Mermaid Legend (Ningyo densetsu)

Mermaid Legend is an age-old tale of developers wanting to take over an area of land, for their own money-making ventures. They don’t have much interest in who gets flattened in the meantime and woe betide any dissent or obstruction.

Not entirely oblivious to the developers’ plans are young couple Migiwa (Mari Shirato) and Keisuke (Jun Eto) who depend on the sea for a living. Its unsophisticated fishing with Migiwa bravely diving for abalone while Kei handles the boat and the line. Its hard but it’s a living and they enjoy each others company.

The developers meanwhile are looking to squeeze a deal and the fishing industry out of the way. Legal measures are proving too slow so there’s attacks on the boats one of which the unfortunate Keisuke witnesses and for which he is murdered.

Through a complicated contrivance Migiwa is accused of the murder of her husband. Though she is spirited away to an island where she takes up in the local brothel. Eventually the whole mess catches up with her leaving Migiwa no choice but to confront her husband’s killers and then some.

Made in 1984, rarely seen outside of Japan, Mermaid Legend is an exploitation film that maybe has a few more issues to discuss. However, that tends to get overshadowed by the ugly sex scenes, the general misogyny, and the inevitable blood bath with copious amounts of the red stuff all over the place during the last act.

The film looks gorgeous with some wonderful underwater photography. The pace is gentle studied apart from a few interludes of violence and seedy scenes of men abusing their positions with women.

Director, the late Toshiharu Ikeda and writer Takuya Nishioka try to inject some element of social insight with limited success as the overall tone of the film is one of exploitation, which is wilfully confirmed in the final sequence.

The supernatural element is quasi-religious involving a Buddha underwater though very sketchy and doesn’t play that much of role within the overall film narrative.

Mermaid Legend received its UK premiere on its 40th anniversary at the London Pigeon Shrine FrightFest, 24 August 2024