Duyung (Mermaid) is a Malaysian fantasy comedy film set around a water village where a regular guy named Jimmy encounters a mermaid because of his pure-of-heart attitude and passion for keeping the environment clean. The mermaid, who's named Puteri is played by the very lovely Maya Karin. Jimmy and Puteri develop a friendship, which is threatened by people with no care for the environment and eventually want to capture Puteri for their own gain.

It's a rather small story that is limited in scope and humour but has two things going for it: the natural water village setting, which is tailor-made for mermaid stories though not used as much and makes for a nice, plus Maya Karin, who has made a career playing scary and/or exotic characters, and brings to Puteri an otherworldly edge. She rarely blinks, tilts her head like a bird, and her open smile is really creepy (I half expected her to start eating poor Jimmy) and when she speaks, it sounds like she's struggling with the words. Has there been a mermaid before who spits water in greeting? It's easy to believe that Puteri is a creature not of the mortal realm. This mermaid also does not gain legs at any point, which is also a nice differentiating touch.

There are a couple of underwater scenes that are beautiful for their being filmed in the tropical ocean, though again limitations in scope, safety and time mean that the scenes are mostly in the shallows. Maya certainly gives her all, though.

Sixteen years after the original, Duyung got a sequel with Duyung: Legenda Aurora (Mermaid: The Legend of Aurora). Putri and her friend Jimmy are reunited under less-than-auspicious circumstances because Putri's daughter Aurora (Anna Jobling) has been kidnapped by people who want to sell her on the black market. As it so happens, Jimmy's son Dash is in love with Aurora, and he teams up with Aurora's brother Hamlau (Syaiful Zero) to find and save Aurora.

Unlike the original film which was more self-contained, a decent chunk of Legenda Aurora is a road trip story with Dash, Hamlau and Ajak (a new friend they make along the way) getting up to shenanigans as they search for Aurora and cross the villains that try to stop them. While Putri is a permanent mermaid, her children Aurora and Hamlau have the ability gain legs because they once saved a magical starfish when they were children.

The tails look significantly different from the first film, with flatter cloth-like bodies but much more elaborate fins at the end that do look nice in water, though there's not as much of that, plus some portions in the film use generative AI for some underwater bits. Aurora and Hamlau are also able to communicate with telepathy when they're in close enough proximity, and they have certain other abilities to do with the ocean.