Rating: B-
Dir: Yan Jia
Star: Xu Dongdong, Huang Tao, Li Jingmu, Zhao Xin Tong
a.k.a. Man-Eating Fish
The Chinese title is 食人鱼, which according to Google Translate means Piranha. It wouldn’t be the first time China has knocked off a famous Western creature feature: remember Anaconda? The difference being, that did at least have something approaching an anaconda in it. This… does not. Eels? Sure. Something resembling a giant catfish on steroids? Definitely. But nothing you’d recognize as a piranha. I wondered whether the title on the poster (below) was a result of the Chinese characters potentially also being translated as “sharp teeth”? But I checked in with a friend who speaks Chinese, and he said, “The word by word translation is Eat Man Fish, or Man-Eating Fish. Obviously, more than one kind of fish eat human flesh…” So, here we are, until proven otherwise.
It takes place in a dodgy hotel run by gangster Niu Ye and his cronies. They take delivery of some very questionable black market sushi, consisting of both killer eels and the giant catfish. However, when the authorities investigate, Niu’s minions panic, releasing the eels into the hotel’s water supplies. Meanwhile, the resistance is led by a group of guests, including couple Zhang Shuo (Huang) and his girlfriend Liu Mengxiang (Xu). They take photographic evidence of the unauthorized aquatic livestock, which gets them abducted and tortured by Niu’s lead henchman (I don’t know who that actor is, but he’s perfect for the role, and highly creepy). Zhang and Mengxian’s fat idiot brother, Chang, are the only ones to escape capture. Though matters are complicated significantly when Minion #1 releases the kraken giant catfish.
This leads to the final act, where the survivors have to try and escape the hotel, while the monster rampages around the corridors. It’s remarkably athletic for a fish, climbing stairs and squeezing through doors. I think the animation may not be 100% consistent when it comes to size, shall we say. The image, top, makes it look comparable in size to a medium-sized fishing boat, but at other points it looks considerably smaller. This is quite an inventive creation; I feel the eels have their moments too, such as energetically rattling the lid of a toilet-seat. I was reminded a little there of Blood Lake: Attack of the Killer Lampreys, starring the late Shannen Doherty, RIP.
It is interesting that film also has elements of a crime thriller, and the mob presence is at least original, compared to the usual tropes of mad scientists and evil corporations which have become standards for the genre. It doesn’t quite do enough with these elements to justify them, though Zhao also makes a good impression as villainess Sister Gao. None of the heroic characters will particularly stick in the mind, and are largely there to act as fish food. On the other hand, none of them are particularly obnoxious either, and that’s certainly an improvement on some entries.
This review is part of our feature, When Chinese Animals Attack, and a hat-tip to Movies and Mania for pointing me to the film.