Synopsis
After a woman is framed for the murder of her fisherman husband, she seeks out a bloody revenge on the corrupt businessmen responsible.
Mermaid Legend
1984 ‘人魚伝説’ Directed by Toshiharu Ikeda
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Alternative Titles
La légende de la sirène, Ningyo densetsu
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OMG. Thank you @elrickkane for turning me on to this film. What a find. Probably will be my #1 discovery of '22.
I'm not sure if this film influenced films like Revenge, Lady Vengeance or even Spring Breakers but it sure seems like it did.
Going to begin exploring the filmography of Toshiharu Ikeda. Starting with a rewatch of Evil Dead Trap.
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A truly extraordinary murder/revenge movie from Toshiharu Ikeda, the director of Evil Dead Trap 1 (and also this fun Roman Porno). Most of this movie plays out like a solemn drama. It is serene and has some gorgeous cinematography. Then the final 20 minutes happen, and it is absolute carnage. It becomes Blood Spray: The Movie.
Just fabulous!
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One of those movies that you absolutely need to go in blind and I’m so glad I did because nothing could’ve prepared me for it. I thought this was gonna be some August in the Water type deal and indeed it was: slow, meditative, almost a vibe-only experience but minus the boring because August in the Water is the most boring movie ever made; so around the one-hour mark when it all of a sudden EXPLODES into utter insanity and extremity I was legit shocked. The ending is literally unhinged and if I only showed you the opening and final 10 minutes you would never in a billion years guessed they were from the same movie. And not in a…
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The last 30 minutes of this is some of the most cathartic shit I've ever seen out of most revenge films. Also with some genuinely great performances, cinematography and a beautiful score. Other than a dragged out, Male gazy sex scene I found this to be fantastic.
More proof that water films are amazing
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Toshiyuki Honda’s score perfectly captures the melancholy of the ocean, teasing the tragedy that follows. Have you ever described a performer as being brave? They are cowards when compared to the choices and trust that Mari Shirato displays.
Mermaid Legend will lead you into deep waters... and leave you there.
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O m g 😢
The gentle wistful theme music perfectly sets the mood in this beautiful oceanic fable that effectively illustrates the real-world implications of the 'mermaid' mythos. A fisherman is murdered by a conspiring corporate cabal and his wife Migiwa becomes a spiritual warrior, purifying the stain of injustice upon his body with a Buddhist ritual on the beach, then goes in search for blood, training her harpoon on the swine responsible in a final rage-apocalypse of vengeance. "It's supposed to end with the killing" says Migiwa, but the double-standard world of corporatist greed knows no conscience.
This absolutely floored me. More people need to see this.
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Ganbou-Ki. Economic. Beautiful aquatic imagery. Otherworldly music. Like looking for vengeance in a never-ending water world. Pulp and art united together. Everything just gets raised further and further before it happened. Contemplative to... something else. Nature and elements forever. You must watch this blind. Blood and rain are the same. A legend clothed in white that has one of the finest finales of pure chaos (release) and water ichor.
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Before Toshiharu Ikeda dropped the gore-drenched anvil Evil Dead Trap on us in 1988, he branded the world with this dreary vision of passionate revenge.
More of a brutal drama than outright exploitation banger, we're given a drawn out tale of a woman seeking revenge on the heartless industrial enterprise that killed her fisherman husband over a greedy land dispute.
Mermaid Legend really takes its time building towards that climax of justice though, unfortunately resulting in an hour of slow-burn meandering with a couple uncomfortable sex scenes. Once the first of many is slaughtered directly after that aforementioned rough sex, blood sprays vigorously throughout the room, signalling a brooding descent into cathartic destruction.The last 20 minutes erupted into one…
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killing is supposed to wrap things up ... but no matter how many i kill, they just keep coming.
placid waters slowly churned into something dense and mystical — in the end this is a lot closer to jean rollin than i was expecting, with ikeda yielding the frame to shirato mari (giving a performance almost trancelike in its intensity) the same way rollin let his actresses engulf his compositions. in this light the relatively pokey first half is essential in building up our expectations of how migiwa acts, how she moves and interacts with people but as she is possessed by something beyond the physical world — starting with a wonderfully nasty stabbing — the camera becomes frenzied, barely…
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Absolutely ridiculous film. Insane. This is one of those films that go from 0-100 outta nowhere. Don’t wanna say much without spoiling it but this is easily one of the most cathartic vengeance films I’ve seen in a while. I love how long, violent and satisfying the revenge scenes are. I love how more and more animalistic and unhinged the main character Migiwa becomes. I loved that absolutely jaw-droppingly surreal finale that probably made Abel Ferrara’s jaw drop.
The pinku sex scenes may have been a little awkward and choppy, and some parts of the build up may have dragged, but man everything else about this completely made it up for me. And that score will be stuck in my head all weekend.
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Everytime she is thrown into the ocean, the ocean spits her back out. It is not her time yet. There is still much blood to be spilled. Her life may be forfeit, but the gods have deemed her cause just and so revenge shall be hers.
What follows is an almost meditative experience. And then, before the finale, she prays for a storm. For chaos. It comes, but it is delivered by her hand, and in the most beautifully brutal fashion.
It is only then that the ocean finally accepts her.