THE TREASURE HUNTER review
Kevin Chu's The Treasure Hunter is, in essence, a twelve-year-old boy's imagination dropped into a tumble dryer, a mish-mash of pre-adolescent wish-fulfilment, influences pulled out of a hat and an conveyor belt of token genre trappings - the fast car, the gadgets, the girl - the filmmakers don't seem to know what to do with.
It can be fun, in the same way it can be genuinely entertaining listening to a child describe how given half a chance they could make the greatest film ever, but Jay Chou's latest big-screen adventure doesn't so much jump the shark as ride it whooping into orbit, over and over until for all the goodwill its sense of fun engenders, the whole thing still starts to drag.
The mainland superstar takes the lead as Qiao Fei, a laconic Indiana Jones stand-in who's made it his life's work to foil grave-robbers looking to plunder archaeological sites for valuable relics as yet undiscovered. An ex-girlfriend of his, Lan Ting (Lin Chi-Ling, Red Cliff), author of a book on the mythical Lost City, has attracted the attention of one such gang of thieves convinced either she or her father knows precisely where it is along with the secret to the fortune hidden inside.
Cue multiple plotlines criss-crossing back and forth, with Qiao Fei and Hua, the leader of the thieves (mainland star Chen Dao-Ming, Hero, Infernal Affairs II) both revealed to have some mysterious connection to the Lost City and the news the treasure houses an ancient curse said to claim the lives of whoever goes looking for it.
To be fair to the director, The Treasure Hunter does at least lay its cards on the table fairly early on - this is popcorn indulgence, pure and simple, with little pretension to being anything else. When the first setpiece proper bursts into a flurry of obvious commercial wire-fu and follows this up within minutes with a fanfare of comically over-the-top fantasy CG it's hard not to buy at least in part into the general sense that anything goes.
Unfortunately The Treasure Hunter actually begins with a recounting of part of its nonsensical, underdeveloped backstory, and the constant thought that anyone is actually trying to take this seriously hangs over the rest of the film to the point it efficiently scuppers the audience's best efforts to play along. For all the childlike glee to be had out of watching The Treasure Hunter attempt to outdo itself every five minutes, ultimately it's all simply too much, delivered far too straight-faced.
Too often, also, Chu simply isn't a good enough director to lift the material above straight down the line. There are moments where The Treasure Hunter genuinely impresses, for all its obvious green-screen fakery, and Ching Siu-Tung's choreography does manage the odd nod to Hong Kong's golden age, but by and large everything blurs into generic mediocrity.
The cast are no help, for all the talent lined up. Chou's usual sleepy nonchalance means his character conveys an air of bemused indifference and Lin Chi-Ling, surprisingly effective in Red Cliff, is wasted here, most of her screen time spent playing the flower vase. Chen Dao-Ming and Eric Tsiang as his comic relief do little more than chew their way through the scenery.
There's barely any point at which The Treasure Hunter actually comes alive. The effects fail to leave any lasting impression, whatever artistry they manage; either the fight scenes lack any real impact or the CG flatly doesn't convince. The narrative either glosses over important events or puts far too much faith in scant details. We're clearly supposed to buy into Qiao Fei's past and how it relates to the history of the Lost City, but this is given no grounding in anything remotely human, the script content to let any number of questions slide without even a cursory answer. The film is obviously trying to humanise the villains, but Hua's last-minute revelation is equally tissue-thin, there and gone without a backward glance, let alone any foreshadowing.
While not a terrible film, The Treasure Hunter is simply grindingly average - potentially impressive in small doses, but never amounting to anything more than fluff in the long run. Jay Chou's ardent fans will no doubt flock to it in droves, but while it might provide some brief amusement to anyone after some undemanding blockbuster entertainment from the mainland, it's still impossible to recommend.
