At first, I thought this film was another "Jaws" clone, and I wasn't interested. Then I saw the trailer, and the film looked more like a nature documentary combined with a bit of an adventure tale which appealed to me so I went to see it with Steph and some of our friends.
About 40% of the film was nature documentary, and there was a lot of gorgeous film. The guy who made the film is an underwater cameraman and he has shot lots of footage of sharks in the wild, including schooling of hammerhead sharks which has rarely been seen before. It was stunning. The guy obviously loved sharks and tried his best to persuade the audience to like them too. One of the most interesting things I learned was that sharks can sense electromagnetic fields (which I knew) but to such an extent that they can sense whether a person is excited or anxious. Apparently, most of the sharks he filmed were so shy that they wouldn't come near him unless he kept super-calm and lowered his heart rate to 30 or 40 beats per minute. That's pretty cool.
The other 60% of the film was a documentary explaining about how we humans are rapidly wiping sharks of the face of the Earth :( We have reduced global shark populations to 10% of what they were 30 or 40 years ago, and will probably drive them to extinction in the near future. And we are doing all this for the stupidest of reasons - for their fins. Shark fins are eaten in a soup and are considered a fine delicacy, even though they are tasteless and only add texture. They are also made into medicines because people think that sharks never get sick and in particular don't get cancer. There is no medical evidence to support any benefits to consuming shark fins, and in actual fact they do get cancer and the numbers are on the rise thanks to pollution of the oceans. The sharks are caught on long lines (which also catch and kill lots of other animals such as endangered species of turtle), have their fins hacked off whilst they are still alive, and then they are thrown back into the sea to bleed to death and drown. Sickening.
Anyway this is supposed to be a mini review. Overall this film was great but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it because frankly it was pretty harrowing in places. I strongly urge you to go see it though - maybe thanks to this film and the people who made it, sharks might still have a chance.
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