Treasure Hunt (1994)

Literally: American Shaolin

Director: Jeff Lau Chun-Wai

Writer: Edward Tang, Fiba Ma, Lee Wai Yee

Producer: Linda Kuk

Action Director: Philip Kwok Chun-Fung (Kuo Chui)

Cast: Chow Yun-Fat, Wu Chien-Lien (Ng Sin-Lin), Gordon Liu (Lau Ka-Fai), Chin Han, Choi Yu, Philip Kwok Chun-Fung (Kuo Chui), Roy Chiao (Kiu Wang), Michael Wong Man-Tak

Running Time: 104 min

Plot: Chow Yun Fat plays a CIA agent on a secret mission en route to China. He is taken to a remote Shaolin monastery to await further instructions and by accident, falls in love with a beautiful girl with supernatural powers.

Availability: This title is available at HKflix.com

NUMSKULL'S REVIEW: "Lag." Verb. To fall behind; to straggle; to fail to keep pace. In other words, to proceed at an inadequate rate.

Treasure Hunt lags.

Boy, does it EVER lag.

It lags so much, it sets a new standard in lagging.

Lag, lag, lag.

It lags by day, it lags by night. It lags so much, it's out of sight. It lags left and it lags right. It takes lagging to a whole new height.

Yes sir, this movie sure does lag.

So, anyway...

Chow Yun-Fat plays a cop or a secret agent or whatever living in the United States, and he gets sent to China, and he's supposed to find some treasure, and he stays at the Shaolin Temple, and there's a nosy fat kid, and he gives the nosy fat kid his Game Boy, and the Game Boy actually has a cartridge in it unlike the Sega Game Gear in Rumble in the Bronx, and there's a girl with supernatural powers, and she takes Chow Yun-Fat flying through the snow in a scene that lags and lags and lags and lags and lags and lags and lags and lags and lags and lags, and by the time the plot has actually taken a step forward the movie is half over. There's one funny scene where a cab driver thinks Chow wants to fuck a donkey, and there's the obligatory "show the kid's ass" scene, and there's a shootout where Chow pulls a shotgun out of nowhere, and there's some hand to hand fighting, and then there's more shooting, and there's way too much romance. The details aren't worth getting into.

Normally, I have a long attention span, but this friggin' film knew just the right buttons to push to make me want to stop watching it and pretend that I finished it for review purposes. (Despite appearances to the contrary, I DID, in fact, watch the whole thing...except for the last 20 seconds or so, because the DVD began to skip and then totally stopped. Big loss.) A tear-jerker ending is set up reasonably well, and then almost immediately gets knocked down by a lame, commercialized conclusion. In a better movie, this would have annoyed me. In this movie, I was just happy the damn thing was over.

NUMSKULL'S RATING: 4/10

MIGHTY PEKING MAN'S REVIEW: A romantic-comedy-action-adventure-drama rolled into one. Chow Yun-Fat's screen presence is once again the highlight of the film. The beautiful Wu Chien-Lien (Eat Drink Man Woman) also gives a great performance as his love interest. Scenes are well done, the plot is original and interesting with a few twists and turns that will leave the audience glued to the TV. Many hilarious as well as touching moments also add to the film's good points.

TH is a great example of a HK film with odd pacing. The film jumps extremely from bloody shoot-outs, to drama, to comedy, to a bit of martial arts, to family-comedy, to Disney-type-comedy, to more shoot-outs, to romance, a bit of martial arts, to comedy, to more Disney-type-comedy, to drama, then back to comedy. I don't mind a film with versatile moods, but sometimes it's hard to believe that all this stuff took place in one movie. I guess that's HK cinema for ya.

Despite the unbalanced pacing, I still enjoyed this movie as much as other Chow Yun-Fat masterpieces like "The Killer" and "Peace Hotel". It's worth a space in your collection.

MIGHTY PEKING MAN'S RATING: 7/10