Zhang Yuqi has a welcome appetite for bold parts, but she has not always been given much to play. The Mermaid is worth seeing, though its greedy antagonist tells us too little about what Zhang can do.
Fi1m perspective
In The Mermaid (2016), Zhang Yuqi’s Ruolan has greed and heels, and scarcely anything else to play. Stephen Chow needs an antagonist, and the writing gives her little opportunity to be more than that. Her willingness to play boldly suits a comedy this broad, but it cannot make the part more interesting. We recommend the film for its silliness and comic timing, with reservations about its lurch into grimness. We would be wary of treating Ruolan as a fair measure of what Zhang can do.
Chow had introduced her as the young teacher Miss Yuen in CJ7 (2008), a markedly different assignment from Ruolan’s predatory businesswoman. The intervening work matters more than a simple account of discovery and reunion would suggest. In Wang Quan’an’s White Deer Plain (2012), she took the demanding lead role of Tian Xiao’e in a literary adaptation. Peter Chan’s Dearest (2014) gave her Fan Yun, a mother who has lost a child. Those roles asked her to handle sensuality and distress, and give us good reasons to look beyond her association with Chow.
The reunion in The Mermaid revived her film career, though the film itself is hardly generous to its supporting players. Chow keeps stopping the jokes to show the harm done by sonar, and each interruption makes the comedy harder to resume. We sat with our shoulders up around our ears as the film turned grim, because it had pushed aside the silliness that made it enjoyable. In that setting, Zhang’s job is largely to make the villainy unmistakable, with little room for the dramatic work suggested by her parts for Wang and Chan.
Chen Kaige’s fantasy mystery Legend of the Demon Cat (2017) gave her Chunqin, another role away from the director who introduced her. Not all of that work is persuasive: The Golden Monk (2017) belongs among her less convincing comic outings. Put Dearest beside The Mermaid for a fuller introduction than Chow’s businesswoman can provide.
Biography
Zhang Yuqi, also credited as Kitty Zhang, is a Chinese actress. She trained at the Affiliated Chinese Opera School of Shanghai Theatre Academy and made her screen debut in an uncredited role in the 2007 film The Longest Night in Shanghai. She was discovered by Stephen Chow after appearing in a Kentucky Fried Chicken advertisement.
Zhang is known for her roles in Chow's films CJ7 (2008), in which she played Miss Yuen, and The Mermaid (2016), as Ruolan. Her other film credits include Dearest (2014) and Legend of the Demon Cat (2017). She has also appeared in television series.
