An extremely silly movie that falls back on the ol’ “villainous developers destroying old beloved thing to build new thing for rich people” plot. In this case, the lead evil developer Liu Xuan (Chao Deng, the albino from Detective Dee) is convinced to halt his project and save the mermaid community after falling for mer-Shan (“Jelly” Lin), but his partners (led by his girlfriend, CJ7‘s Kitty Zhang) double down on the mermaid-killing and Liu has to stop them.

Mermaid attack:

Effects-filled fantasy with interspecies love and a strong environmental message becomes the highest-grossing movie in the country – so this is China’s Avatar. Fun movie, valuable less for its story than its random jokes and fun side characters.

Octopus (Show Lo of Journey to the West):

Framing-story scam artist (Yang Neng):

Rich Guy With Jetpack (Jifeng Zheng):

Police Sketch Artist: