Mermaid Legend

1984 [JAPANESE]

Crime / Drama / Horror

13
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 80%
IMDb Rating 7.0/10 10 760 760

rape widow married couple fisherman nuclear power plant revenge

Director

Toshiharu Ikeda Photo
Toshiharu Ikeda

Top cast

Yoshirô Aoki Photo
Yoshirô Aoki as Terumasa Miyamoto
Takashi Kanda Photo
Takashi Kanda as Lawyer Hanaoka
Kentarô Shimizu Photo
Kentarô Shimizu as Miyamoto Shouhei
Mari Shirato Photo
Mari Shirato as Migiwa Saeki
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
1006.47 MB
988*720
Japanese 2.0
NR
us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 49 min
Seeds ...
1.82 GB
1472*1072
Japanese 2.0
NR
us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 49 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by christopher-underwood 8 / 10

And how!

Of course it is a revenge thriller but there so much more and something very different. A little slow at the start but it is rather lovely as the pearl divers go over those little boats and down into the blue water. The beautiful Mari Shiranto is in trouble and after the sorrow and sadness there will be retribution. And how! She is really good in this and Toshiharu Ikeda so well controlled, especially in the water and when the lovely lady is killing mood. I also liked Ikeda in Angel Guts: Red Porno (1981) and Angel Dead Trap (1988) and with this one in-between.
Reviewed by DanTheMan2150AD 8 / 10

A cautionary parable for man's true acquiescence to the natural world

Toshiharu Ikeda's elemental and mythical adaptation of Takashi Ishii's Angel Guts manga, Mermaid Legend, evokes a lyrical sadness for the fading way of life of seafaring fishermen and ama divers. One that starts as a relatively tender study of grief but shifts dramatically in the latter half to become an absolutely brutal exploitation blood-drenched angel of vengeance and yet, despite those exploitation tendencies, it also channels the intense anti-nuclear sentiment of the decade. An eco-thriller that finds the incursive grasp of industrialisation and corporate greed encroaching on natural realms. Ikeda directs a film that begins a presentation lingering somewhere between the realistic and the idyllic, almost artful in several scenes but it's not long before the film shows its true colours, which are essentially bathed in the red of blood. Mari Shirato gives an astonishing performance as Migiwa, managing to capture everything from sorrowful and vulnerable as much as vengeful and unstoppable, a real shame she wasn't in more. Combined with a truly haunting piano score by Toshiyuki Honda, Mermaid Legend remains a brooding requiem for loss, a cautionary parable for man's true acquiescence to the natural world.
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