yun Lin) to go undercover as a land female, seduce Xuan, and then assassinate him.

Enraged: Octopus (Show Luo) is enraged when he finds out Shan is in love with Xuan.

What should have been a simple mission becomes complicated when Shan falls in love with Xuan. Despite an awkward first meeting, Shan manages to make Xuan go on a first date with her and here, she learns about the other side of a man that she and her fellow mermaid kin despise.

While Xuan has grown to become a man who is morally incapable of looking beyond money, Shan sees in him a man who is actually lonely at the top. On the other hand, Xuan also learns from Shan about the beauty of the simple life and other kinds of happiness that cannot be bought by money.

Chow presents most of his comedic spark through the interactions between Xuan and Shan. As usual, of course, the Shan character suffers the most abuse, delivered in an exaggerated comical style that only Chow can successfully deliver.

In other parts of Chow'€™s comedic narrative, he utilizes eclectic dialogue, twisted and witty comedic scenes and outrageously exaggerated parodies of classic Chinese opera. These enrich the film to become something more than a shallow slapstick comedy. There is a strong moral undercurrent on greed and the environment and Chow delivers it marvelously.

Like in Chow'€™s previous films, he also does not forget to add in a little bit of drama and tragedy. In The Mermaid, Chow does not hesitate to present a very brutal scene of the purge of the mermaids by Ruolan'€™s goons. The dramatization also helps Chow to add more layers to each main character, making the movie more enjoyable to watch.

It is a pity, however, that after a great build-up toward the tragic love story between a human and a mermaid, Chow chooses to play it safe toward the end, making The Mermaid another fine yet less gutsy work from Chow.

'€” Photos Courtesy of Sony Pictures

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The Mermaid
(Sony Pictures, 94 minutes)

Directed : Stephen Chow
Produced Stephen Chow
Cast: Deng Chao, Yuqi Zhang, Yun Lin, Kris, Tsui Hark