Our hapless hero \u2014 they\u2019re always hapless, aren\u2019t they \u2014 has invented a new propulsion system that wouldn\u2019t hurt the mermen. But it\u2019s also slower and more expensive, so his boss demotes him from the research and development department to his deckhand. It\u2019s a rough day for poor Stefan (\u014cji Suzuka), and that\u2019s before the King Neptunus (Kenta Miyake) hits his boss\u2019s boat with a giant destructive wave, and the king\u2019s daughter ChaO (Anna Yamada) drags him under the waves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, all of a sudden everyone\u2019s Stefan\u2019s best friend, because at some point while he was unconscious he got engaged to ChaO. He doesn\u2019t know her, he doesn\u2019t love her, and he isn\u2019t attracted to fish people, but the marriage will finally forge a union between the surface-dwellers and the fish folk, so he\u2019s forced to along with it. <\/p>\n\n\n
![\"Kazunari](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Exit-8-Kazunari-Ninomiya.jpg?fit=300%2C169&quality=89&ssl=1\")
\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\u2018Exit 8\u2019 Review: A Freakily Liminal Horror Movie That Gives Video Game Adaptations a Good Name<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
ChaO usually presents as a great big fish, adorable and childlike, but when merpeople trust a human, they let that human see them as they really are. So as Stefan gets to know her, and gradually falls in love with her, he sees the gorgeous, blue-haired, slightly more anatomically compatible mermaiden for who she really is. It\u2019s a visual metaphor that\u2019s always fraught \u2014 and summons unpleasant memories of \u201cShallow Hal\u201d \u2014 but \u201cChaO\u2019s\u201d insistence that Stefan only sees the half-human version of his wife when she trusts him, and not when he\u2019s being superficial, takes the edge off what could have been a painful, hacky trope.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The love story between Stefan and ChaO is amusingly contrived, like an early Ernst Lubitsch rom-com about marrying royalty and figuring out the emotional connection later. Ironically, since Stefan\u2019s the one way outside of his comfort zone, it\u2019s ChaO who has to move into his humble human abode, innocently preparing him live electric eels for breakfast and accidentally setting fireworks off in their house. Yes, she really is a fish out of water. I\u2019d pause for laughter but it barely qualifies as a joke. It\u2019s just what\u2019s actually happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yasuhiro Aoki\u2019s film could have stayed grounded (sigh) but \u201cChaO\u201d is set in such an outlandish world that it\u2019s easy to stay dazzled. Stefan doesn\u2019t have much family but he does live with a robotics expert who makes alarm clocks that slap you in the face until you wake up, and also afterwards. Eventually a mermaid will rock a giant mech suit, and no matter how odd the rest of the movie was beforehand, it\u2019s still a wild image. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s so much visual ingenuity on display that \u201cChaO\u201d quickly overwhelms its own, relatively simple story. It doesn\u2019t help that Hanasaki Kino\u2019s screenplay does all the heavy lifting with Stefan and ChaO\u2019s relationship in the final act, so for a long time Stefan mostly flounders, making a total (b)ass of himself. It\u2019s hard for \u201cChaO\u201d to win us back over, to the point that we actually want them to stay together at the end, but the filmmakers make it work. If nothing else, there\u2019s so much manic energy in the climax that we don\u2019t have time to put up our defenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Whether the love story completely works or not, \u201cChaO\u201d is such a visual wonder that it hardly matters. It\u2019s a lush and emotional and, despite the sugar-addled intensity Yasuhiro Aoki crams into every scene, oddly inviting. It\u2019s a pretty wonderful world. And granted, the seaweed is always greener in somebody else\u2019s lake, but it\u2019s easy to dream about wandering around there. That\u2019s not a big mistake. Just look at the world around now, on land and the ocean floor. Such wonderful things abound in \u201cChaO.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What more are you looking for?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“ChaO” is now playing in select theaters.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n
![\"Phoebe](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thewrap.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Thrash-Phoebe-Dynevor.jpg?fit=300%2C169&quality=89&ssl=1\")
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