Lu Over The Wall - Review

Angsty teen Kai finds solace from his drab fishing village, fractured family and sterile education system through the power of music. Some anonymous video postings of his works-in-progress are quickly found out by two of his classmates, who ask him to join their pop rock band. They decide to hold practice at a desolate island, which draws the attention of a boisterous ningyo, aka a Japanese mermaid, named Lu. This chance meeting turns into a tempestuous relationship that will eventually bring happiness and chaos to their lives and their little town. LU OVER THE WALL is the second of the two Asian animated imports this year with notable allusions to THE LITTLE MERMAID and Stephanie Sheh in a lead role but unfortunately it is the weakest one. Director/co-writer Masaaki Yuasa crams too much ambitious flourishes into this film and he's embarrassingly unable to keep a firm grasp at story or coherence. The animation on display produced by Science Saru is a wet and wild affair, with simple designed and crudely penciled characters overlaid on to realistic backgrounds before then shifting to extreme squash and stretch or blocky rotoscoping or Ghibli inspired majesty on a dime. The story starts off nice and easy but then quickly becomes untamable with time jumps, multiple side stories, scenes with characters we're supposed to know, and a completely random heel turn from a comedic figure. The film frankly falls apart in the third act with an overtly long and ultimately unrewarding climax. This culmination of events could have been remedied and have the usual uplifting feelers of an anime fantasy drama if the makers didn't jettison the main character to the sidelines for a long stretch and also forget about Lu herself as well. And it gets more troublesome once the smoke clears, the sun shines, and the sea rests easy because there's a confusing scramble of endings. How can I really be moved by a set emotion when the tearful goodbyes are mushed together with an ugly dance number, a meditative scope of the future, and a cheap joke? LU OVER THE WALL has the potential to be a okay time killer or a good enough alternate feature for kids to be appeased by but it seems weird to munch on the strained flesh of this mermaid tale when you have the superior taste in the form of PONYO.


FINAL REVIEW: 2 / 5