As the sailors said,if the mermaid kiss you,then you can breath underwater and she kissed him before dragging him to the water.Syrena and Philip loved each other ,she was not a mean mermaid who killed people.She was different because she even helped Philip dragging him to avoid he was hurt due to the explotion.
None of the mermaids helped anyone.She was a good mermaid and he fell in love with her because he considered her a beauty and different of the rest.
It was like love at first sight.
In a nutshell,Philip did not die,we can assume he went to the mermaid's kingdom altough it sounds weirdThat is like the final scene in the movie " 1,2,3 splash" with Daryl Hannah and Tom Hanks.Basically it happens the same thing and the guy doesnt die.
If you look closely,when the mermaid and Philip go under the water,you can see Philip hugging Syrena's body.It is not like his arms looked dead or he was fighting to go away from her.

Based on watching the film it seemed to me ( and this is just my opinion) there were three options as to what would happen if a mortal man encountered a mermaid.

1. She grabs you out of the boat and pull you under the water WITHOUT kissing you and thereby drown you and feed on your flesh which would explain their transformation into hideous creatures with sharp fang like teeth when angry.
2. She grabs you out of a boat and somehow carries you some place either to an island, or groto or lagoon to mate or as the sailor in the movie said "to churn butter" only to later murder you and feed on your flesh. If mermaids really are all female as that old sailor in the movie said they would need men to continue their species.
3. She kisses you ( as Syrene did with Phillip) thus giving you the ability to breathe underwater and takes you under the ocean with her. What happens to you after that is uncertain. Maybe she turns you into a merman, maybe she takes you to the flying Dutchman, maybe she brings you to her underwater dwelling only to murder you and feed on your flesh. Who knows? It seems based on the tone of the film that Syrene did care about Phillip and therefore kissed him to bring him under the ocean to save him so that they could be together. Personally I think living under the ocean 24/7 would be depressing. I love sunlight so much. If I were a mermaid I would have to be one like Syrene who can develop legs on dry land because I would literally spend 90% of my time on land in the sun and then ever so often go for a nice long swim.

I think she loved him, so whatever she did, it was a good thing. Probably made a merman out of him, gave him some ssA, and sent him on his way.

Lol it's really crazy but I couldn't recognize Sam until his name appeared in the credits and I saw Catching fire at least 5 times
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washed ashore in District 4 of Panem and became Finnick Odair.

This is what happened. Everything seemed happily ever after in an underwater sea kingdom, then her vengeful angry psycho bitch sea-sisters tore him to pieces and fed him to the sharks.
"I said no camels, that's five camels, can't you count?"

I thought he died.
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I just thought it was dumb that she grew legs. Apparently mermaids do that if they get on land. What the beep you prancing around in the water all the time for then? And if they're gonna do that, why do they eat people? People aren't native to oceans. What about fish? Can't be an effective hunting method that either, waiting for light to shine in the night as people are singing on a boat. Took goddamn forever for them to show up too. How are mermaids even made if there's no males?
Stupid mermaids.

.and was forced to stay at home raising the guppies.
that's pretty much why you never see any reference to mermen. they are all emasculated and home bound.

Thread ender.

I watched this movie for the first time today and I agree, Philip and Syrena's was my favourite plot line here. I was just fascinated by how they presented the mermaids in the first scene (when they gather around the pirates' boat) and then was extremely pleased to find a mermaid + human love story. I'd liked it too that the final revelation would be about them, but I can also appreciate the ambiguity.

Really? I thought he was a pain. Who needs a missionary in a pirate film? What the hell was that character supposed to be doing there? I hope they killed him off. He was so dull, when I think of the film I forget he was there. Something I consider the up side.

I hope that she saved him. He was the only likeable character in this movie.

There is no outcome in the film. We are assuming he is dead and or a merman. Either way, we hope that if there is another film, he's dead.

I think that most likely whatever happened to him was something positive but at the same time ambiguous to everyone else BUT him. I take it from the lore within the movie that what she did with him actually happened a lot and that the part about nobody ever seeing a man again who was taken by a mermaid to actually be true. She didn't put in so many words, but she kind of implied that once he made the choice to go with her, there was no going back
The negative outcome is what everyone else perceives it to be (the legend) because, of course, they never see him again. But what actually happens is something positive that we're only given a hint of.

Thank you for asking this because I was just about to post the same question. I really liked their sub story line. I hope they come back to them in a future installment.

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That's what I was wondering! It looked like she drowned him at first to take him to a better place, like he was already dying, but that didn't seem right. I missed the part about the "kiss" so I couldn't understand why they would do that. Now it all makes sense. It's really sweet.
I have to say that whole side story of Philip and Serena seemed almost out of place in the movie but it was still my favorite part.

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Lets see fish have outercourse as the female releases her eggs into the water and the male fertilizes them with his sperm. I think no "shaging" is involved in that. What is wrong with agreeing with the lore that mermaids are lying fiends that lead sailors to their doom? Are that many people desperate for a cross-species love story ;p.

He probably got to shag an incredibly beautiful mermaid but the film wasn't gonna show you that

I expected the after-the-credits scene be about them, actually. But instead they used a cliffhanger, or at least a plot device, for the upcoming movies.

she liked him. she said she could save him. so i assume she either turned him into a merman or somehow healed him by taking him underwater. or led him back to the cave for some healing water or something.
i wondered at first if the legends from the movies werent true about mermaids, that when they took a man underwater, it wasnt that they were killing them, but that they wanted them, so saved them by drowning them/kissing them or something like that. but then i remembered it did show the mermaids being very agressive and syrena did say something about him being different or something.

Excellent post, dabrauer.
"Couldn't care less" = "don't care at all"
"Could care less" = "care at least a little"

He had a Bl*OODY good fish supper!
Aren't they a vicious bunch of killers in this?
So what do you think!