Director and actor Stephen Chow and singer Karen Mok attend the release conference for the promotional song of Chow's film "The Mermaid" in Beijing on Jan. 18, 2016. (Photo : Getty Images)
It seems that critics' negative comments on director Stephen Chow’s “The Mermaid” worked in favor of the movie, considered now the monster hit of the Lunar New Year movie season.
However, not all reviews of the movie were bad. According to HitFix, the chief Asian film critic of Variety praised the film and described it as “pure enchantment” because of the side-splitting slapstick scenes, but noted the screenplay is “not wildly original.”
After their New Year Eve’s dinner with the family, Chinese trooped to cinemas the following days after and watched the film with a strong environmental message masked by comedy.
Forbes reported that “The Mermaid” has earned $116 million in just three days. Given this trend, the film appears headed to break the box office record held by “Monster Hunt” which earned $391 million total because the comedy has high chances of reaching $250 million on its first week of run.
As it is, the movie had already broken opening day record with its box office of $40 plus million, to which another $36 million was added on Tuesday and $39 million on Wednesday. The astounding amounts was partly because the film was showing in more than half of China’s 32,000 movie houses.
Another factor was word-of-mouth endorsements as satisfied moviegoers shared their approval of the comedy film with an environmental message.
In contrast, the two other Chinese movies that opened at the start of the Spring Festival – “Man From Macau 3” and “The Monkey King 2” - earned in three days just half of “The Mermaid’s” box office at $65 million and $60 million, respectively.
A Global Times writer, however, pointed out that in spite of the sexual and violent themes of “The Mermaid,” which makes it not proper for young viewers in a Lunar New Year film exhibit, no one noticed even if the film was widely marketed through release of trailers in video-sharing and social media sites.
