The Treasure Hunter

The Treasure Hunter is a Taiwanese adventure movie strongly in the vein of the Hollywood adventure flick ‘The Mummy’. And it sucks. Treasure Hunter has an identity crisis. It doesn’t know what it’s about. Or, more specifically, it doesn’t know who it’s about. It tells several different small stories within the same brief narrative, never really bothering to flesh any of them out and constantly shifting focus between its multiple bland characters. At one point the movie seems to forget completely what its own plot is, with the central ‘treasure hunt’ being underwhelming and almost sorting itself out.

So what’s it all about? And who is it all about?  There’s Lan Ting, a woman authoring a book on desert legends whose father was a famous archaeologist. Her book details the legend of a hidden city holding a glorious treasure in the desert and the mysterious guardian clan that protects it. She’s kidnapped by treasure hunters led by the greedy Pork Rib, who wants to use her expertise and knowledge to decipher a map that supposedly leads to the hidden desert treasure city. Hua Dingbang, a famous archaeologist, joins them. His deal is that he led a former expedition to find the hidden city that ended in failure and the deaths of all his friends and now he has survivor’s guilt.

Then there’s Qiaofei, a treasure hunter/tomb raider who lives in a desert outpost and uses kung-fu to resolve disputes and fight the supernatural. Qiaofei was also childhood friends with Lan Ting so they do the whole ‘romance’ thing with the two. He’s hired to protect her/help her find the hidden city. Then there’s the Sandstorm Legion, the guardian clan who protects the desert and the treasure and fight off treasure hunters – they’re having a leadership dispute of sorts. Qiaofei is also involved with them, leading to all sorts of meaningless drama.

The movie sort of uselessly flits between all of this, with the vast majority of it being nothing more than useless flavouring. If anything, the story of Lan Ting, Qiaofei and the treasure is treated as a secondary concern to some of the side plots, most of which bog the film down. Everything to do with the inner-workings of the Sandstorm Legion could have been dropped completely and the film would have been tighter and more trim and organised. It’s baffling that the central part of the adventure, the hidden desert treasure, is largely ignored while character drama is worked out – there’s no real sense of urgency or momentum for a large chunk of the film. It kills the ‘adventure’ of this adventure movie.

Qiaofei is meant to be the Indiana Jones sort of character, and doesn’t quite work it. He’s confident and capable, but not particularly likeable due to his smugness. He’s played by Jay Chou, an odd actor in that his stone-faced acting either lends itself to really good roles (he’s great in Initial D and The Viral Factor) or really bad ones (he was dull as bricks in the Seth Rogen flick Green Hornet). His ‘relationship’ with Lan Ting never works because the two have no chemistry at all. He never seems interested in her. Speaking of Lan Ting, she’s just awful. The actress playing her is just a bad actress, almost pantomiming actions and coming across as whiny. Everybody else is shrug worthy. Pork Rib is the one-dimensional sleazy greedy guy and the Sandstorm Legion’s top brass are boringly righteous desert protectors. Hua Dingbang is melancholic with his disastrous guilt over his failed expedition, with his personal story further conflicting with the fluctuating tone of the film. At times it seems to want to be a fun romp of a desert adventure, but stuff like the Sandstorm Legion and Hua Dingbang take the light hearted fun out of the story, marooning it in tonally bland territory where half the cast seems lost.

The supernatural is in full force here, but the movie doesn’t really seem to react to it. There’s no surprise, shock or suspense there, it’s just treated as if it’s some sort of mundane occurrence. ‘Oh look, ghosts’, seems to be the muted response most characters have. The sense of mystery and wonder is also pretty much non-existent. Qiaofei acts almost bored and entirely unsurprised when a golem made out of sand possesses a suit of armour and attacks him.

The action scenes themselves are decent for what they are and pretty entertaining, but it feels like something is a little off with some of them, be it some shoddy CGI, some poor editing or limp choreography. Qiaofei uses kung-fu to fight the aforementioned soldier made out of sand, a guy with mummy/bandage-related powers and some evil ghost spirits, along with a few bandits and marauding Sandstorm Legionnaires. The special effects are pretty subpar – mummy guy’s bandages look awful, the ghost spirits look silly and the big scenes, like a motorcycle chase through a sandstorm and the fabled treasure city, are just overly fake or dull.

The film feels like it’s stuck in two separate time periods. Everything in the desert feels like its set in the past, with the costume and set designs feeling like it’s meant to be set in the 1930s (there’s your ‘The Mummy’ influence).  Every scene set outside the desert or in the city though is modern post-2010, with modern cars, clothes, technology and buildings – there are freaking laptops and yachts, which don’t mesh at all with the horse riding, rifle firing desert adventure stuff. Time is also a confusing factor here – Qiaofei’s dealings with the Sandstorm Legion make zero sense considering how old he’s meant to be.

So ‘The Treasure Hunter’ is a wash. It’s a shame too, since I tend to like desert adventures. This adventure, however, deserves to be deserted.