The best revenge stories carry within themselves an intrinsic sense of the supernatural or the mystic. Some of the subgenre’s most classic examples, such The Crow or Oldboy, position “revenge” as an all-consuming and primal entity; those that enact it are driven by a power beyond themselves, and no true comfort can be found at the end of the tunnel. In simplified terms, these are stories of the snake devouring its own tail. Bloodlust only begets more bloodlust. “Killing is supposed to wrap things up,” Migiwa (Mari Shirato) laments towards the end of Mermaid Legend, director Toshiharu Ikeda’s criminally underseen 1984 revenge classic, “but no matter how many I kill, they just keep coming. There’s no end to it.” Outnumbered, exhausted, and drenched head-to-toe in the crimson blood of her enemies, Migiwa begs the sky to open up and end her relentless pursuit of retribution. At last, it begins to rain.
Although its title could be misleading, Mermaid Legend is not a fairy tale, at least not in the traditional sense. It is, unfortunately, rather hard to find. Upon initial release, the film won several awards at the Sixth Yokohama Film Festival, including Best Director, Best Actress and Best Cinematography. However, Ikeda’s directorial debut has fallen into relative obscurity, currently only available through select online streaming services (this critic located it on jpfilms.com). Despite this difficulty, the film is well worth seeking out, not just for its memorably blood-soaked finale, but for the graceful and atmospheric nature of Ikeda’s filmmaking. Four years later, he would go onto direct Evil Dead Trap, largely credited as Japan’s first “splatter film,” but Mermaid Legend remains his most justifiably celebrated work.
The “mermaid” of the film’s title, Migiwa is a skilled sea diver, married to an alcoholic fisherman named Keisuke (Jun Etô), with whom she ventures out daily to catch abalone as part of the local fishing trade. While at a bar with his friend, Shouhei (Kentarô Shimizu), Keisuke bemoans the persistent efforts of corrupt land developers to build an amusement park on their small town’s land. Later, while sleeping off a drunken night on his boat, he witnesses an explosive murder by unknown assailants, and promptly reports it to the police. These actions have a cost, however, and one day while Migiwa is diving, Keisuke is brutally murdered with a harpoon. Framed for his murder, she seeks refuge on a nearby island, aided only by Shouhei, whose father is responsible for the crime. Migiwa soon initiates a bloodthirsty campaign against the businessmen and yakuza who killed her husband.
After a methodical and pensive first hour, Mermaid Legend reaches its first extended sequence of merciless violence, which explodes off the screen in a burst of unromanticized brutality. No doubt, this is where most audiences will know whether or not the film is for them. Completely naked, Migiwa tussles with a yakuza member who she has taken up to bed under the guise of entertainment and stabs him repeatedly when it’s revealed that he’s been sent to kill her. Liters of blood spray across the room, soaking her until she’s bright red. It’s an upsetting sequence, partially for its gratuitousness, but also for the vulnerability of Migiwa’s position. Shirato’s performance is brave, both physically and emotionally revealing, though her nudity feels less exploitative than representative of the primal quality of her revenge. The ugliness of Ikeda’s violence is an appropriate contrast to the aesthetic beauty of what precedes it.
When Mermaid Legend isn’t exploding in fountains of blood, though, it possesses a unique beauty. A haunting jazz score underscores multiple underwater sequences in which Migiwa dives for abalone, and Ikeda evokes a wonderful atmosphere from his rural seaside setting that vastly elevates the film. Yonezō Maeda’s cinematography is artistically precise, framing Migiwa against the open ocean in shots where her hair whips through the wind in wild tendrils.
Before his murder, Migiwa and Keisuke’s relationship is portrayed with nuance and complexity. “What would you do if I died?” He asks, drunkenly. “I’d marry a man who doesn’t drink,” she responds, playfully. “If you do,” he retorts, “then I’ll haunt you to my dying day!” When Migiwa asks what he’d do if she died, Keisuke responds: “even if someone kills you, you wouldn’t die.” The exchange is both poetic and a presage of what’s to come.
Of course, the film culminates in an extended climax of bloodletting so over-the-top that it makes Lady Snowblood appear restrained in comparison. Dressed in a pure white kimono and armed with only a fishing spear, a crazed Migiwa follows Shouhei and his father to a business banquet to celebrate their land acquisition. Charging madly back and forth across a bridge, she stabs her way through the entire yakuza, leaving an endless pile of corpses in her wake. In contrast to the film’s prior depictions of violence, Ikeda’s direction becomes mystical since Migiwa’s endurance far outweighs that of any human being. The film’s starkness is undeniably powerful, and it’s easily one of the most memorably deranged movie climaxes ever put to screen. Yet, much like the rest of the film, it’s also unexpectedly poignant. Her revenge complete, Migiwa dives into the water, reemerging in the open ocean surrounded by fishing boats. Her husband is there, but there’s no land in sight. She’s become a creature of the sea.
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