By David Dent
This beautifully restored 1984 movie, directed by Toshiharu Ikeda (who, five years later, would give us the wild ‘Evil Dead Trap’), takes the viewer from pastoral idyll to numbing bloodbath in the space of 100 astonishing but surprisingly lyrical minutes.
Keisuke (Jun Etô) and his new wife Migiwa (Mari Shirato) are fisherfolk; during the day Keisuke pilots the boat while Migiwa deep dives for abalone. In the evenings Keisuke and his mates get drunk and bewail their lot; their traditional fishing setup is being threatened by big business, who have alternative plans for the area.
When Keisuke witnesses a fellow fisherman, who has been critical of the encroachment by Ishiyoshi Construction, killed in a mysterious boat fire, he’s seen too much. The yakuza employed by the company target and murder him while Migiwa is diving from the boat, his wife sustaining injuries in the process.
Driven insane with grief and fury at what has happened, Migiwa drags herself ashore and vows vengeance on all those responsible – directly or otherwise – for the death of her husband. Assisted by Keisuke’s friend Shohei (Kentarô Shimizu) she hides out on Watakano island, which hosts a network of brothels for the benefit of visiting businessmen, and hatches a plan for revenge.
As a title ‘Mermaid Legend’ suggests something lyrical and dreamlike, and for the first third of the film this is pretty much the case. Water features heavily in the movie, as a means of income but also a hiding place and, later, the means of death. Migiwa’s decline from demure and tolerant wife to blood soaked vengeance demon sees her using her body first as a means to set up her plan, and later as a physical extension of that revenge; it’s an extraordinary performance from Shirato, and without her intense presence the movie would have been a lesser thing.
While Ikeda is careful not to apply any direct supernatural emphasis in his film, there is a suggestion of otherworldly intervention via a Buddha statue that may assist Migiwa in her trail of destruction, and indeed something very strange the character’s seeming immortality. The director allows both Migiwa’s vindication and redemption, but by the end of the film we’re fairly sure she’s earned it.
Bloody Flicks 